Page 250 of Niccolo

“Call me,” I said giddily. “I have good news.”

I probably should have known something was up when I didn’t hear from him… but I was too overjoyed about Massimo and Lars’s homecoming to worry.

Bad mistake on my part.

102

Sofia

It was raining in Modena the evening everything started to fall apart.

I was sitting in my bedroom at the farmhouse, obsessively rereading the poem Niccolo had sent me so long ago.

Text him,a little voice whispered.

Even better: call him.

But he already had a partial hold on me, even at a distance of hundreds of miles and a week of silence.

I already ached for him… a terrible pain I’d never felt before.

If I invited him back in…

Then his hold over me would be complete.

And that was the only reason I didn’t give in.Couldn’tgive in.

Thetap tap tapof raindrops against the windowpanes was the perfect accompaniment to my misery and loneliness.

I wondered if I would ever see him again –

If this pain I felt would ever disappear –

When there was a knock on my door.

I guiltily swiped away the text message window and called out, “Who is it?”

The door opened, and Fausto stood there with a grin on his face.

“Hiring Friedrich Zollner was worth it. He found Massimo and the girl.”

We got on a three-way phone call – Fausto and me, Zollner, and Aurelio.

Zollner was in the Dolomite mountain range, while Aurelio was still in Venice.

“I have trailed them back to a cabin,”Zollner said.“A shopkeeper told me earlier that Massimo proposed to the girl this afternoon.”

“He what?!” Fausto said.

“Ja – and with a toy ring, no less! From a gumball machine!”

“Oh, the Widow’s going to lovethat,”Fausto said with a snicker. Then he turned serious. “Do you think you can take them?”

“Of course! It will be, how do you say it – ‘kinderleicht’ – like taking candy from a baby! I just wish to confirm the plan: that I should take Lucia to the cemetery island near Venice and leave Massimo alive.”

Fausto was about to speak –

“Wait,” I interrupted.

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