Page 15 of Iron Cross

“Cazzo!” he said, whacking me on the head with a book. “Don’t be an idiot, Green. It does not suit you.”

He was more schoolmaster than consiglieri sometimes, and I couldn’t make myself resent it, though I pretended to.

“Watch yourself, Morelli,” I warned, but couldn’t stop the smile from spreading over my lips.

“Don Juan Triumphant!” He gestured to the book in my hand. I looked down and saw the bottom half of the cover was a classic painting of Don Juan at the foot of a lady. Don Juan wore the guise of a servant, as the gentle lady pointed him about. I assumed that was his paramore. “Read it, and maybe you’ll feel inspired.”

I thought I was understanding his meaning. But I wasn’t sure.

“That’s… not going to work.” I scratched my forehead with the corner of the spine, and Morelli sat down on the flat blanket that was now his bed.

“Then we will talk about it until it does.”

And we did. Drinking like old chums, we concocted a plan that was so insane that it might work.What if it didn’t?Then I’d kidnap her and try something else.Stockholm syndrome was still a thing, wasn’t it?

We got rip-roaring drunk, my prisoner and I. I clung to his words the way I had with my father, holding on to every strange antiquated wisdom he had to pass down.

He laughed, as we opened a second bottle of the wine, and he drank it so fast, that it dripped from the corner of his wrinkled lips, down his long beard.

“I should give you a shaving kit,” I said, looking at his long white beard, stained with burgundy red, and I immediately regretted my words.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, leaning forward and bopping me on the forehead with his finger. “If you do that, you won’t know if I will just—” He made a slicing gesture over his throat.

“I’m more useful to you alive, and I’ll find too much relief in death.” He pointed at his temple. “Think, young King. You must think. Always two steps ahead. That is how you protect what you love.”

What was he protecting by telling me this?

This was the way of things. I wanted to offer him kindness, and he called me an idiot for doing so.

In small, indiscernible ways he earned my trust. At the end of the night, when the black of the sky started turning peach with the dawn, he looked at me with tired eyes.

“Do you have anything for me?” He was almost sheepish, as if the hope of a good answer was something he did not think he had a right to wish for.

Some days, I had nothing for him. But other days, I did.

“She started a new endeavor.” I leaned back against the wall, remembering the tidbit our spies had relayed to me. “A foundation for literacy.”

He smiled, as if the news tasted sweet.

I warmed, at the thought that in this damp cell, in the midst of this squalor and hell, I could give himsomethingof comfort.

“She calls it Giovanni House.”

Giovanni’s eyes, grayed and dull with age, and even more with years of captivity flashed with alertness.

I pulled a photo from my pocket, and handed it to him.

“This is her, cutting the ribbon at the opening ceremony.”

He reached for the photograph with his trembling fingers. It shook in his hand as a tear fell down his cheek. He stared at it, captivated, as I cleaned up our cups and the wine, leaving him nothing with which he could do harm to himself, or his guard… or me, for that matter.

He waved one finger in the air, as if he was lecturing me on something. “She looks good in silver, doesn’t she?”

“She does.” Not as beautiful as Kira in emerald green, though. But there was no need for me to say it.

“See these gloves?” he said, turning the photograph to me. “I gave those to her.”

His trembling fingers came to his lips.

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