Maybe that’s the reason I’m following her now? I’m seeking the elusive answer. A reason for why Little Iris is still breathing. An explanation for her effect on me.
“She’ll get off at the next stop.” Brahms’s gaze connects with mine over his shoulder. “How do you want to proceed?”
I should tell him to keep driving and send someone to take care of this loose end. I should forget she exists.
“Pull over,” I say instead. “Leave enough distance to make sure she doesn’t notice us.”
A minute later, Iris exits the bus and rushes to the corner flower shop. With its old window frames covered in peeling paint and the scuffed-up door, the place is the slightest step above a dump. The moment she’s out of view, the pain that’s been throbbing behind my right eye explodes across my skull and burrows into my temple. I grit my teeth, waiting for the piercing twinge to pass. On a scale from one to fucking-shoot-me-right-now, it’s a solid seven. It typically takes a few minutes for the intensity to settle at a steady three. That’s when I consider myself “migraine-free.” Otherwise, the pain never leaves me. It never stops. The pressure at my temple never fully subsides.
“Mr. Ruffo?”
I slip my glasses off and pinch the bridge of my nose. “What is it, Brahms?”
“Ms. Fabbri went inside. You mentioned that you have a video call with the San Francisco bureau in less than an hour, so should we head to the office or…?”
“Headquarters, Brahms.”
“Understood. Once we drop you off, I’ll—”
“You’re staying here.”
He stares at me, a million questions in his shrewd eyes. “Alright. What do you need me to do?”
“Wait until the girl’s shift ends.”
“Sure. And when it does?”
In my pocket, my hand tightens around the small cellophane-wrapped treat. For God knows what reason, I’ve been carrying that stupid cookie with me for the past two weeks. “Then follow her home, discreetly, to make sure she gets there safely.”
Chapter 4
“Such tragedy.” Capo Tiziano’s wife sighs between sips of her sangria. “I mean, we’d never been friendly… I just always found Filippa Ruffo a little too… Well, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead. But, to die in such a horrific way… I simply can’t imagine.”
“Of course,” Ms. Zara responds as I set a tray of finger sandwiches on the table.
“And to think, the police still don’t know who broke into their home,” Capo Donato’s wife says while lifting her wineglass, signaling for me to refill it. “Do you think they’ll catch whoever did it?”
“I doubt it,” Ms. Zara responds, looking solemn. By all appearances, she’s being the perfect hostess, but I know she’d rather be in her sewing room than entertaining capos’ wives and listening to them gossip while their husbands meet with Don Spada.
“Adriano”—the carafe of sangria nearly slips out of my grasp when I hearhisname—“must have been devastated when he learned what happened,” Capo Donato’s wife continues. “His home was invaded by filthy thugs, and his wife was murdered. Dreadful, dreadful circumstances.”
The story of Filippa Ruffo’s tragic death has been in the media for over a month. It’s not so unexpected when a prominent billionaire’s spouse gets murdered.A victim of aburglary gone wrong,the headlines read.It seems it was only luck that kept her husband from suffering the same fate.
According to the reports, several witnessessawFilippa Ruffo depart Brio Saccone’s celebration early after she complained of not feeling well. Mr. Ruffo, however, was held up at the party. At least twenty people confirmed that he was engaged by the host in a lengthy discussion about market volatility when the home invasion occurred and Mr. Ruffo’s wife was brutally gunned down.
I busy myself with refilling the ladies’ drinks, but that doesn’t stop the image of a blonde woman with a gunshot wound in her forehead from flashing before my eyes. Goose bumps break out all over my body.
In the weeks following what I consider my “escape” from Capo Brio’s library, that scene has been on my mind day and night. I’ve contemplated a million scenarios that could have led to Filippa Ruffo’s death. I’ve also thought of a million and one ways in which I might die. Will Mr. Ruffo’s men simply snatch me off the street and drag me into a shadowed corner somewhere? Will they put a bullet in me, or will they slit my throat? Or, maybe, I’ll be a victim of a hit-and-run, mowed down by a nondescript vehicle while crossing an intersection? Perhaps they’ll go old-school, planting a bomb on a bus I take? Would they really care about collateral damage? Or maybe, just maybe, Mr. Ruffo will choose to kill me himself? I pictured him sneaking into my room at night through an open window. I imagined his hands on me as he…choked me to death. The small matter of a fourth-floor apartment wouldn’t stop a man like him. Not the man he’s been hiding. Not the man no one else knows exists.
I doubt there’s a person on this planet, aside from Mr. Ruffo’s men, who knows the truth of what he’s done. Only me. I’m the lone witness. And no one in the Mafia world wouldwillingly leave a witness alive. For weeks, I’ve been waiting for fate to catch up to me.
But those weeks passed, and nothing happened. I haven’t seenhim, nor have I spotted his men. Not the two who came in and, I assume, later disposed of his wife’s body. And no other suspicious-looking dudes have been lurking nearby. Now the fixation on how I might die has morphed into bewilderment over why Mr. Ruffo isn’t pursuing my immediate demise.
Why did he let me go? Why did he do it without even threatening me to keep my mouth shut? How come he didn’t bother implying what agonizing things would befall me if I even thought about going to the cops? Nothing. He did nothing.Go now, Little Iris, that’s all he said.
The unknown rationale behind Mr. Ruffo’s decision is driving me insane. I think his motivation worries me more than the possibility of my death. It also solidified Mr. Ruffo as an utter enigma in my mind. I thought I was fascinated with him before? Now I am irrevocably obsessed. I’ve been thinking about him so much that I’ve actually beenhopingto see him.
“Oh, shoot,” Ms. Zara says. “I completely forgot I promised Massimo refreshments during the meeting. Iris, would you please deliver the tray to the old dining room? I know if he’s in his ‘element,’ no one else on staff would dare disturb him.”
