Chapter 7 - The Kiss That Wasn't in the Contract|
Tomasso did not speak during the drive home.
He sat with the notebook open on his knees, studying the handwriting while the city passed beyond the tinted windows. Caterina sat across from him, wrapped in Marco's spare coat. Smoke had darkened the edge of her sleeve.
The notebook contained twenty-seven entries, each marked with a date and a set of initials. Some corresponded to shipments that had vanished during the first year of the Barbieri-Moretti war. Others referred to payments made to judges, detectives, and port inspectors.
One entry was dated three days before Vittorio Barbieri died.
Beside it were three letters.
E.B.
"Could be anyone," Tomasso said.
Caterina watched him.
"How many Enzo Barbieris were close enough to your father to know his private accounts?"
He closed the notebook.
"Enzo raised me."
"That doesn't answer the question."
"He kept my family alive after my father died."
"Did he tell you where your father was going that night?"
Tomasso looked away.
"He said Vittorio was meeting a Moretti courier."
"And did you ever see proof?"
"No."
"Did you ever ask why the warehouse security cameras were missing?"
His expression changed.
Caterina leaned forward.
"Tomasso, I am not asking you to condemn the man who raised you. I'm asking you to investigate him."
He looked at her with an anger that seemed to have nowhere to go.
"You think this is easy for me?"
"No. I think it's worse than easy. I think it's the first honest thing you've been asked to do in years."
The limousine stopped at the mansion gates.
Tomasso stepped out without replying.
Inside, he ordered Marco to double the guards and have the notebook photographed. Then he went to his study and shut the door.
Caterina remained in the hallway.
For the first time since the wedding, she wondered whether she had chosen the wrong ally.
At midnight, she found Tomasso standing on the balcony outside his study. The lake was black beneath the clouds, and the wind carried the sharp scent of rain.
He held two glasses of untouched whiskey.
"One for me," he said, offering her the second. "One for the woman who has managed to make me question every lesson I ever learned."
Caterina accepted the glass.
"Questioning is not the same as believing."
"No. But it is a beginning."
They stood quietly.
After a moment, Tomasso spoke.
"When my father died, I was twenty-five. Enzo told me the Morettis had arranged the fire. He showed me a report signed by a detective who disappeared six months later. I spent eleven years trying to make the Morettis pay."
"And now?"
"Now I don't know who I was punishing."
Caterina looked down at her drink.
"My mother used to tell me that revenge was a room without doors. You enter because you believe it will protect you. Then you discover you've locked yourself inside."
"Wise woman."
"She was. It didn't save her."
He turned toward her.
"What happened to her the night she died?"
Caterina hesitated.
"I heard an argument. A man's voice. My mother told someone to leave. Then there was a crash. When I reached the hallway, Lorenzo was standing outside her room. He said she had collapsed."
"Did you see anyone else?"
"No. But I remember a smell."
"What smell?"
"Leather and tobacco. The same scent Enzo wore whenever he visited our house."
Tomasso closed his eyes briefly.
The truth was becoming a shape he could almost recognize.
Caterina set her glass aside.
"I need you to understand something. I will work with you. I will share what I know. But I won't become a prisoner in your house because you're afraid of losing me."
"I'm not afraid of losing you."
"Then why are you standing so close?"
He looked at the distance between them.
It was less than a foot.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then Tomasso stepped back.
"Because I wanted to kiss you."
Her expression softened, but only slightly.
"And what stopped you?"
"You haven't asked me to."
Caterina studied him as though he had spoken a language she had never heard from a man of his world.
"Good answer, husband."
She turned to leave.
At the doorway, she paused.
"When this is over, Tomasso, I may still hate you."
"I'll take that risk."
"And if I decide I want to kiss you?"
His voice lowered.
"Then I'll make sure the entire world understands that it was your decision."
She left him on the balcony.
May you like
Tomasso watched her disappear into the corridor, knowing the most dangerous thing about his new wife was not the secrets she possessed.
It was the fact that he had begun to care whether she trusted him.
