Page 104 of Sinner's Vows

At some point, Matteo will give Dominic orders, and the thought makes acid turn in my belly. They will decide what happens to me, but until that moment, I have one last thing of value: the connection between Franco, his uncle, and Gabriella. I’m not done for yet.

As I shower, I try not to think about Dominic’s hands on my body, his slow seduction, or the tenderness I’m feeling in places where he’s been. These are memories I want to keep drifting on, like on a cloud, high above my reality I can’t escape, and ordering my thoughts is almost impossible. For minutes, I lean against the shower wall and let tears cleanse me. If only it were this easy to let go of the memories of him.

Once I’m dressed, I pad out of the bathroom and find the bedroom empty, the bed still a mess. I walk out into the short corridor and out into the bigger living space of the cabin. Dominic is sitting at the table with his laptop, furiously typing a way, an empty plate pushed to the side.

When he becomes aware of me, he looks up and rakes me down. I’m nervous, my hands gathered in front of me, waiting for his instructions. He gave them so tenderly earlier, so gentle, but now a dark scowl has settled over his face, his lips pursed with angry lines cupping his mouth.

He slaps his laptop closed, picks up his phone, and stands with both items, keeping them out of reach. I’m not sure why he’s worried. It’s not as if I’m going to jump on the internet and email the whole DIA that some Mafia crime ring from the States is about to land at Lamezia Terme.

“Eat something,” he says. “And when I’m back, we’ll talk, so get your story straight.”

He doesn’t need to add that he’ll drag tiny details out of me like nails from a hand. Or what he’d do to me when he catches me in a lie. I just nod, and he doesn’t even look at me when he walks past. I suppose part of him feels betrayed, and Iunderstand why. He wanted to be a cop when he was five years old and then got the brunt of his father’s abuse for the rest of his childhood for just uttering something so sweetly naive.

With a sigh, I sit down at the table, and when the air hostess comes over with drinks and a meal fit for a king, I dig into it, knowing it might be one of my last.

When Dominic comes back, in a fresh suit he got from who knows where, hair still wet, freshly showered and smelling like Heaven-is-This-Man™, I lean back in my chair and weep inwardly for all I had and lost in mere hours.

“Did Franco know you are with the DIA?” he asks without preamble as he sits down across from me.

God help me here. Dominic has gone over into interrogation mode.

“Yes. But I didn’t know that he knew or how he knew. The night he came for me was the first time I saw him since that night when—when?—”

“Right,” he cuts in, his tone softer. “Let’s go back to when you ran away. Stole ten thousand euros and escaped to Milan. Why Milan?”

“In Antonio Mancuso’s house, that’s Franco’s uncle?—”

“Yes. Yes, I know all about Antonio Mancuso.” He waves at me to carry on.

“In Mancuso’s house, there was always a lot of talk about theguardie, thesbirri, especially the ones fighting organized crime. There was a newdirettrice,a director, in Milan, Elena Bianchi. Imagine, a woman heading the DIA in one of the biggest cities in Italy. They were constantly making jokes about her, how weak she was, how she was only a woman, and how they would crush her if she ever came south.” I swallow down the bile pushing up my throat. “Problem was, she was good. She cleaned up Milan. When I ran away, I knew there was only one person in the worldwho could help me, and I put all my eggs in that one basket. Elena Bianchi was the best thing that happened to me.”

“How did you gain access to her?”

Of course he’d know she had protection.

“I played on my super power. Just being a girl.” The look on his face makes me smile. “We’re not perceived as a threat. I managed to get to her car and corner her, then told her, in front of her bodyguards, that I have information to share. This got me a thorough pat down and a two-hour ride about town, in which I told her everything. I don’t know, we just kept driving around until everything I had to share was out, and I didn’t hold back.”

It was the first of many long talks I had with Elena, and in a way, just being able to download with her might have been my saving grace.

“What happened then?”

“By the end of the ride, she actually took me to her home. I went from the heart of the Mafia in Calabria right into the core of their biggest enemy. Elena arranged witness protection for me. I legally changed my name, and Emilia Korhonen was ‘killed’ in the process, and even made the local newspapers to keep the Mafia off my scent. I spent three years in a Swiss boarding school in Geneva on the Italian taxpayers’ dime, then went to university in Switzerland.”

“What did you study?” he asks, not showing an inch of surprise, not even jumping on the fact I gave him my real, birth name.

“Criminology, law, and languages. English, French, Russian.” I was preparing myself for service in the police force, taking my first steps in my vendetta against both Franco and Randazzo.

At this, he quirks a brow. Well, it’s not as if he asked. He just assumed from the tattoo I have on my lower belly I was just another Randazzo prostitute, with nothing else to offer.

“So the fluency in English via endless movies and pop songs was a lie?”

“No, it was the start.”

He exhales a deep breath and leans back in his chair. “What happened next?”

I close my eyes for a second. I’ve never spoken to anybody about this and maybe it’s time I should. I’ve told him everything else and it’s been liberating. To finally be open about my past with Dominic would break down my last barriers and maybe he’ll understand why I became a DIA agent, how my past shaped me and fueled my vendetta.

“You can look it up on the internet. Elena got killed. Gunned down like a criminal in a drive-by assassination outside a restaurant in the suburb where she lived. We’re still not sure who did it, but her death was obviously connected to her work.”

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