Page 22 of Promised to the Don of Naples
Raffaele warned me about Bianca before dinner.
Luca doesn't deny he has information he hasn't given me.
I want to believe him.
I looked at the last line and crossed it out.
I rewrote it:
7. I want to believe him—and that's the problem.
LUCA MORETTI
I lit the cigar on the balcony off my room and dialed the number I hadn't called in three months.
"Pronto," Acquaviva answered.
"It was Bianca."
There was silence on the other end.
"Come again?"
"The folder. The envelope. It was Bianca."
"Sicuro?"
"She sent Valentina to read it today. She only does that if she knows what's in the envelope before Valentina does. She only knows if she saw it first. And she only saw it first if she got into that office when I wasn't there. And that only happened if someone on the inside let her."
"Madonna."
"Who's she seeing now, Carlo?"
"As far as I know? No one steady. I'll find out, Luca. I'll tell you tonight."
"Tonight."
I hung up.
I rested both hands on the balcony railing. The bay down below was black, the lights of the boats blinking far off, and Vesuvius sleeping on the other side of the water the way it always slept.
Valentina was right.
I knew it.
I'd known since the second she showed me the letter with the date written over it—because I'd put that letter in the envelope myself two months ago, with the right date of 2015, and someone after that had walked into my office with a pen and changed it.
Someone in my own house.
