friend thinks about sex but will soon be grovelling. For now he tries to make up with Sophie.’ He looked at Matteo. ‘Sophie is too much like her mother, Rosa.’ He made a yapping motion with his hands. ‘She talks too much, and says no, instead of minding her own business. Luka will soon tire of her. Anyway...’ Malvolio shrugged ‘...we all know what happened to Rosa.’
Matteo took a belt of his drink before he spoke. ‘I have to admit that I was worried, if not Luka, that you might consider Dino,’ he said, referring to his brother.
‘Dino talks too much, everyone knows what is going on in that stupid head of his because he tells them, whereas you...’ He looked at Matteo and still he could not read him. That Matteo cared about no one was either a blessing or a curse. It would prove a blessing if he stayed loyal and a curse if he ever again attempted to stray. For now Malvolio chose to practise what he was about to preach. ‘Tonight,’ Malvolio said, ‘is not a night for questions. Tonight is all about putting people at ease. A lot of my men were forced to give evidence. They had to say things about me that they did not want to...’
Matteo nodded.
‘Tonight you are to let them know, as I shall, that I understand the pressure they were under. You are to tell them that there are no bad feelings, that I understand that they did what they had to do.’
Matteo let out a small breath of relief, but it did not go far, it halted even before it had fogged the glass as Malvolio spoke on.
‘Tonight let them think they are forgiven. Tomorrow you make sure that they pay. All of them.’
He meant Luka also, Matteo knew. Malvolio would even make an example of his own son.
Thank God that Luka was getting the hell out.
Matteo drove them to the hotel. It was starting to get dark and as they came down the hill the sun was firing the ocean so that it rippled like molten lava. As he parked the car and they walked into the hotel, Matteo felt as if he were entering the gates of hell.
AS THE CONVOY that would take Paulo Durante to a prison in Rome left, Bella took Sophie back to her home as the photographers packed up.
‘It’s just news to them,’ Sophie said. ‘This is my father’s life.’
‘Come on,’ Bella said, and they walked up the hill.
Since the arrests Sophie had lived with Bella and her mother as Malvolio had had his lawyer take ownership of Paulo’s home to cover legal fees.
Sophie wasn’t upset yet—instead, she was furious. Her father had taken the fall for the entire town’s dark dealings. Aside from that, months of pent-up frustration and the pain of hearing Luka say on the stand that he considered her a peasant all flooded out now.
‘He humiliated me,’ Sophie choked. ‘I bet right now he is with his father, toasting their freedom.’
‘You know that he’s not,’ Bella said.
‘He said, under oath, that I threw myself at him, even after he had dumped me.’
‘He said that rather than admit, in court, that you and he were making plans to leave together,’ Bella reminded her friend as they walked. ‘You told Luka that you were worried about the things your father was getting up to. How would you feel now if that was the reason your father was being locked away?’
‘Well, it did no good,’ Sophie hissed. ‘Because he has been locked away. Luka called me a peasant to his father...’
That would have hurt, Bella knew.
Luka had spent the last few years in London and Bella knew Sophie had felt left behind and not good enough.
Having Luka, however reluctantly, confirm that in court had been cruel to hear indeed. ‘Luka cares about you. Remember that he was trying to get away from his father when it all happened and he said those things.’ Over and over Bella had told her Luca hadn’t meant what he’d said, that he had only been trying to protect Paulo, but this evening Sophie didn’t want to hear it.
‘I’m going to Rome to be near my father and you need to leave too,’ Sophie urged. ‘Malvolio is back and all his yes-men are still here.’
‘I cannot leave my mother,’ Bella said.
‘She will understand...’
‘I can’t, Sophie, she is so sick.’ Bella wanted to leave, more than anything she wanted to run, but she knew she could not leave her mother.
They stepped into Bella’s small home. Sylvia, her mother’s friend, had dropped in to see Maria and bring her up to date with all that had happened. She had bought her some flowers and a bottle of limoncello to cheer her up on this very dark day.
Bella waved and called hello and then went into the bedroom the friends were now sharing. Sophie immediately started packing, still urging Bella to come with her, but when a knock came at the door Bella was quite sure, as she went to answer it, that it was Luka, wanting to finally, after all these months, speak with Sophie.
Hopefully he would have better luck calming her down than she’d had, Bella thought.
Only, instead of Luka, when she opened the door she saw young Pino, balancing on his bike and telling her that he had a message from Malvolio. Bella stood there in silence as her fate was delivered—she was to be at the bar tonight.
Bella had always known this day was coming.
It had been as inevitable as breathing if your name was Gatti. A direct assumption that Malvolio had made long ago.
A few months ago Gina had dropped off a package, telling her that on the night of Sophie and Luka’s engagement Malvolio had said he wanted her to stay back and to start working at the bar.
The package still lay in her wardrobe unopened.
A reprieve had been granted to Bella in the shape of the arrests but it would seem that her stay of execution was over now.
Bella had, as the trial had neared its end, silently dreaded just this.
She had gone on the Pill just in case and every night when she took it, she told herself that it was unnecessary, that soon, once Malvolio had been put away, she’d be laughing to herself at the fear she had held inside these past months.
Bella closed the door on Pino and went back into the bedroom.
‘No,’ Sophie said as Bella returned. ‘You can tell Luka that I don’t want to see him.’
‘It wasn’t Luka. It was Pino with a message for me.’
Sophie looked up from her case when she heard the tremor in Bella’s voice.
‘There is to be a big celebration tonight at the hotel, everyone is to be there and I am to work in the bar.’
‘No!’ Sophie was even more insistent that Bella join her in Rome but Bella shook her head.
