Page 63 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"I'm a useful man. That's different."
And that was when Luca came into the room.
He came in through the side door, from the office. White shirt, sleeves already rolled, jacket draped over one arm. He stopped in the doorway and looked at me, then at Raffaele, and of course he clocked the distance of at most twenty inches between the two of us seated at the table.
"Good morning," Luca said.
"Good morning, fratello," Raffaele answered, without getting up, without moving his cup.
"Valentina."
"Luca."
He walked to the table but didn't sit. He put a hand on the back of my chair—the palm on the wood, behind my shoulder, without touching me, but I felt the heat of his hand pass through the wood and hit my shoulder as if he had touched me.
"Raffaele. Don't you have a meeting with Acquaviva at ten?"
"Mine's at eleven."
"It's now."
"Capisco, fratello."
Raffaele got up and took his jacket from the chair. Before leaving, he stopped beside me.
"Cognatina." He kissed my hand, three seconds longer than natural. "We'll talk later."
He left.
Luca said nothing for about ten seconds, but then he put his hands in his pockets, without looking at me:
"Valentina. Don't be alone with my brother."
"Why?"
Then he looked at me, his black eyes without any softness.
"Because I'm ordering it."
He simply left the room before I could answer.
I sat there with the cold cup in my hands and the blood running hard in my neck for the fifth time in three days.
Donna Beatrice came back five minutes later.
"Signorina. Signora Varga left this yesterday before she went."
She set a white envelope on the table and left.
I looked at the envelope. No name on the outside. Sealed.
I opened it.
Inside was a small key, gold, old. And a sheet of paper folded in three. Bianca's handwriting, in black ink:
Bella,
I forgot to tell you something. In 2015, before your father ordered Matteo killed, he kept the scheme's documents in a steel box. The box is in a house in Mondello that belonged to your mother. Back room, behind the Saint Sebastian painting, in the right-hand baseboard of the window. There's a false bottom. The key opens it.
