Page 104 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"Sì, grazie."
She served it on a mahogany tray. Cornetto with cream, black espresso, a glass of ice water.
She didn't ask where I wanted to eat. She already knew.
"On the terrace," I said anyway.
"I was already on my way." She pushed the door open with her hip. "The signora likes the sea in the morning, I noticed last night."
I swallowed hard. How did she already know after one night?
"Grazie."
The terrace was a square of white stone, level with the second floor.
A magenta bougainvillea crushing the wall on the right side, flowers dropping to the ground. Blue ceramic pots with basil and rosemary. A cast-iron table painted white, two chairs. A stone ledge along the parapet.
The sea down below, flat, Tyrrhenian blue in the middle of September. White and yellow and pink houses stacked on the hillside as if God had tossed them there.
I sat down and took the first sip of the espresso.
Madonna santa, I thought. This is the life.
And right away, in a flash: Matteo is in the south cellar. You're in Positano eating cornetto and he's in a room with no window in Posillipo.
I tightened my grip on the cup and took a deep breath.
Not today. Today is my day.
I closed my eyes for a second, let the Tyrrhenian wind carry it off.
When I opened them, I saw it out of the corner of my eye.
Down below the terrace, coming down the stone staircase along the side of the Villa—a man. White shirt, black pants, dark glasses, an earpiece. He walked the way a man walks when he isn't looking at anything and is looking at everything. A soldier.
I swallowed hard. Cazzo, here too.
But I relaxed on the second breath. It was protection; Luca hadn't hidden it—he'd said the night before, in the car, with his hand on my thigh: four men at the Villa, bella mia. They won't bother you, you won't even see them.
I saw them, but it was fine.
"Buongiorno, bella mia."
Luca.
He appeared barefoot, black pajama pants, no shirt. Hair mussed to one side. The tattoos on his back exposed as he turned to close the door. The scar on his ribs on the left flank, just above the seam of his pants.
I swallowed hard in a different way now.
He didn't go to the chair; he sat down on the floor of the terrace, on the white stone, his back against my knee.
Without another word.
I ran my hand through his hair slowly, and he closed his eyes.
"Three weeks," I murmured.
"Three weeks, bella mia."
