Page 99 of Deadly Confessions
I leave the church at 3 PM. I don't take my car. The walk to Valentina's apartment takes eleven minutes through the vicoli. The same route she walks to the church. The same narrow alleys, the same hanging laundry, the same cats watching from dumpsters with the indifference of creatures that have seen everything and care about nothing.
I haven't been to her apartment uninvited in three years. The last time was to deliver a new set of ritual candles when her supplier ran out. Before that, to check on her during a fever. I respect her privacy. The space is hers. The crucifix, the candles, the knife. Her instruments. Her sanctuary.
Today I am not respecting her privacy. Today I am breaking protocol for the first and only time in fourteen years.
The candle system is mechanical. Silent. Deniable. I never speak the kill order. I never name the target. The system operates through signal and observation. This is its strength. This is why it has survived undetected for fourteen years.
Today I will speak.
I knock. Three knocks. The pattern she knows. Uncle at the door.
I hear footsteps and the lock turns.
She's in a cotton shirt and leggings. Bare feet. Her glasses on. A book in her hand, her finger marking the page. She looks at me with surprise that shifts quickly to concern. I don't come to her door unannounced.
"Father," she says. "Is everything all right?"
"May I come in?"
She steps aside. The apartment is as it always is. Small. Clean. The bookshelf overloaded. The kitchen counter with a single glass, washed, drying on the rack. The crucifix on the bedroom wall, visible through the open door. The candle holders. The bone-handled knife in its case.
My instruments. In her home. The tools I gave her.
I sit at the kitchen counter. She closes her book. Sets it down. Watches me the way she watches everything. With the preternatural stillness I trained into her, the stillness that makes her invisible in churches, in parking garages, in dark vicoli behind gelato shops.
"Cucciola," I say. "I need to tell you something."
She waits. Her hands are on the counter. Still.
"It's about your parents."
I can visibly see her body stiffen, as if it as absorbed a word that activates something deep, something buried, something that has been waiting for fourteen years to be spoken.
"What about them," she says. Not a question. A demand shaped like a statement.
"I know who killed them."
Her breathing doesn't change. Her pulse, visible at her throat, doesn't accelerate. She is her training. She is every hour I spent in the bell tower teaching her to control the body's involuntary responses, to turn the animal reactions into something manageable, something weaponizable.
But her eyes. Her eyes change. The brown irises darken by a shade. The pupils dilate. Behind the glasses, her eyes become the eyes of the girl who crawled out of a closet and saw her parents' bodies on the marble floor.
"Who," she says.
"The Sorrentinos."
The word fills the apartment. Five syllables. The name of a family. The name of an empire. The name she has been moaning into pillows for two months while the heir to that empire fucked her.
"The hit was ordered by Niccolo's father," I say. "Fourteen years ago. Your parents were identified as threats to the Sorrentino organization. The order came from the top. Two men were sent. They carried it out."
She doesn't move. She doesn't blink. She stands at the counter with her hands flat on the surface, her knuckleswhite, the only visible indication that the information is landing.
"How long have you known?" she asks.
"I just found out this afternoon. One of Niccolo’s men came in on a impromptu confession. He said he learned of you guys relationship and ask Niccolo if you knew that his father was responsible for your parents death. He said told him he was well aware to never speak of these again. But the man said he needed to get it off his mind and even though he knows I’m your uncle, the vow of confession stops me from telling you. But this is what I promised you when you were a little girl. If I found out who was responsible for your parents death I would give you the information to get revenge. That also means Niccolo knew this whole time and didn’t tell you. This makes me think he has something up his sleeve and I worried about your safety. That’s why I didn’t call like I normally do. I needed to get to you asap to make sure you were safe. I needed you to be ready.”
"You needed me ready for what?"
"For this moment. For the purpose God has been preparing you for since the night He took your parents."
