Page 8 of Unrestricted
"Not in the slightest." He smiles amiably. "I suggest you make yourself comfortable. It will be hours before we're home."
I assume he means Rome, though that hasn't been home for me for three years now. I'm not sure what it will be to me when I get back there or if I'm going to survive it.
Nevertheless, as Adriano goes to stow his suitcase somewhere near the back of the cabin, I settle back and try not to think about how three years of running are taking me right back to where this whole mess began.
TWO
Adriano
Eliza Moretti is not what I expected and it's a big fucking problem. I take a seat farther back from her, on the opposite side of the cabin. I need a moment to get my head straight.
In the three years I hunted this woman, I carried a certain image of her, constructed from a few photos and Gabriele's account, delivered when he was lying in a hospital bed, high on painkillers with his face wrapped in bandages.
He'd told me little about the woman who betrayed him but the way his voice broke when he mentioned her name was enough. It led me to believe she was a cold, calculating opportunist. I thought she was the sort of woman who attaches herself to a powerful man and takes him for all she can get.
It angers me that she latched onto my cousin. Gabriele is different to the rest of us. Even before the attack he was more sensitive than most men in our world. Sure, he acted ruthlessly when he had to, but he preferred to exhaust diplomatic channels first.
Our Nonna always said he was a romantic at heart. A woman looking to take advantage of a good man would have found an easy target in him.
When I walked into that café and saw her up close for the first time, I was surprised by how young she is. Twenty-two now, she was only nineteen when she was with Gabriele. He was twenty-seven and far more worldly.
I guess somewhere at the back of my mind I'd known she was barely a woman when she fucked my cousin over but I buried that, not wanting anything to excuse what she did.
I still don't excuse it now but I suddenly find myself more interested in why she set Gabriele up that night. If there are mitigating circumstances I want to know what they are.
The trouble is, when I find out what motivated her that night, I'm not sure what I'll do with the information.
As the plane speeds down the runway, I rest my head back against the soft leather of the seat but I don't take my eyes off my captive. She's shorter than I expected and thin. I suspect that's not by design. She doesn't eat enough.
If she'd caused me problems, I could easily have thrown her over my shoulder and carried her out of the coffee shop. But she came quietly, resigned to her fate.
Perhaps she's relieved she doesn't have to run anymore. I haven't got a read on her yet. But I will.
The plane tilts to the left as we climb and Eliza's body stiffens. She stretches her legs out in front of her and then relaxes. Is she a nervous flyer? I wouldn't have thought so since she's flown all over the world, evading capture.
I'll need to have a conversation with her about how she managed that for three years. She's traveled under several different names. I want to know where she got the passports. If it was someone in Rome, their head will roll for helping her.
Perhaps it was her Hungarian friends though I doubt it. Their way of dealing with people they no longer have a use for appears to be slitting their throats and dumping them by the Tiber. That's what they did to Eliza's brother a week after Gabriele was attacked.
I'll need to ask her about that as well. With any luck, she'll talk as easily as she cooperated at the café. I know several effective methods for extracting information but I'm loath to use them on Eliza. It’s not like me to want to hold back. I guess I'm a sucker for big brown eyes.
When we reach our cruising altitude, I unfasten my seatbelt. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I answer the incoming call from Paolo.
"How did it go?" he asks.
"We're on the plane."
"She cause any problems?"
"Nope."
He murmurs something, no doubt surprised that after three years of running she didn't resist. He thought retrieving her would get messy but I assured him I could handle it.
Roping Gio in to drive was a last minute decision. I wanted my hands free in case Eliza proved difficult. I didn't explain to my American cousin who she was or that she might have been reluctant to come with me.
Gio wouldn't have been pleased if it all went sideways. His days of abducting women ended the day he put a ring on his own captive's finger.
"Do you need me to come back?"
