"You're welcome."
"I mean it. I needed this."
I lace my fingers through his. Squeeze once.
He drives me home through Naples. The city is alive, burning through the night with the energy of a place that doesn't believe in endings. He parks outside my building. Walks me to the door. Stands too close. His breath on my forehead.
"Buonanotte, Valentina."
"Buonanotte, Niccolo."
He waits until I'm inside. I hear the Alfa Romeo pull away. The engine note fading down the narrow street until it's gone.
I lean against the inside of my door. Close my eyes.
I saved his life tonight. In the time it took him to wash his hands, I identified a threat, neutralized it, disposed of the body, cleaned the scene, returned to the table, and picked up my fork.
He will never know.
The cut on my thigh throbs once. Not the ritual cut. The knife's resting place, the buckle, pressing against the scar tissue. A reminder. A heartbeat from a different organ.
I push off the door, walk to the kitchen and pour a glass of water.
I know this wasn’t an ordered it, but I took a life regardless. It’s better to be safe than sorry.
I wash the glass, set it on the drying rack and prepare for the ritual.
Chapter 14
Domenico Watches
Domenico
She’s late again.
I stand at the window of my office, the small room behind the sacristy where I keep the parish accounts and the files and the photograph of my brother that sits on the corner of the desk in a silver frame. The window overlooks the courtyard. The afternoon light falls on the stone in long rectangles. The fig tree my predecessor planted thirty years ago has outgrown its planter. Its roots crack the terracotta. I should repot it. I have been meaning to repot it for three years.
Valentina was supposed to be here at four. It is 4:40. She has not called. She has not texted.
She is with him.
I don't know this with certainty. I know it the way a priest knows when a parishioner is lying in confession. Not from the words. From the pauses. From the spaces between things said. From the quality of the silence.
Valentina's silences have changed.
She used to arrive early. Ten minutes, sometimes fifteen. She would sit in the pew nearest the sacristy door, reading whatever crime novel she was halfway through, waiting for me with the patience I built into her, the patience that makes her extraordinary at what she does. She would look up when I came out. Smile. The smile of a girl who is glad to see her uncle. Who trusts him the way you trust the floor beneath your feet. Completely. Without inspection.
Now she arrives late. When she arrives at all. Last week she cancelled Tuesday entirely. A text message.Mi dispiace, Father. Domani.(I'm sorry, Uncle. Tomorrow.) Tomorrow came. She showed up with a distraction in her eyes I have never seen before. Present in body. Elsewhere in mind. She trained in the bell tower for an hour, but her movementswere automatic. Muscle memory without focus. Her strikes landed correctly because fourteen years of training don't evaporate. But the intention behind them was diluted.
I asked if she was feeling well. She said yes. She tucked her hair behind her ear, the gesture she makes when she's deciding how much to reveal. She revealed nothing.
She smiled at her phone three times during our conversation.
I know about Don Niccolo Sorrentino.
Naples is a small city disguised as a large one. Information moves through its streets the way water moves through its pipes. Inevitably. The parishioners talk. Signora Calabrese, who cleans the church on Saturdays, told me she saw Valentina getting out of a black car in the Sanità at midnight. A nice car, she said. Too nice for this neighborhood. She didn't see the driver.
I asked other questions. Carefully. The way a concerned uncle asks questions about his niece. Not interrogation. Pastoral inquiry. The gentle pressure of a man who loves a girl and worries about her choices.
