My heart rate remains a steady, languid drumbeat. This is the play. This is the performance.
Giulio bursts in, a whirlwind of rumpled linen and panic. His face is flushed, beaded with sweat. He smells of espresso and fear.
“Antonio.Dio mio, Antonio, I am so sorry.” he blurts out, his eyes wide, darting from me to his desk and back again, as if checking to see if I’ve uncovered his sins. Perhaps he senses it. “I only meant to be out a moment. The traffic from Trastevere was a nightmare, a completedisastro, l…”
His voice is a reedy, grating thing. I let him talk, let him weave his tapestry of pathetic excuses. I watch his hands flutter like wounded birds, a performance of anxiety so theatrical it would be amusing if it weren’t so tiresome. This is the man entrusted with Brethren secrets he cannot keep.
I slowly, deliberately roll my eyes. It’s a small gesture, but it sucks the air from his excuses. He stammers to a halt, his mouth opening and closing like a fish stranded on the riverbank.
“Sit down, Giulio,” I say. My voice is quiet, like a calm sea hiding a lethal undertow.
He hesitates for a second, then obeys, scurrying behind the fortress of his desk and sinking into the large chair. It seems to swallow him whole. He leans forward, elbows on the blotter, ready to launch into another volley of self-justification.
“You have to understand, none of this is my fault,” he begins, his voice gaining a desperate, whining momentum. “None of this is my fault. She was hot, unbelievably sexy... any full-blooded male would have fucked her without a second thought. How can I be responsible for who she works for? Am I expected to vet every woman who wants to suck my cock? If you were me, you would have done the same, I promise you that…”
I don’t listen to the words, I listen to the tone, the pitch of a man who has already accepted his own victimhood. I move around the desk, coming to a stop behind him. He can’t see me now, he can only feel my presence at his back, a shadow falling over him. He tenses but doesn’t stop talking. The words are a shield he hopes will protect him.
“It will blow over. All of this will…”
I place my hands on his shoulders.
He freezes. The stream of excuses cuts off with a choked gasp. My grip is firm, not hostile. Reassuring. The hands of a friend, a confidant, a superior offering comfort for a battle hard-fought. I can feel the knotted tension in his muscles through the fine cotton of his shirt, I can feel the frantic thrum of his pulse beneath my fingertips.
“Shhh, Giulio,” I murmur, my voice low and soothing, a parent calming a frightened child. “It’s alright. I understand. Everything is okay.”
I feel a fraction of the tension leave his shoulders. He lets out a shaky breath, a shudder of relief. Stupid fool, he thinks he is being absolved. He thinks his performance has worked. This is the most tragic part of it all: his staggering, infinite naivety. He believes in the fantasy of his own excuses so completely, he thinks others must, too.
“Grazie, Antonio,” he whispers, his voice thick with emotion. “I knew you would see reason. I will make it right, I promise you, I will…”
The sound is not loud. In this well-insulated room, it is a percussive thump, like a heavy book falling on the carpet. A hard, final punctuation mark.
His body jolts violently under my hands. Then, all the strength goes out of him. His head slumps forward, a dark pool of blood spreading across the pristine white parchment of the papers laid out before him.
I hold him for a second longer, ensuring he doesn’t slide from the chair. Then, with the same methodical care I used to open the drawers, I guide his right hand, pressing the sleek, compact pistol into his palm, folding his limp fingers around the grip. His index finger I curl through the trigger guard.
The weapon, untraceable and sterile, looks both alien and inevitable in his soft, pudgy, manicured hand.
I step back. The scene is set, but it requires one final prop. From an inner pocket of my jacket, I retrieve a single sheet of paper. I composed it myself having studied samples of his handwriting, mimicking the flamboyant loops of his ‘g’s, and the impatient slash of his ‘t’s perfectly.
I lay it squarely on the desk beside his head, weighting one corner with his favourite fountain pen. It’s perfect. It reads exactly like the melodramatic exit of a weak man who could never face the consequences of his actions now that they’ve been revealed to the world.
As I take one last look around, a silent thought echoes in the pristine quiet of my mind, cold and clear as ice;If you want a job done properly, you have to do it yourself.
The villa’s sprawling terrace is a kaleidoscope of light and sound, of tinkling crystal and the low, confident hum of power. Men in impeccably tailored suits and women in fabrics that whisper against their skin move with a languid grace I can only dream of mimicking. I am an imposter here, a tiny sparrow trapped in an aviary of peacocks and hawks.
All day, I’ve been living in a dream. I woke up in a sun-drenched room before being provided with the most delicious breakfast, and then I was whisked off to see the city.
And I saw it. Not from behind a locked car door, but from the sun-warmed steps of the Piazza di Spagna, the cool, echoing vastness of the Pantheon where a single shaft of light pierced the dome like a divine spear. I ran my fingers over ancient, pockmarked stone at the Colosseum, and for a breathtaking moment, I wasn’t Grace, I wasn’t a prisoner or sex slave or whatever the fuck I am. I was just a woman, dwarfed by history, feeling a flicker of awe so pure it hurt.
Of course, Antonio had me guarded the entire time. Antonio’s men were a constant reminder of my reality, but the beauty was a potent drug. I let myself be seduced by it. I drank it in, storing the images like a squirrel storing nuts for a long winter, a cache of light against the coming dark.
Now, standing at this party the dread returns, cold and slick in my veins.
This, I realize with a sickening jolt, was the point.
The beauty was the bait. Antonio showed me the splendour of Rome by day to make me pliable, to lull me into a false sense of security so that by night, in this den of wolves, I would be too disoriented to fight.
He’s been working all day, and my mind conjures images of what his ‘work’ entails. Deals struck in back rooms. The acquisition of new assets for the Brethren. Perhaps even the Esau are here, lurking in the shadows… the thought makes me shudder. I don’t know much about them despite the fact my parents were high in their ranks, but what I know scares the shit out of me.
