I counted off the minutes until I could close shop for the day.
At exactly 8 PM, just as I was locking up, the black Mercedes glided up in front of Bianca’s dress shop, and Giorgio hopped out.
“How’s my favorite barista?” he asked.
“Good, now that you’re here,” I beamed.
It was dark as we walked down the street in the lamplight. We joked around and chatted, trading stories about what we’d done that day –
When suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and a cold shiver went down my spine.
My entire life, I’d had some sort of sixth sense about danger.
There was the time I’d been six years old, and I’d been creeped out by a friend of the family. I absolutely refused to bealone with him. If my parents walked out of the room and he was there, I ran after them.
It came out years later that he was a child molester. A girl told her parents about what he’d done; her father went over to his house and nearly killed the asshole before the police dragged the father off and arrested the pervert.
No one had ever suspected it… but somehow I’d known.
I figured it was like a deer catching the slightest hint of a predator. A scent on the wind, or maybe just a vibration of energy.
The feeling of eyes upon them.
Whatever it was, I felt it now.
I froze in my tracks.
Giorgio stopped, and his smile immediately faded.
“Did you see him?” he asked.
“No, but… is there someone behind us?” I whispered.
Giorgio glanced over my head, and his expression darkened. “Shorter than me, black hair, slightly pudgy?”
My stomach twisted.
I’d never described Maurizio to him before.
“That’s him,” I whispered.
Giorgio took my arm in his and gently forced me onwards.
“Walk with me,” he said firmly.
“What are we going to do?” I asked in a panic.
“You’renot going to do anything.I’mgoing to have a talk with him.”
“But – ”
“Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine.”
Giorgio stopped outside a crowded restaurant.
He took a 50-euro bill out of his pocket and folded it into my hand. “Go inside and have a drink – wine, brandy, anything to calm your nerves. When I get back, this will all be over.”
“Giorgio – ”
