I outside doesn’t react. But my inner world does. My heart races momentarily and beats up into my throat.
I recognise the voice.
Images come back.
Steps that come closer.
Heavy steps.
Steps of a man.
He sits down next to me, a wave of an oaky perfume and cigar smoke rolls over me.
He is an older, probably in his late sixties, with grey hair brushed back with gel. He wears a black polo shirt that’s tight around his belly, white trousers, and a leather belt.
He overall looks like a fat spider that knows it is about to land its biggest catch. He aged badly compared to the picture in my mind that came back. Or maybe I don’t remember it well because it was so long ago.
He also looks quite pale in the face, with hollow eyes. But that’s what a man with a life like his looks like, is it not?
“You remember me,” he says without looking at me. I say nothing. “What happened to you?” he asks and points at my wrists, still without looking into my eyes.
“Rosalia Vittare,” I say. “She abducted me in Rome.”
“Rosalia Vittare,” he repeats slowly. “How did you escape?”
“With the help of a golden pole from an art piece in her house, a letter opener and this gun I took from her,” I say and pull the gun from the inside pocket of the jacket I stole from her.
“Your father was a great man,” he says with his raspy voice that sounds like he has smoked too many cigarettes in his life. “Saved my life.”
“Rosalia wanted to kill me because of him,” I say.
“Of course she does,” he says and laughs, a cough mixing into it. He has hanging eye bags, puffy skin and a double chin. The face of a man who lived rough and hard.
If I ever pictured a mafia boss, this would’ve been it.
“Why is that?” I ask.
“Rosalia is a myth, someone no one really knows. She is the daughter of one of the greatest men of all time, coming from one of the oldest families. One day, she started killing them. One after another. She is taking over all the businesses. In secret, through middlemen.”
“Except you.”
“Except me.” His mouth tugs into a gleeful smirk.
“And what had my father to do with it?”
“I will be in your father’s debt forever,” he says cryptically.
“Because he saved your life?” I ask.
“Amongst,” he says, and gets up. “Let us go. It is unwise to linger too long in open places.”
“How did you find me?” I ask, not getting up.
“You did not need finding,” he says. “I promised your father to watch over you.”
I am utterly taken aback.
“So you knew where I was? That she took me?”
