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“Elio?” Aria’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. “Is everything okay? Dinner’s almost over.”
I nod, dragging a forceful smile onto my face and following her back to the table.
“You haven’t touched your food yet, and it’s getting late,” Karl says, glancing at the clock on the wall. “You two should stay here tonight. There’s no need to drive back so late.”
“Um…no, Dad.” She turns to look at me, shaking her head slightly. “Elio and I both have work tomorrow.”
Aria’s father waves a hand dismissively. “Nonsense. What do you think, Donatelli?”
“I think it’s a great idea,” I say, forcing a polite smile. Aria turns around again, but I don’t indulge her. Something about the warmth in her father’s offer hits me harder than I expect.
The easy affection between them is foreign to me, a sharp reminder of what I never had with my own father.
Her father nods in approval, easing himself out of the chair.
“I’ll be off to bed now. Don’t stay up late, you two.” He turns to Aria. “Like you rightly said, you have work tomorrow.” He turns around, giving me a nod as if to say ‘good night,’ then strolls into his bedroom.
A chill man, I see. If only he didn’t go after mafias…
Aria swirls on me, but I shrug my shoulders up in a defensive gesture, scooping spaghetti into my mouth so I don’t have to respond to anything she says.
Luckily, she only grabs her plate and storms into the kitchen.
***
I cannot tell why, but her jitters bother me. The way she trembles when I walk a few feet close to her, avoids my eyes, but keeps stealing glances at me when I’m not looking…I know something is wrong. And it’s more than just nervousness that I’m at her father’s house.
My hand slides into my pocket again to retrieve my phone and redial Cortez.
“Capo,” his tone is low, more subdued than it was a few moments ago.
“What have you got on Aria? Did you tap her calls like I asked you to?”
“Yes,Capo, the girl’s clean.”
“You mean she’s never had one suspicious call?” I can almost hear Cortez shaking his head at the other end of the call.
“No,Capo. She’s only been speaking with her dad, her friend Mia, and people from work. Although speaking of her workplace, I’ve got some recordings from her conversations with a guy at her office which I think you should listen to.”
“Send them.”
It only takes a couple of minutes before my phone chimes with the recordings−three of them.
I wonder why Aria was so overly frightened when she saw me with her dad, if she has nothing to hide. Could she have already ratted me out to him?
My finger clicks play on the first recording, hoping it would leak something…anything, out to me.
“Aria Abruzzi.” I can swear that I have heard the familiar accent in that voice before. Just as my brain is trying to place it, Aria responds on the call.
“Friedrich, hi.” Ah…so it’s that jerk from the gala? “Look, I’m truly sorry about what happened at the gala, okay? My fiancé didn’t mean to hurt you...”
So now that miserableanimale(animal) made my girl apologize for what I did? My fingers clench into a fist on my lap.
“Oh yes, he meant it, Aria. Did you see how he looked at me? I had to get my thumb fixed at the hospital. Do you know how humiliating that was for me?”
Aria sniffles in the background. “Friedrich, he couldn’t have tried to crush your bones using only his palm. He just has a strong grip like that. I’m really sorry.”
The Friedrich guy scoffs, “No offense, but that guy is psychotic. You need to think about who truly has your best interest at heart…”