once again.
Donatella broke in. “And when can we meet to arm mine?” she demanded petulantly. “I need my jewelry armed soon.” Her voice dropped, and her eyes flicked toward Val. “I will need them, to keep a certain tall, dark, and handsome lover in his proper place. In Paris.”
Paris? What the fuck was that about?
Tam made an appointment with the woman for the following week, but such was her feeling of unreality, she did not even note the time or date they agreed upon. The information just came out of her mouth and then floated out of her head. Who knew if the appointment would take place? She could die a horrible death by that day.
But who knew from one minute to the next when death would pounce? It was always a rude surprise. Who could have imagined that hot August morning that her family had gotten up. A morning like any other. Breakfast like any other. Laughing and teasing and squabbling.
But that had been it. The last day. The last morning. The last breakfast. Who knew?
The high-pitched, empty-headed chatter of the two women faded in her mind. The sound of hens clucking. Faraway dogs barking. The distance between herself and the rest of the world widened into a vast buffer of awful silence. She was utterly alone, sealed inside it.
Tomorrow she was going to find out once and for all if revenge could make any difference. Ghosts clustered around her: Mamma, her father, and Irina standing next to her, clutching Tam’s knee with her chubby, dimpled ghost hand. Her liquid dark eyes so uncannily like Rachel’s eyes. She’d been barely two when—
No. Not now. No fits. Not in front of Ana and Donatella.
Tam shut her eyes and saw the dirt scattering into their wide-open eyes. Her ears were starting to roar, her heart to pound.
She tried to tune into the hens clucking, dogs barking, just to grab onto something else. Focus on anything else. Anything at all.
“…so we can eat late,” Donatella was cooing into Val’s ear, in a tone Tam was not meant to overhear. “The cook at La Cantinola will be happy to cook for us, even after eleven o’clock. I’m a special client. And there’s a lovely room above La Cantinola, with a sea view…”
Listen to that. Brazen slut. Trying to coax Val into meeting her for dinner and a quickie.
Val, to his credit, was wiggling like an eel, vacillating between lavish compliments and careful excuses. But the bitch’s hands were all over him. And he was not pushing them off.
The anger helped. It made that sick, sinking feeling back off.
Good. Anger worked, so she embraced it. Bastard. Dog. Porcone.
He would pay for that, later. In blood.
The atmosphere in the car for the drive back to San Vito was subzero. Tam did not even look at him, she just stared straight ahead, radiating a bone-chilling cold with more vicious intensity than he’d ever felt from a woman. Or at least, that he’d ever bothered to notice.
“Would you tell me my crime?” he demanded finally, when they were approaching the San Vito exit.
“No crime,” she said, her voice cool, toneless. “I just can’t imagine how you actually managed to go through with it, that’s all.”
“With what?” he demanded. Although he knew.
She shot him a glance that indicated that she knew that he knew and did not appreciate his dissembling.
He sighed and offered it up. “It was some years ago. I was undercover. Investigating a smuggling ring. Her husband was involved. She was angry at him. I needed info. It was unavoidable.”
“Oh, really? I suppose you fought, tooth and claw,” she said.
“No. I did my job,” he said stiffly. “Just as you have always done.”
“Oh, so now we’re throwing whore darts, are we?”
He shook his head. “It was not particularly memorable,” he said flatly. “Nor was it altogether unpleasant. I have no burning desire to repeat the experience. It did facilitate my job.”
“Works with me, too, eh? Smooth, Val. Fucking your targets into boneless submission. What a trick.”
“Bullshit,” he spat out. “After this morning, you know that is not true.”
“How do I know that? With a man as slick and smooth and pretty as you, how could I possibly know that for sure? Gigolo Janos. So you have a date to meet her in Paris, hmm? If you want to go meet her for dinner and cunnilingus tonight at La Cantinola, please feel free.”
He pulled into the hotel parking, muttering obscenities, and grabbed her jewelry case. “Come,” he snarled. “I will walk you to the hotel, and then I must go to Salerno.” He had planned to keep her close to him, but not in this mood. They would end up killing each other.
She jerked the jewelry case out of his hand. “You remember my shopping list?”
“Of course.”
“Then there’s no need to escort me through a crowded parking lot.” She slammed out of the car. “I can escort myself.”
He loped after her and jerked her shoulder around. “Do not be an idiot.”
“Why not? Seems like it hasn’t put you off before.”
He seized her shoulders. “You are playing games, Tamar. Stop it.”
“Don’t maul me, you oaf—”
“It is stupid and out of character for you to be so angry about my past professional dealings with a woman like that. You are using this as an excuse, no? You would rather be angry at me and jealous about Donatella than feel whatever it is you are really feeling. No? About your past, your family? Ana or Stengl?”
The fight went out of her, and the color drained out of her face. “No,” she whispered. “Don’t try to psychoanalyze me.”
“Then do not cry out for a fucking diagnosis. You are acting like a child. If you need distraction from the way you are feeling, I will come to the room with you now and give you one that you will never forget.”
She stumbled away, grabbing the stonework railing that led up to the hotel entrance. “No,” she said unsteadily. “We have work to do.”
“Then go do it,” he said harshly. “I will distract you when I get back. At great length. Count upon it.”
She scurried up the stairs, disappearing into the lobby of the hotel. Val stared after her, his face hot. He was half tempted to follow her up and make good on his promise, here and now. She would protest and fight and scratch and bite, like always…but then…ah, Dio.
He went back to the car, clenching and unclenching his hands to unload the tension. And the guilt.
He had to edit and send another piece of footage, the one from that morning, to Novak. This was killing him. It got worse every day.
He
