Page 139 of Promised to the Don of Naples
The house of a man who'd shrunk along with his empire.
We went in through the service door.
The one I'd drawn on the Hotel Lucia paper. The one by the old tank, that no one watched, because no one remembered it existed. Raffaele went first with four men.
The lock gave way in silence. Then it was fast.
The first shots came from the kitchen—one of Salvatore's men who was awake, making coffee at five in the morning, and who didn't have time. Raffaele handled it before I understood what had happened. Then two more, in the corridor. The sound of the shots muffled by the suppressors, dull, dry, like a cough.
We reached the hall.
And that was where Luca grabbed me by the arm.
"You stay here," he said, low, in the middle of the noise. "With Matteo. Don't go up."
I went still.
"Luca…"
"You came in, now you obey me. For what you're carrying."
The breath went out of me.
For what you're carrying.
He knew about the pregnancy. How long had he known? Since Capri? Since the road? He knew, and he'd let me think he didn't, the same way I'd let him think he didn't, and we'd both pretended all night at the Hotel Lucia, and—
"Valentina."
My father's voice.
I raised my eyes. Salvatore was at the top of the main staircase—the staircase I'd drawn. A suit too big, shrunk insideit. White hair. The skin of his face fallen. The whites of his eyes gone yellow. A pistol in his right hand, and the hand trembling a little, the way an old man's hand trembles.
His three soldiers had already fallen. He was alone at the top of the house.
"You brought him into my house," he said. His voice was thinner than I remembered. "You brought the Moretti into your mother's house."
"This isn't my mother's house. My mother's house is in Mondello, on the beach. This is the house where you hide."
Matteo appeared at my side. He came up the corridor with two soldiers. When Salvatore saw Matteo, something in his face collapsed.
"Matteo."
"Father."
"You're alive."
"No thanks to you," Matteo said. "Seven years, Father. Switzerland. Capri. Seven years."
My father came down a step, the gun still in his hand.
"I did it for you," he said. "Everything I did, I did for the family."
"I read the letter," I said.
He stopped.
"What letter?"
