Chương 4
“Then what do you suggest?”
Hall glanced toward the bedroom. “Ask her.”
After Hall left, Matteo stayed in the sitting room until Rizzo returned from securing the hall.
“You want me here?” Rizzo asked.
“Put two women from the residential team outside the suite. Everyone else stays one floor down.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be here.”
Rizzo looked toward the bedroom door and then back at him. “Your uncle has called six times.”
“He can call seven.”
“Marco called twice.”
Matteo’s eyes went cold.
“Did he leave a message?”
“He said breakfast is at nine and Sofia must wear the diamond necklace his mother gave her.”
The necklace still lay against Sofia’s throat.
Matteo had noticed her fingers touching it throughout the reception, not lovingly but as though checking whether it remained fastened.
“Anything else?”
“He wants confirmation that the agreement is complete.”
Matteo’s stillness returned.
Rizzo shifted his weight. “I can tell him you’re busy.”
“No.”
“What do I tell him?”
Matteo picked up the phone.
“I’ll tell him myself.”
Marco answered with the warmth of a man who had never doubted his call would be returned.
“My son.”
“I’m not your son.”
A chuckle. “It may take time.”
“Why is Sofia injured?”
Silence arrived so smoothly it felt rehearsed.
“Injured?”
“Don’t.”
The single word stripped the softness from Marco’s voice.
“I’m not sure what she told you, but my daughter has always been dramatic.”
“She hasn’t told me anything.”
“Then perhaps there is nothing to tell.”
“She has bruises from her shoulders to her hips.”
Rizzo turned away, giving the illusion of privacy.
Marco sighed. “Sofia has had difficulties.”
“What kind?”
“She becomes agitated. She throws things. Once, she tried to climb from a second-floor window. We had to restrain her for her own safety.”
Matteo looked at the wedding dress on the carpet. The pearls caught the light like drops of ice.
“You put restraints on her.”
“Temporary precautions.”
“You hit her.”
“Careful.”
The warning came quietly.
Matteo had heard Marco threaten people across banquet tables, in funeral homes, even during baptisms. The man never raised his voice. Volume was for those uncertain of their power.
“Was she injured at the rehearsal dinner?” Matteo asked.
“My daughter embarrassed her family. I corrected the situation.”
Rizzo’s head turned.
Matteo felt something inside him settle into a hard, exact shape.
“You corrected her.”
“She is my child.”
“She is my wife.”
The sentence came before he had decided to say it.
Marco was silent.
Matteo continued. “You don’t touch her again.”
“Tonight has made you sentimental.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You sent me a woman covered in injuries and expected me not to ask questions.”
“I sent you a bride. What happens in your bedroom is your concern.”
“She’s not a bride.”
Matteo looked toward the closed bedroom door.
“She’s evidence.”
Marco’s breath changed, a faint disturbance over the line.
Then he laughed.
It was not a large laugh. That made it worse.
“Finish what we agreed,” Marco said. “Bring her to breakfast. We can discuss family discipline another day.”
Matteo ended the call.
Rizzo stared at him. “Well?”
“Cancel breakfast.”
“You can’t cancel breakfast. Enzo has bishops coming.”
“Then the bishops can eat without us.”
“Marco will take it as an insult.”
“He should.”
Rizzo rubbed his mouth. “The treaty isn’t twenty-four hours old.”
“It was dead before she reached the altar.”
“You say that now. By tomorrow afternoon, men will start testing the boundaries. Trucks disappear. Collections go missing. Someone breaks a window, someone else sets fire to a warehouse, and three days later we’re burying cousins who never read the agreement.”
Matteo knew this. More than anyone, he knew it.
Peace in their world was not a feeling. It was a schedule of consequences everyone found more profitable than war.
He also knew Sofia was listening from the other side of the bedroom door.
A faint movement gave her away.
He lowered his voice. “Nothing happens tonight.”
“That’s not a plan.”
“It’s what I have.”
Rizzo picked up the folded veil. “I’ll get the floor secured. Try not to start a war before breakfast.”
When he left, Matteo remained by the window.
The bedroom door opened a few inches.
Sofia stood behind it, the duvet replaced by a hotel robe. It was too large. The sleeves covered most of her hands.
“Is he coming?”
“No.”
“He’ll come.”
“He can try.”
“You don’t understand.”
Matteo turned.
“Then explain it.”
She looked past him toward the suite entrance. “He doesn’t need to come himself.”
“Who does he send?”
Her mouth closed.
Matteo waited.
She had the look of someone trying to choose between two punishments.
“He has my brother,” she said.
The words were almost soundless.
“What brother?”
“Nico.”
“I know who Nico is. He was at the wedding.”
“He left before the cake.”
Matteo remembered a thin nineteen-year-old in an ill-fitting tuxedo. Nico DeLuca had stood near the kitchen doors, avoiding his father. Matteo had assumed the boy was drunk or bored.
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why does Marco have him?”
Sofia pulled the robe tighter. “Because he helped me.”
“Helped you do what?”
She lifted her eyes.
“Try to leave.”
Matteo did not press her immediately. He had learned one thing in the past hour.
A question could be a door or a weapon. The person asking decided which.
He gestured toward the sofa. “Sit.”
Her expression tightened.
“You can stand if you prefer.”
That small correction seemed to confuse her.
She remained near the bedroom.
Matteo sat first, choosing the chair farthest from her. “Start wherever you can.”
Sofia looked at the floor.
“The wedding was supposed to be in October.”
“I know.”
“My father moved it up.”
“He said your grandmother was ill.”
“She’s been dead six years.”
Matteo leaned back.
It had been a lazy lie, offered to people Marco assumed would never bother checking.
“Why move it?”
“I found records in his office. Payments. Names. Routes.”
May you like
“What kind of payments?”
“I don’t know all of it.” She rubbed her thumb over the robe’s belt. “He keeps paper ledgers because he doesn’t trust computers. Nico knew which cabinet. We photographed pages.”
