Page 145 of Bitter Poetry

I keep my smile to myself, aware that I’m likely being watched.

Another soldier is stationed at the door that leads into the backrooms and the stairs to Ettore’s office.

“He’s waiting for you,” the soldier says to me before his eyes slide over to Mateo then back again. “Only you.”

“Mind if I get a coke?” Mateo thumbs in the direction of the bar where Christian is still sitting.

“Sure,” the soldier says.

I head up to where yet another soldier on the door shows me into Ettore’s office.

The room looks exactly the same, but the man sitting behind the desk is rumpled and in need of a shave. Deep lines are entrenched in his face.

“Have a seat, Dante.”

I sit down. He lights a cigar. He doesn’t offer me one, nor a drink. I can’t get a read on whether that means something or merely indicates his state of mind.

The seat creaks a little under me. The air conditioning is on and makes a faint hum.

I give serious consideration to shoving my chair under the door handle and strangling the fuck.

“Did you have any hand in my wife’s sudden disappearance?”

So, he’s just going straight there… “No.”

A tic thumps in his jaw. He draws heavily on the cigar and blows out fragrant smoke.

“But you know she’s gone.”

The last time I was here, I experienced a healthy level of fear. It was the first time I’d been given a genuine threat. Today, there is so much more at stake and maybe that should make me nervous.

It doesn’t.

I’m rock steady.

Has he changed? Or is it me?

Maybe it’s a little of both.

I only know that the longer I make him wait for my answer, the more the power balance shifts toward me.

“Not exactly.” I shrug. “The rumor mill is never slow. Helena told me that Cosmo was dead by your order. She mentioned you asking her if she’d heard anything from Carmela, any messages or calls.” She didn’t tell me this, but we have her home bugged and cell covered with a handy little spyware app that can listen to everything said, and whether she is using it or not. All her messages and the sites she looks at. It’s pretty comprehensive. “Your question also didn’t leave any room for ambiguity… I got married five days ago. You don’t need me to tell you that your sister is a handful and your niece is spoiled. Where do you think I might have had time to help your wife disappear?”

He takes another draw on the cigar before viciously stabbing it out.

“Rocco thinks it was the Russians.”

I laugh. He looks pissed, but really, fuck him. “I don’t believe it was the Russians, and neither do you.”

“Don’t think because you took my sister and my goddaughter off my hands, it will stop me from killing you, Dante.”

I let my face empty and meet his steady gaze. “Take this as you will. Rocco is no consigliere. If he seriously thinks this is theRussians, he’s floundering. I’m guessing you’re at a dead end, and you brought me here to see if I had any advice. Here it is. I think the time for playing coy is over, don’t you? Cosmo has long had a fixation on Carmela. He’s dead. She is gone. I’m hedging that something happened between them. Something serious enough for you to kill him. If that’s true, then far more likely she has left of her own accord. Only you can know whether she has had reasons to have been planning this for a while or whether it was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

Tic thumps in his jaw.

Christian choked Carmela’s bodyguard out when he took her. Ettore will know Carmela’s disappearance is due to a third party. But nothing he disclosed to his sister suggests this, and nor has such information traveled through the grapevine in any other way so I need to tread carefully and not offer up more than I should know.

It’s possible he thinks Carmela orchestrated her own abduction, but even if it were by her design, someone clearly helped her.