Page 50 of Us in Ruins
“Is that so?” the seller mimicked. She turned her back to rummage through a stack of crates.
While she waited, Margot took one last look in Helen’s mirror, and her stomach lurched. Behind her stood Enzo. Not close close, but close enough to make her wonder why exactly he’d abandoned his security post to go full Joe Goldberg.
The seller returned to the counter with a handful of boxes. The first held enough gold to put Midas to shame. She wagged an eyebrow, but Margot shook her head. The next box was equally as disappointing: a collection of bronze rings. Then, she opened a chest of chipped pottery nestled on a bed of velvet. It wasn’t just a collection of broken plates and jars. Margot bit her cheek to keep from gasping.
The shard.
Black and webbed with gold. Right there in the box. A tiny price tag sticker next to it read €450,000, which, while not eighteen million, would require Margot to work overtime at the coffee shop for the rest of her mortal life.
To Margot’s surprise, the seller lifted out a different clay fragment. A black-and-red sliver that Margot had absolutely no emotional connection to. “This belonged to Venus herself.”
Margot nodded, at least trying to look like she believed the woman. But the truth—the real shard—was inches from her fingertips.
Make them look somewhere else. Van’s words ricocheted through Margot’s head, but there was nowhere else to look. Enzo shifted in her periphery, moving closer, and the seller’s unforgiving stare bored straight into Margot’s soul.
Maybe Margot couldn’t make them look somewhere else. But she could make them look at her. She cut her eyes back at Enzo, trying to pretend he was someone else. Someone blonder. Grumpier.
“Marie,” Enzo said, sidling up to the table, “take your break. I’ll cover for you.”
The seller smiled, gold tooth gleaming. “Grazie, Enzo.”
As she slung a woven purse over her shoulder and squeezed out from behind her stall, Enzo planted a hand on the display case, turning toward Margot. “Find something interesting?”
Margot trained her eyes on his, refusing to glance toward the Vase’s black and gold. “Marie was just showing me some pottery.”
“I haven’t seen you here before,” Enzo said. She couldn’t decide if it sounded like he was flirting with or threatening her.
Margot tried on a loose grin. “I’m just here on a school trip.”
“How long are you in Rome?” he asked. His eyes glittered with equal parts mischief and intrigue.
Turning, Margot focused on a sliver of pottery that wasn’t the shard in a feeble attempt to throw him off her scent. “A few more hours.”
He clicked his tongue. “A few hours is nothing. This city has so many secrets. How did you hear about La Galleria Bianchi?” Margot had to admit, the gallery sounded much cooler in his Italian accent than Margot’s southern drawl or Van’s transatlantic lilt. Even if it did feel a little bit like he was interrogating her.
“A friend of a friend,” Margot said—technically not a lie, although her heartbeat ticked upward as if it were. There had to be a way for her to distract him enough to grab the shard.
“Enzo Bianchi,” he said, extending a hand.
“Bianchi,” Margot echoed. His palm was warm against hers. “Like, the Bianchis of La Galleria Bianchi.”
“The very same.” He retracted his hand and drummed his fingertips atop the glass case. “I know this gallery in and out. Any questions, you ask me. I’m your guy.”
Margot’s thoughts spun like her brain had been replaced with a cotton candy machine. How was she going to manage to extricate herself and the shard with Enzo watching her with those big, brown eyes?
She pointed at the piece of clay Marie had shown her. “Did this really belong on the gods’ kitchen table?”
Enzo smiled, a sly thing. “So the legend says.”
“What’s that one?” she asked delicately, begging her voice to sound innocent. Maybe being the damsel in distress could work to her advantage. If the glossy look in Enzo’s eye was anything to bet on, she’d up her ante.
“This,” he said, pulling out the Vase shard, “is something not many people know about.”
He fixed her with a stare. Margot’s stomach bottomed out.
As fast as it had vanished, his smile returned. “But the ones who do, know it’s worth protecting.”
In one quick motion, Enzo’s hand wrapped around the hilt of a nearby sword, and he wrenched it free from its sheath. The silver blade, broken off at the end with a rough edge, tested the distance between Margot and the Vase shard. She sucked her stomach in, dodging its point.