Page 42 of The Mad Don
“Get me into any art show this season.”
“There is one in two months down here. The Biennale catalog is already finalized, but I can have us added.”
“Add us, whatever it costs.”
“Yes, Don.”
“And Fabiano.”
“Yes.”
“I attend as Giorgio Ferrante.”
“Understood.”
I light the cigarette.
He leaves, and the door closes. The room is quiet.
I sit at the desk and light my cigarette. She comes into my head again.
The image of her in the study three days ago, her back against the wall, and my gun under her jaw. Her hand wraps around the barrel of my gun, and she doesn’t pull it away, just holding it where it was. Her eyes on mine.
Then comes the image of her in the bed that night. Her mouth is swollen from mine. Her body is letting me in the way the rest of her would not.
“Perché mi sei nella testa, lupa russa?”
Why are you in my head, Russian wolf?
I exhale.
I have not been irrational about a woman since I was twenty-one. She was a waitress in Catania, and I was, briefly, an idiot. I taught myself out of it. I have not been irrational since. The capacity for it has been carefully closed off. But something has come open. I do not know how it opened, and most unnervingly, I do know that it is going to close.
She has loyalty. She has chosen Kirill in every decision she has made since walking into this house. She tried to negotiate forhim while standing under my gun. She would have died for him in that study if I had been one degree less interested in her alive.
She is not mine.
She is on loan. I know what should happen. I know it well. There are two doors.
Door one: I return her to Kirill the moment the deal closes. I cut her loose. She goes back to her Pakhan. I will not see her again. I lose nothing. Lucia is treated. I step away from being Don, and life continues.
Door two: I get rid of her. After the deal is signed, Kirill has nothing to take back. A clean removal, no body found, no story left behind. She does not officially exist anywhere, so that I can feign confusion. My story would be that I let her out, and heaven knows what danger befell her. Kirill would know and would rage. But he would not be able to prove a thing. He would not start a war over a bodyguard, even his bodyguard, even his most dangerous one. He has a wife. He has a son. He has too many alliances to spend on her ghost.
I haven’t seen her in three days. I need to know where her head is.
I stand and go through the door.
“Fabiano.”
He turns back from the corridor, and he’s bent over, making a call.
“Send the Russian up. I want her in here.”
“Yes, Don.”
He goes.
I close the door and walk back to the desk.
