Page 165 of Beautiful Obsessions
The tall man noticed his companion staring and gave him a sharp look.
The younger man lifted his eyes.
“What brings you to this house of God?”I asked.
The second man stepped forward.
His face was wide and scarred across one cheek.A fresh scar which had healed badly.His eyes were the colour of dirty glass.
“We are looking for a woman.”
“A woman?”
“Yes, Father.”
“In a church?At this hour?”
“She is confused,” the tall one said quickly.“Unwell.”
The lie arrived like it was rehearsed, but too obvious to me.
“Unwell?”I repeated.
The tall man nodded.“She ran from a private clinic.We are trying to return her before she harms herself.”
“How charitable of you.”
The words were mild, but they caused his eyes to sharpen.
I smiled gently, as if I had not meant anything by it.
The younger one shifted his weight.His shoes squeaked on the stone.It was Italian leather, the expensive kind.There was mud on the soles.A small ring on his right hand caught the red glow from the sanctuary lamp.
My attention fixed there.
A black onyx set into gold.
A serpent coiled around a cross.
I would know that insignia anywhere.
Coccico.Old Roman cutthroats.
The Coccicos were not the strongest family, nor the richest, but they had survived because they knew how to strong-arm their way through life.
They funded church repairs.
They gave money to orphanages.
They carried statues of saints through village streets during feast days.
Then they sold girls behind port gates, slit throats over debt, and made widows sign property away with guns to their heads.
Pious wolves.The worst of their kind.
I looked from the ring to his face and kept my expression blank.
Coccico men.Here.In my church.
