Page 63 of Unrestricted
"Tell me," he says.
So I do.
I tell him everything I know about Vida's men, the threats, what they told her they'd do to Eliza and her brother if she refused to help. I tell him she was nineteen years old and alone and terrified and that she thought it would be a warning. I tell him she was wrong about that and how sorry she is.
Then I tell him about the alleyway, how she went to find him. The line around Gabriele's eyes tightens almost imperceptibly. Most people would miss it but I've known him our entire lives and can read him better than most.
I tell him how she called the ambulance and waited in the shadows until she heard the sirens. Then she ran because she was frightened and had no idea what came next.
When I finish the room is silent.
Gabriele hasn't moved. His hands are flat on the desk. He looks down at them, then back at me. "She was in the alley?"
"Yes."
Another silence falls. I hear a bird somewhere in the garden and the distant sound of traffic beyond the walls. I glance over at Lukas who's standing by the door and then at Gabriele. He taps his finger on the desk the way he does when working through something difficult. I know better than to try to rush him.
"Why didn't she come to me?" he asks quietly.
"Because she didn't understand who you were," I say. "She thought they'd frighten you and let you go. She thought the debt would disappear and she could go back to her life. She didn't understand the kind of men she was dealing with."
He looks away toward the garden. "She should have come to me."
"She realises that now."
"I could have fixed it."
Maybe. Maybe not. There's no point in discussing what might have been.
For a while neither of us speaks. Then I bite the bullet.
"There's something else."
His eyes return to mine.
"I'm keeping her."
For a long moment Gabriele doesn't react at all. Then he leans back in his chair.
"She helped them attack me." His voice is surprisingly level.
"She was nineteen and alone and they threatened to kill her brother and put her in a brothel and she thought it would be a warning." I hold his gaze. "That's not nothing, Gabriele."
"No." He looks at the desk. "It's not nothing. It's also not nothing that I spent three years…" He stops to consider what to say. "Three years putting myself back together."
"I know."
"And you want to keep her?"
"Yes."
The silence stretches long enough that I hear the bird again in the garden.
"I think you're making a mistake," he says eventually.
"That's your right."
"Adriano…"
