Page 12 of Fastest Kill

"Frederica has always been very calm," Tore said, watching him with quiet attention. "Even when she was small. Despina thought it was concerning, but I saw it as a good thing to have under pressure."

"It's her nature," Dario replied, still staring at the photo. "It's also because she's never had to worry about no one having her back."

The older man studied him for a beat longer and gave a single nod. "The guest room is at the end. Towels in the cupboard. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask."

He walked back toward the kitchen, humming a tune, and left Dario alone in the hallway.

Dario stood there for another moment, studying the other photos. Frederica, perhaps twelve, in tactical gear two sizes too large, standing very straight and looking directly at the camera with an expression that he knew was her war face.

Frederica, at what looked like a university graduation, caught mid-laugh at something just off-frame, unguarded in a way she would never have permitted if she had known the photo was being taken.

Despina and Tore, somewhere with mountains behind them, Despina's head tipped against Tore's shoulder, and both smiling because they knew they had the world in each other.

The guest room was small and painted cream, with a window that looked out over the garden and, beyond it, the aqua-blue harbor. The bed had clean sheets and a blanket folded at the foot. A glass of water was on the nightstand, with some painkillers for his hangover.

Dario sat on the edge of the bed and tried to make sense of why he was so overwhelmed. It was like he was a stranger in a foreign land and out of his depth.

He was sitting in a house that had photographs of a daughter doing lunatic things and loving every minute of it. It was where the parents finished each other's sentences and left notes on each other's crosswords, and the door was never locked because family meant you didn't need to knock.

It smelled like coffee and bread and decades of people who had chosen, every day, to come back to each other, no matter how fucked up their lives were.

He had been in a lot of houses, but none had been this kind of home before.

His father's old house in Venice was the closest thing he knew to a family home, but now it was as full of ghosts as the villa in Tuscany.

The last thought Dario had before sleep pulled him under wasn't about the files or finding Serapis. It was about a little girl in the back seat of a car, completely unafraid, eating her ice cream while the world tried to catch up with her.

He wondered if Frederica knew she still moved through the world that way because her parents worried about her and would bail her out of whatever trouble she got into.

He tried to imagine what that would feel like, but he was asleep before he reached an answer.

6

Frederica heard her mother's laughter before she reached the bottom of the stairs. It wasn't the polite chuckle Despina used for people she was tolerating, or the sharp one that came before violence. It was her real one—short and surprised, like something had caught her off guard.

The kitchen door was ajar, and Frederica could smell garlic and something herby. Dario said something she couldn't quite hear, and Despina laughed again.

What the hell is going on? It was bad enough that Dario was in her house. Now he was getting along with her mother? This was going too far.

She pushed the door open further and was struck dumb by the sight of Dario at the stove with an 'I Love Rhodes' tourist T-shirt on that was a size too small for him and showed off all the tattoos running over his brown forearms and biceps.

He had a dish towel tucked into his waistband and a small crease of concentration between his brows while he handled a pan with ease.

Despina was at the kitchen table with her afternoon coffee, watching him with approval. She pointed at something in the pan, said something in Greek, and Dario adjusted without arguing.

Neither of them had noticed Frederica in the doorway. She watched him taste from the wooden spoon, frown slightly, reach for the salt without being told, and add a few shakes.

Dario said something in Italian about getting the flavor right, and her mother responded in Greek again, saying not to add too much pepper.

This was what passed for a conversation in the Alesci house, with her father Italian and her mother Greek, but Frederica had never seen an outsider do it.

She didn't even think Dario knew Greek, judging by how badly he'd butchered it the night before while joking with the police on Crete.

It had all been a part of the act. Of course it was. Dario had fooled the cops and her at the same time. Now he was turning all that charm onto her mother, and it was actually working.

Frederica had brought only one boy home before when she was about eighteen. He had lasted dinner, which was how long it took Despina to form and communicate an opinion that he was a piece of shit, and kicked him out of the house. She had been right, but Frederica had learned not to bring another boy home ever again.

Dario had been here twelve hours, and now her mother was letting him use her kitchen.