Page 38 of Deadly Confessions
Nobody looks at me. I'm a girl in dark clothes walking through Chiaia on a Wednesday night. I am unremarkable in every direction.
I just straight into the shower when I get home. The water runs clear from the start because there's no blood tonight. No contact. No mess. The .22 does its work from a distance measured in meters, not centimeters. I don't have to wash him off me the way I washed the businessman off. I stand under the hot water anyway. Habit. Ritual. The shower is part of the transition from what I am out there to what I am in here.
I dry off. Dress. Cotton shirt. Loose pants. The apartment is quiet.
The crucifix waits on the wall. The candles in their brass holders. The bone-handled knife.
I kneel. Light the candles. Not four tonight. Two. Enough to mark the act without repeating the full ceremony from the first kill. Father Domenico explained this to me years ago. The first kill requires the complete ritual because the soul is learning the weight. Every kill after, the soul already knows. The ritual becomes maintenance, not construction. You don't build the cathedral every time. You tend it.
I pray. The same words.Signore, accogli questo sacrificio.(Lord, accept this sacrifice.) Shorter tonight. The prayer is a bridge between what I did in that garage and what I am on this floor, kneeling in my apartment with candles burning and the crucifix above me.
The knife. I open it. The blade is thin from sharpening. I pull my pants above my knee. Find a clear space on my inner thigh, between the older scars. Press. The cut is shallow. The blood beads. The pain is a specific frequency that tunes everything else to silence.
I hold the cut open for three seconds. Watch the blood. Then close.
Nel Tuo nome, è finita.(In Yourname, it is finished.)
I press the cloth against the wound. Clean the knife. Blow out the candles. The smoke curls toward the ceiling, thin and grey, carrying the smell of extinguished wicks.
I stand. My thigh stings when I straighten my leg. I welcome it. The sting will last until morning. A reminder that the distance was crossed. That the bridge held.
I walk to the kitchen. Pour a glass of water. Drink it standing at the counter.
My phone is on the counter where I left it before the job. I pick it up. Three messages. One from Giulia about swapping a shift on Friday. One from the electric company about a billing adjustment. One from Niccolo.
"Cena domani?"
(Dinner tomorrow?)
I look at the text. I read it twice. The letters on the screen, the casual Italian, the question mark that turns a statement into a request. Dinner tomorrow. From a man who tips hundreds of euros. Who stops elevators between floors. Who says my name in a voice that lives in my chest for hours after he's gone.
I smile.
It comes without permission. The way it came the night I fell asleep thinking about him, the night the fantasy took me somewhere I hadn't planned to go. The smile is involuntary. Muscular. My face deciding something before my brain can intervene.
I type:"Dove?"(Where?)
I send it. Set the phone down. Pick up my water glass. Drink.
The cut on my thigh throbs once. The phone screen glows with his name.
I give a slight smirk when I read his message.
Chapter 11
Ferrante Escalation
Niccolo
The call comes at 6am on Thursday.
Enzo doesn't call at 6am unless there's nothing to be done about it. I answer before the second ring.
"Councillor De Luca withdrew this morning," he says. "Effective immediately. No statement. His office is saying health reasons."
I sit up. The bay outside the penthouse windows is flat gray, the sun not yet over the ridge. "When did youfind out?"
"An hour ago. His chief of staff called one of ours."
