“Please call me Vincente.”
“Vincente—I can’t look out for Enzo anymore. We’re finished.”
“Oh, I know!” he agreed. “But I’m sure you can understand why I need to look out for him, now.”
“Of course.” She shifted, ready to leave.
“I worry sometimes,” he continued. “Maybe someday Enzo will have an important business…or career in politics. I don’t want the difficult moments of his past to haunt him. I’m sure you can see that—as his father, I must protect him. And I’m sure you don’t want to harm Enzo. He is what he is, but you loved him once.”
Nikki tensed.
“What is it you want from me?” she asked.
They’d arrived at her bike.
Vincente said, “It’s typical in business to have something called a nondisclosure agreement. Just to close the door on this bad situation—make sure inconvenient details don’t resurface and hurt Enzo’s future.”
Anger descended, locking up Nikki’s chest, putting heat into her face and neck.
“It was inconvenient that Enzo cheated on me.” She spoke in a low voice, heart thudding, fists and feet suddenly numb. “It was inconvenient that he stranded me on Capri. But then he sent a thug to break into my home and attack me. Would you call that inconvenient? Because that doesn’t feel inconvenient to me. There’s a different word I’m looking for…oh yes. Criminal. What he did was fucking criminal. And you want me to sign an NDA?”
Vincente lifted his hands in surrender.
“I can see you’re upset.” His tone was conciliatory, as if calming a skittish horse. “I’m just trying to come to a good resolution for everyone. In exchange, I would, of course, offer appropriate compensation.”
She was trembling with fury as she strapped on her helmet and mounted the Hornet.
“Just think about it,” he shouted as she started the engine. “Think about an amount that would make you comfortable. I’m a reasonable man. Just promise me you’ll think about it.”
Eleven
Via Toledo was thick with holiday shoppers as Valerio made his way home from work. The day had been clear and almost warm in the sunlight. But now the shadows stretched and the clouds moved in, and the air chilled, biting through his jacket.
Women in knee-high boots and belted coats, their faces framed in furs, bustled together in chattering groups. A month until Christmas, and the clean storefront displays teemed with sparkling lights, artificial snow, and holiday sales. Christmas music jangled discordantly from store doors as they opened to envelop every new batch of customers, mixing with the street sounds: a roar of voices and laughter, the shuffle and clomp of shoes on paving stones, the growl and hum of engines.
The glamorous commercial atmosphere of this street was only skin deep, Valerio knew. Like an old woman with her plastic surgeries and creams and thick makeup. Peel it back a centimeter and you saw the jagged bones and rough sinew of the city, the buzzing arteries of legal and illegal commerce mixing together until you couldn’t distinguish blood from poison. The old heart still beat out its melody, but Valerio felt the weariness of that rhythm, the toll of sickness. Of course, the only way to diagnose the true health of the body was to look at its diseased waste—to look at the Poggioreale jail.
Maurizio had insisted on coming with Valerio to visit Gaetano in Poggioreale today and Valerio was glad for his company. This business with Luca had injected some venom in his blood. His native immunity to the city’s infection was insufficient to preserve him, and he felt the fever of it. Maurizio was there to jab him with an antidote, to shock his heart and slap his face in the way only a partner could.
“You’re lying,” Maurizio said as they drove to the jail. “I thought itwas that murder—and your mother finding the body—that this was the thing bugging you. But this business—this favor—trying to help this kid. Something stinks about it. Will you agree?”
“Yes,” Valerio conceded.
“Will you tell me what it is?”
“I’m not sure I should.”
He trusted Maurizio. Under other circumstances, he might have confided in him, but Valerio was compromised enough on his own. He wasn’t going to drag his partner into this, too. Seeming to understand, Maurizio stopped talking for a few minutes, and chewed on his lip.
“You’re a good guy,” Maurizio said at last. “If you were corrupt, really corrupt—whatever this was…it wouldn’t bother you. Just promise me something.”
“Sure.”
“Promise me you’ll let me know if this will put any of us in danger. Me—or the rest of the team.”
“I won’t put you in danger,” Valerio promised. “This is just something stupid…something I’ve gotten myself into. I just need to do this—help this kid—and then I can get out.”
—
