Page 11 of Blood Debt

For a moment, I’m not here.

I’m back in Rome. Seven years ago. A hotel with no name in a district I’ve never returned to. With a woman with tired eyes and a quick wit. She smelled like violin rosin and clove soap. She’d laughed at my silence. Bit my neck when she came. And for weeks after, I couldn’t get the little one down.

She’d unleashed something no one’s come close to touching since. I still feel her when I wake up too fast. I still hear her voice when it rains.

I blink, focus narrowing back to the table.

The woman across from me is still waiting.

She starts chewing me out in soft, clipped Italian-laced English. Her accent is old-school Sicilian, but filtered through Monaco-boarding-school polish.

“You’re impossible, you know that? A waste of time and charm. Is this some sort of power game? Does disinterest keep you in control?”

I don’t respond. Matteo stands behind her, touching my shoulder once as he leans in.

“È l’informatore,” he murmurs close to my ear. “Quello della polizia italiana. Vuole parlarti. Di persona.”

It’s the informant. The one from the Italian police. He wants to speak with you. In person.

My posture shifts a little. I glance at him. “Qui?”

Here?

“Fuori. Sta per entrare.”

Outside. He’s about to come in

The woman’s tone sharpens. “Are you ditching me?”

I stand, unfolding my napkin and setting it gently on the table. “Yes.”

She blinks once, then stiffens. “You're a bastard.”

She lifts her glass of red wine—Barolo, if I’m not mistaken—and throws it. A perfect arc.

It splashes across my chest, staining my shirt in deep purple blooms. The liquid trickles slowly down the front of my jacket.

“Impotent prick,” she hisses, grabbing her clutch.

She storms out in six-inch heels that click like gunshots on the marble.

I sigh and take a napkin from the table, blotting the wine calmly.

“She was charming,” I mutter.

Matteo doesn’t look up. “Very.”

A figure enters the restaurant—compact, hooded, and careful. He glances once at the maître d’ before spotting me and walking over.

I nod to Matteo, who steps aside.

The man lowers his hood once he reaches me—sharp features, thin mouth, tired eyes.

He tosses a thick envelope onto the table without sitting.

I pick up the envelope. It’s unsealed.

Inside: photographs. Grainy. Surveillance angles. One of them is my estate.