“Where are you going?” Ines shouted after him. “You can’t go there. Stop!”
Ravenna caught up to him as he opened doors in a back hallway where he found more clutter, and a box of cat litter, brimming with shit.
Three cats came from the bedroom as he switched on the lights.
“What are you doing?” Ravenna protested. “You can’t invade her privacy!”
This room was tidier than the rest of the house, the mess stacked into piles along the walls.
The bed was lavish and oversize—the headboard carved and gilded wood. A fat ginger cat curled atop a baby-blue satin coverlet.
On the dresser sat an open jewelry box—overflowing with gold bangles and necklaces and rings. A dozen framed photographs displayed a well-dressed Ines Mancusi at parties throughout the years—each with a different celebrity. There were also several images with the tanned and smiling Paride Silvestri, his arm draped across her shoulders, looking directly into the camera while Ines laughed.
As Ravenna examined the photos, Valerio moved to the wardrobe. Inside were designer dresses—labels of Prada and Ferragamo and Hermès. Many had clearly never been worn.
He turned his attention next to a mountain of boxes stacked to the ceiling. One box revealed a 950-euro pair of heels, the price tag still visible. The next, a 1,300-euro pair of boots. Another, a Gucci handbag.
“Look at this,” Ravenna said, holding up one of the pictures. It showed Ines and Silvestri with three girls in skimpy dresses and heels,heavy eyeliner and bright lipstick—none of which could camouflage the full cheeks and knobby knees of youth.
“But I don’t understand,” she said. “If what you’re saying is true…she never did anything to me.”
“Didn’t she?” Valerio said, staring at the woman who had spent her childhood so desperate for attention and care that she’d been manipulated into raising another woman’s child without a penny of payment or word of thanks. Meanwhile, Ines Mancusi hoarded blood money and fed her own vanity. That Ravenna had escaped the fate of those other girls was only due to the separate purpose she served the grotesque witch.
Gripping the picture to her chest, Ravenna marched from the room.
She was trembling and pale as she held the photo in front of Ines.
“How old were these girls?” she demanded.
Ines hunched in her chair, waving a hand as if shooing it away. “It isn’t what you think. It isn’t what he said.”
“I heard it for myself,” said Ravenna. “You brought girls to Silvestri…and other men.”
Ines fumbled for her cigarettes and struggled to light one. She took a couple of puffs, her head turned away from Ravenna and the photo.
“What future did they have here?” she said at last. “What future did any of you have here? At least I gave them a chance.”
Ravenna’s lips were rimmed in white, her eyes wide.
“A chance at what?” she demanded. “Exploitation? Rape?”
“Do they look unhappy to you? Look at those faces. They’re smiling. Let me tell you something: They fought for the chance to stay. They wanted it—to meet wealthy men…important people. Those girls may look sweet, but let me tell you: They were hungry, self-serving…little rats.”
“How old were they?” Ravenna demanded.
Ines shrugged. “Don’t judge me. Men want what they want. It’s the way the world is.”
“What was the arrangement?” Valerio said. “Tell me how it worked.”
She glared back. “Why should I tell you anything? You killed my son.”
Ravenna’s usually soft voice was icy: “He didn’t kill Gaetano. Errichiello killed him.”
“Lies!” Ines hissed. “Luca would never hurt Gaetano—”
“Errichiello called me himself,” interrupted Valerio. “He wanted me to watch as his men gunned down an eighteen-year-old boy. Wanted me to appreciate what he could do.”
Ines’s face writhed—self-pity shifting into confusion. “But why would he do that? Why?”
