My goal is simple: first, clean up the city. Then start planting trees, reclaiming the land with greenery—turn gray into green. Once it’s even remotely habitable, I’ll go there myself and find the families who survived. I’ll offer whatever compensation might help. I know nothing can undo their loss, but maybe it’ll bring them some comfort.
And maybe, just maybe, it’ll ease my guilt too.
I take a deep breath.God, I hope I see him tomorrow. I need to ask him why he did it.
I slide the journal into the drawer and open my laptop. I steel myself. There are videos in my private tab, untouched for three months. I’ve never been strong enough to watch them.
I start the first video. It’s an interview with an elderly woman, recorded a year ago. The interviewer and the womanspeak in Italian, with English subtitles running along the bottom.
“Where were you during the fire?”
“I went to visit my sister in Perugia. She was in the hospital. I saw the news about the fire.” Her aged eyes well up. “Everyone died.”
She dabs the corners of her eyes with a small handkerchief, her trembling hands struggling to hold it steady.
“My daughter. My grandson. I had just spoken to him minutes before. He was eating gelato. My daughter was scolding him, and he was laughing. He said, ‘Come back, Nonna. Mom is bullying me without you.’”
The woman breaks into tears. And so do I.
“The fire ate everything. The Butcher killed my children.” She looks up, wiping at her tears. “Why does God show us such wrath? We are His children. What wrong did we do?”
I press my forehead to the desk, sobbing silently. The woman keeps speaking in Italian, her words swallowed by sobs.
If this had been any other man, I would hate him to death. But I can’t do that with Salvario. I cannot hate him. He isn’t only the monster who killed innocents, he’s also a man tortured by the demons that won’t let him go. Without them, he would have been different. At the very least, not a killer.
I stop the video. Close the window.There are thousands more just like this. I wasn’t strong enough to watch even one. How could I possibly watch the rest?
I push back from the desk and lie down on the bed. I command the room assistant to turn off the lights.
No one else can believe he’s capable of love. They don’t know the shattered man, they only know Il Macellaio di Napoli.
After staring blankly into the darkness for what feels like hours, sleep finally takes me.
???
“I’m not in the mood to kill anyone. Just hope your Stockholm lover doesn’t show up.” Leo mutters, standing beside me backstage.
“No one’s asking you to kill him.” I say flatly. “Anyway, he probably won’t come. I think he’s lost interest in me.”
He hums. “Nice try. I might have believed you if you’d said it with tears running down your face.”
I press my lips together. “I’m over him. It’d be best if you never mention him again.”
He falls silent, offering no argument. I glance at him. The film of sadness hasn’t lifted from his face since he let Lyn go. I’m starting to get worried. He isn’t taking care of himself. This is the first time I’ve ever seen mybrother so lost.
Ida comes backstage. She was doing a final check of the stage.
The announcement of my arrival echoes from the stage.
Eda squeezes my hand. “Good luck!” She grins. “Don’t be shy about playing a last-minute masterpiece lament.”
I chuckle. “Let’s stick to the setlist tonight.”
The sound of applause from behind the curtain is my cue. Eda releases my hand with an encouraging nod.
I walk onstage and wave to the crowd. My eyes scan the faces in the front row. In that DC concert footage, when he was there, he sat in the front row with five empty seats around him. Today, there’s nothing like that.
He isn’t here.
