Page 59 of Promised to the Don of Naples
I lit a cigar.
Valentina, up there, was hugging her brother for the first time in seven years. And I, down here, had just made the first decision of the next six months: Matteo Rossi goes to Posillipo, to the cellar.
Not because I hate Matteo. I loved Matteo like a brother since I was eight.
But love doesn't undo seven years of silence, and in my house, love doesn't replace the accounting.
Valentina would hate me for two days over this, but she'd want me on the third.
Bella mia...You haven't seen the worst of me yet.
CHAPTER 18
"There are men you hate in the afternoon and want at night."
VALENTINA ROSSI
The crossing back took twice as long as the trip out.
Not because of the sea—the sea was the same—but because of the silence.
I sat on the deck, and he stayed in the cabin. We didn't look at each other for the two hours back.
I looked at the water, at Capri vanishing on the horizon, at the profile of Vesuvius growing on the other side. Inside, I kept replaying the cellar scene.
Not a room, the cellar.
I replayed my brother's face crying on my shoulder. I replayed Luca saying,You're going to Posillipo,like someone handing down a sentence.
And deep down, I replayed something worse: I had agreed without agreeing.
I hadn't screamed, hadn't fought. I had come down the stairs of the pink house, gotten into the electric cart beside him, boarded the yacht without saying a word, and let my brother be put into the trunk of a black Mercedes with two armed men I didn't know.
I had allowed it.
The convent Valentina was disgusted. The new Valentina—the one who'd kissed Luca—was confused.
And between the two, I was furious.
At myself. At him. At my father. At the pink house. At everything.
We reached Posillipo at four in the afternoon.
I got off the yacht without waiting for his hand. I went up the staircase of Villa Moretti without looking back and crossed the salon.
I didn't go to my room, but to the service wing.
I'd walked this house enough in three weeks to know it had a cellar. I'd heard the name—south cellar—twice since I arrived: once in the meeting I overheard through the wall, once in his call with Acquaviva just now.
I didn't know exactly where it was, but I knew the service stairs went down another flight past the pantry, and that the door at the bottom was always locked.
I reached the door and saw a soldier.
I didn't know the man. In his thirties, black suit, military posture, hands clasped in front of him.
He saw me coming, but he didn't step back, didn't even greet me.
"Signorina. Don Moretti asked that you not come down. Go back up."
