“He didn’t touch me,” Maria continued. “Just looked. Then he gave me two fifty-euro bills and said I was hired.”
“How old were you?”
Her fingers gripped the scarf.
“Eleven. Almost twelve.”
Valerio’s chest was tight with anxiety. With fury. He tried to inhale, but the air didn’t seem able to come in.
“It was the most money I’d ever had,” she said. “It was like that. As long as we did what they wanted, they were nice. They gave us money, food. Sometimes drugs. They told us how lucky we were to be able to meet important people. We needed to do what the clients expected, and be cheerful about it. If we brought another girl in, we got a bonus. If you refused a client, the agency dropped you. We were all worried about losing our place—about being one of those girls.”
Until now, her voice had been steady. She recounted these details factually, almost without affect. Now, her voice began to shake. Valerio felt an impulse to reach out and comfort her, but didn’t want to stop her confession.
She continued: “I met Alfeo at a party. He wanted me exclusively. He made an arrangement. Then he paid for a place for me, and gave me spending money. At the parties, everyone knew I was his—so they left me alone.”
When he was sure she’d finished, Valerio said slowly, “You were too young to make those decisions. You understand that, don’t you? You should have been protected.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, a grimace of agony painted her expression.
“I brought other girls to them,” she said in a whisper, face turned away. “I was getting too old. They wanted younger girls. I knew what would happen to them, but I did it anyway.”
Valerio fought back a crashing wave of nausea. He clenched his teeth and breathed through it.
“It’s very brave of you to tell me this,” he said.
She didn’t speak for a long moment. She stared at the lights of a nearby restaurant.
At last, with a shuddering breath, she looked at him, fresh anger in her face. “What will you do?”
“I’m going to find the people who did this to you,” he said. “I’m going to stop them. But I need you to tell me every name you know.”
She nodded.
“Can you tell me the name of the man who made you undress that first time?” he asked.
She glanced to the end of the street. “That was Paride Silvestri. You can look him up. He’s very rich. Very powerful.”
Valerio kept his face blank, but the confirmation of the man’s name dropped into place like a stone in his mind.
“And the woman who was helping him. What was her name?”
“I only know her first name: Ines.”
Nineteen
Nikki’s phone was ringing. She hunted for it in the dark and checked the time: 06:30.
Consciousness brought pain.
Touching her bruised windpipe, she rasped out a difficult “Hello.”
Her father’s voice boomed: “Ciao, bella!”
It was like her childhood when he would bound, singing, into her bedroom in the predawn hours, flipping on the lights.
Nikki groaned.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
