I sat across from Adriano at the café as he finished a phone call.
It was almost 2 PM, so we’d had to skip breakfast and go straight to lunch.
I was eating some mediocre risotto, which didn’t matter to me – I was ravenously hungry.
Adriano had his cell phone up to his ear. I couldn’t hear the person on the other end, but I could tell it was Niccolo by some of the things Adriano said.
“…yeah, yeah,” he snapped. “I’ll keep you in the loop. Yes. Fine. GOODBYE.”
Adriano ended the call and put his phone back in his jacket.
He looked pissed.
As he went back to eating, Adriano glared at me from under his furrowed brow. “What?”
“Sounds like your brother’s not too happy.”
“Yeah, well, he can go fuck himself.”
O-kaaaay…
The café was a small neighborhood place. There was an indoor area and a big brick archway that opened out onto the sidewalk, where customers crowded around a dozen tables. The place was packed with locals eating Saturday lunch.
We sat in a small booth inside the café.
Well, Adriano did. I sat in a chair on the other side of the table from him.
“Thank you for the money for Emma,” I said.
“Who?” Adriano asked.
I stared at him in astonishment. “Emma? My roommate? The 5000 euros?!”
“Oh,” he said, like I was thanking him for passing the salt. “No problem.”
I continued staring at him in bewilderment as he kept eating.
When he finally realized I was looking at him, he glowered at me. “What now?”
“It was 5000 euros.”
“So?”
“So you’re acting like you gave her a couple of bucks!”
He shrugged. “No big deal.”
“How rich are you?”
He raised one eyebrow suspiciously. “…why?”
I knew exactly what he was thinking:
Gold digger.
“Fuck you,” I snarled. “By the way, do I have anything to be worried about?”
“What, like guys with Uzis? That would be a ‘yes.’”
“No – like something I’m gonna need antibiotics to get rid of.”
He scowled. “No. Should I be worried?”
“No,” I said angrily.
“So – no surprises in nine months?” he asked sarcastically.
This fuckin’ piece of –
“I’m on birth control,” I snapped.
“Good.”
“Good.”
We ate in venomous silence until I finally said, “I was just trying to say ‘thank you,’ asshole.”
“Asking me if I gave you an STD is an interesting way of saying ‘thank you,’” he replied, but he sounded amused.
“Okay – thank you for the money you gave my roommate. And fuck you for being a dick.”
He chuckled. “You’re welcome.”
I shook my head and sighed loudly in exasperation.
He looked at me like he was getting tired. “What NOW.”
“I try to be nice to you and you treat me like shit. I insult you and you find it funny.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it’s growing up with five brothers.”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“Why not?”
“I know people with a lot of brothers and sisters, and they don’t act like you.”
He tilted his head to the side like Maybe you have a point. “I guess I do kinda try to piss people off…”
“Why?!”
“Because it’s… it’s like a lie detector test. If I’m an asshole and they’re nice back to me, then I know they want something. If they’re an asshole back, though, I know I’m getting the truth.”
“Wow,” I muttered in disbelief. “Just… wow.”
Although it explained a hell of a lot about him.
He shrugged as he went back to eating. “It is what it is.”
“Were you always this way?”
“Maybe. I guess. Although part of it comes with the business.”
“The business of – ”
He shot me a warning look and glanced around the café.
I got the point.
“Speaking of which,” I said, “why are we eating out here in broad daylight if we’re in so much danger?”
“I don’t think we’re in that much danger. For now, anyway.”
“You sure scared the shit out of Emma! And me!”
“Well, she was in danger. Maybe not at that exact second, but they would’ve come knocking sooner or later. Better she left right away.”
“Do you really think they would have…” I asked, then trailed off. I didn’t want to finish the sentence.
“Hurt her to get to you? Not a doubt in the world.”
“Then how can we not be in danger?”
“Because they don’t know about the house we just stayed in. My brother Roberto buried it under so many shell corporations that they’d need a team of forensic accountants to figure out who owns it.
“And nobody followed us home last night because they would’ve tried to break in, and they didn’t.
“Plus, this just isn’t the type of neighborhood where they’d run into us by accident. It’s the fuckin’ suburbs. We don’t even have a presence here, other than the house.”
“And by ‘we’ you mean…?”
“My family.”
“Is that your actual family, or is it a euphemism for – ”
Adriano shot me another warning look.
“I was going to say for your business,” I said, irritated.
He gave me a half grin.
“According to your little lie detector test, you figure you got the truth just now, huh,” I said.
“Pretty much.”
“So – real family, or just… ‘business’ family?”
“Both. My brothers and me, we’re the business.”
“But not Lars.”
Adriano looked up in surprise, then remembered I’d spent hours around the guy last night.
He also looked…
Guilty. Like maybe he’d gotten into a fight with Lars.
“Not by blood – but he is my brother where it counts,” Adriano said quietly.
“And where’s that?”
“Action. He’d take a bullet for any of us.”
The part about ‘taking a bullet’ stressed me out a little.
“Speaking of which – let’s say that whoever is after us gets lucky.” I looked over my shoulder at the open-air arch of the café. “Isn’t this, like, the worst possible place for us to be?”
“Well, one of us has his back to the wall,” Adriano said as he finished his pasta.
I froze and realized he was right: he was sitting with his back protected…
Whereas I wouldn’t see anyone until it was too late.
As though to prove the point, a voice behind me made me jump.
“Ready for the main course?”
I whipped around to see the waiter.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said with a frown. “You ready?”
“Y-y-yeah,” I said.
Adriano just nodded, and the waiter picked our dishes off the table and walked away.
I immediately got out of my chair and sat down next to Adriano. “Scoot over.”
He started chuckling. “Don’t worry. I told you I’m not going to let anybody hurt you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t care – scoot over.”
He moved over enough to let me have half the seat. “This is pretty close quarters.”
I glared at him. “We were a lot closer about an hour ago.”
He grinned. “That we were.”
What I really wanted to ask him was, Why’d you turn into an asshole after we had sex?
But I knew that would be a bad idea, so I just kept quiet.
I looked out at the street and the people passing by. “What would you do if one of them came up to us?”
In answer, Adriano lifted his napkin off his legs.
His gun was sitting there on his lap.
“Oh my God!” I hissed.
“Shhhh. You asked.”
“I can’t believe you…”
“You wanted to know if I was ready. I’m ready.”
I groaned. “I can’t believe this…”
“Maybe you should go sit on the other side of the table, then.”
“NO. I’m staying right here.”
He chuckled again.
“I’m so glad I amuse you,” I said testily.
“Yeah, well, better than pissing me off, right?”
“I guess,” I grumped.
The waiter came over and set down two plates in front of us: a Fiorentina breaded steak for Adriano and pollo alla cacciatora for me.
Adriano tucked into his food with gusto.
“What are we going to do after we leave here?” I asked.
“You said you knew your father’s hangouts, right? We’ll probably hit those first.”
“Won’t they recognize you?” I asked.
“Why would they recognize me?”
“Because they’re underground gambling parlors run by the Agrellas’ people.”
Adriano winced. “…shit.”
“What?”
“You’re right: the Agrellas run gambling around here. Or at least, they used to… until last night.”
“Won’t they recognize you?”
“Probably not. The low-level guys have no idea who I am. Only the people at the top do, and… well… they’re all gone.”
“What do you mean, ‘all gone’?”
Adriano frowned. “Didn’t you hear what I said to my guys last night before they left?”
I dropped my voice to a whisper. “About the safe house?”
“Not just them – we think the entire Agrella family got whacked.”
I stared at him in horror. “By… your family?”
“No!” Adriano said, like that was absurd. “You and I wouldn’t be on the run if that was the case.”
“Then who did it?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
“But… if my father owed money to the Agrellas… and they’re all gone… why would anybody care about my dad?”
“We need to find that out, too.”
“Shit…” I muttered as I stared off into the distance. “Maybe it’s about his job…”
“What’s his job?”
“He’s, like, a go-between for corrupt judges. He makes sure they get paid by the mob.”
Adriano turned around to face me. “What the fuck did you just say?”
He seemed more shocked than angry, but I was still frightened by the urgency in his voice.
“What?” I asked, a little nervous.
“Your dad – what did you just say he does?”
“Well, I mean, his official job is he works for the Florence judicial department.”
“I don’t care about his official job,” Adriano said impatiently. “Tell me the other part.”
“He pays off judges for the Agrellas.”
Adriano stared at me like I had grown a third eye.
“…what?” I asked anxiously.
Adriano pulled out his phone, dialed, and held it up between us.
“What’re you – ”
“Shhh.”
I recognized the voice that answered as Niccolo’s.
“Well, THAT was quick,” he said facetiously. “Have you decided to – ”
“Nic, we’re in a public place, so watch what you say.” Adriano looked at me. “Tell him exactly what you told me.”
I was getting more and more frightened by the second.
“Is this that girl you pulled out of the hotel?”
“Bianca, yeah,” Adriano said, then nudged me. “Tell him what your father does.”
“He… he pays off judges for the mob.”
“Who SPECIFICALLY in the mob?” Adriano asked.
“The Agrellas.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone.
“…that’s impossible,” Niccolo finally said.
Which annoyed me. “Well, that’s interesting, seeing as he’s been doing it for twenty years,” I snapped.
Adriano’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “What?!”
“Well, maybe not twenty years, but ever since I can remember – and I’m 22.”
“Did you hear that, Nic?!” Adriano exclaimed.
“I heard. What’s your father’s name, Bianca?”
“Fabrizio Lettieri.”
“Middle name?”
“He doesn’t have one.”
“Hold on.”
There was a long pause. Voices murmured in the background, and I heard the clicking of a keyboard.
“I don’t understand what the big deal is,” I whispered to Adriano.
“Hold on,” he said.
Niccolo came back after nearly a minute. “Is there another name he could be listed under?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“What’d you find?” Adriano asked.
“Nothing. There’s absolutely NO mention of a Fabrizio Lettieri in our records.”
“Son of a bitch,” Adriano muttered.
“Adriano… I don’t have to tell you how important this is – ”
“I know, I know,” Adriano said. “We’re leaving now.”
“Alright. Keep me posted.”
I stared at Adriano in shock as he hung up the phone. “What the hell was that all about?”
Adriano slipped his gun back into his jacket, then pulled out a wallet and placed a hundred euros on the table. “We gotta go.”
“Tell me!” I said fearfully.
“For the last 20 years, my family had a deal with the Agrellas. They handled the street – prostitution, drugs, gambling, shit like that – and we handled the courts and the politicians. The payoffs and bribes.”
I frowned. “But my father – ”
“Doesn’t work for us. He was working for the Agrellas.”
“…which means…?”
“Which means the Agrellas were going behind our backs for the last 20 years. Which is bad enough – but considering that your dad disappeared two nights ago, and the Agrellas bought the farm last night… maybe your father found out something he shouldn’t have.
“Maybe he knew what was going to happen, so he went underground. Which means maybe he knows who’s behind everything… and maybe something even bigger than that.”
I stared at Adriano as the implications snuck in.
My father had stumbled into a war within the Cosa Nostra…
And whoever had wiped out the Agrellas was looking for him right now.
Adriano pulled me to my feet. “Either way, we gotta find your father fast… before somebody else gets to him first.”
