Page 123 of Valentino

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Amanda

The first thing I register is how dry my mouth is.

The second is rope.

My arms are behind me, tied to the chair hard enough that my shoulders ache before I even try to move. I pull anyway. The rope bites into my wrists and takes skin with it.

My head feels too heavy for my neck. It takes me three tries to lift it, and the room comes together slowly. Stone walls. Concrete floor. One hanging bulb. No windows.

Then him.

An old man sits across from me, maybe ten feet away, his hands folded in his lap. Silver hair, neatly combed. Deep lines around his mouth and eyes. He looks calm. Not pleased. Not angry. Calm.

His eyes look kind.

For a second, that throws me. Nothing about this should look kind. I am tied to a chair in a locked room, and the man watching me can only be Enzo Basile.

Don Enzo Basile.

Aldo Basile's father.

Every instinct tells me to panic. The crash keeps coming back in pieces. Luca warning me away from the seatbelt. Twisted metal. A hand in my hair, dragging me out of the wreck.

There are other men in the room. Two by the door. One at Enzo's right shoulder, younger and lean, hands folded in front of him like he has spent years practicing harmless.

Luca.

He told me to brace. I screamed for him when they pulled me out, and nobody answered.

I don't know if he is alive.

The old man shifts in his chair.

"Buonasera, signorina," he says.

His voice is low. Dry. He keeps speaking in Italian, slow enough to make the meaning feel close and fast enough to keep it out of reach. I catch a few words. One of them is Aldo.

My stomach turns at the name.

I don't let my expression change.

When he finishes, he waits.

"I don't speak Italian," I say.

My voice sounds scraped raw. I hate that he gets to hear me like that. I swallow and try again.

"Fourteen trips to this country, and I never learned."

Nothing.

Not a blink. Either he does not understand English, or he does and wants me to know it does not matter.

The man at his shoulder steps forward. Up close, there is nothing remarkable about him. The kind of face your eyes slide past and forget a minute later.

"Don Basile wishes to speak with you," he says. His English is crisp. "I will translate everything he says and everything you say. Exactly. Choose your words carefully, signorina. He hears all of it."