Page 294 of Marcello

“How?”

“By asking my wife.”

…oh.

Oh shit.

I knew what I’d done – I knew I’d saved her life –

But I was still afraid how she might remember it.

I listened in silence as a woman answered the phone. Her voice was lower than I remembered, and she sounded brusque – almost military. She also had a British accent.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” Dario said. His eyes stayed focused on mine the entire time. “Please put Alessandra on the phone.”

So it wasn’t his wife.

The woman sounded concerned. “She’s sleeping.”

“I wouldn’t be calling if it weren’t of the utmost importance.”

“Alright… hold on.”

There was more silence…

Then another woman spoke sleepily. Her voice was higher pitched and more familiar.

“…Dario…?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, amore mio, but I need to know something.”

“…what…?”

“I hate to ask you this, but when Cesare Caproni was… hurting you…” Dario’s eyes flared with rage as he said it. “…did someone stop him?”

“…yes,” the woman murmured. “Yes, one of his men told him to stop.”

Niccolo and the Swede exchanged a look.

“And what happened?”

The woman’s voice trembled. “He… Cesare, I mean… pointed his gun at the man.”

“And then?”

“The man said they should leave before you got there.”

“Anything else?”

“…yes… he was going to shoot me – ”

“Cesare or the man?”

“Cesare. The man stopped him again. He said you’d never know who hurt me if Cesare killed me.”

Relief swept through me, and I looked at Dario like See?