Page 72 of The Hitman

“They haven’t as long as I’ve known them,” Salvo says. “They must have been motivated to find a new place to holiday.”

“Maybe,” I shrug.

“You have some thoughts?” he asks, making eye contact.

He looks as tired as I feel, but looks are deceiving. Salvo might look like a warm older restauranteur, but he’s really the man half the city would shrink into the shadows to avoid.

“I was in the middle of nowhere,” I say, choosing each word carefully as I try to piece together bits and pieces of information that I’d collected but hadn’t spent much time considering because I was so preoccupied with Zahra. “I chose the hotel because I didn’t want to run into anyone I knew. So running into a Necci was a bit surprising.”

Salvo nods slowly, encouraging me to continue.

“It probably doesn’t mean anything,” I say casually, even though I know no one at this table believes that, “but I just wonder if maybe we had the same travel agent.”

Salvo keeps nodding for a few more seconds, and then he smiles. “Interesting,” he says.

Alfonso and I wait in tense silence as he starts nodding again. We both know this look on Salvo’s face. He’s digesting the information, slowly, carefully. On his own time, he straightens his back and smiles at both of us. “Well, welcome home. Go. Rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Alfonso and I nod and stand from the table. Salvo doesn’t move. We walk to the front door of the restaurant, and I steal a look over my shoulder. Salvo’s still sitting in his chair, his hands resting on his knee, and his head bowed in thought.

If I were a better man, I might feel bad for what’s coming and who Salvo will set me on, but as I’ve spent the last few days reminding Zahra, I’m not a good man. My fingers twitch around the strap of my bag in anticipation.

If I can’t have Zahra, then I need to channel all that grief into something productive. Salvo will give me a target. I don’t feel bad for them at all.

23Zahra

I’m really fuckingsick of crying very publicly on a mode of transportation over men who’ve broken my heart. Zoe would never do this. I haven’t spoken to her in over a week, and all I want to do is call her. I want her to give me all of the I told you so’s ever and then listen to me cry and whine and complain. And then I want her to tell me what to do. Also, I really just miss my big sister.

By the time I make it back to San Marco, I’m so tired, and I’ve cried so much that my eyes are nearly swollen shut. Walking back into my hotel room is surreal, even though I’ve only been gone two days. For a second, I feel sharp jolts of anxiety crackling under my skin, and I consider calling down to room service for another bottle of wine. I don’t, only because something about that makes me think of Giulio, and I can’t do that anymore. I don’t even shower, which is very unlike me. I strip off all of my clothes and crawl into bed and fall asleep crying. Unfortunately, I now know that there’s no one on the other side of my bedroom wall to hear me and be angry.

* * *

When I wake up the next morning, I feel hungover. I can’t believe that I slept in a clean bed with a dirty body; my mother would be scandalized.

I crawl out of bed, step into the shower, and immediately push my entire head under the spray. My hands feel nothing like Giulio’s, and I’m somehow resentful of that, but since my detangling session was so strangely interrupted, this wash is necessary. I shampoo, condition, and detangle my hair, and then wash my body just as thoroughly. When I step out of the shower, I won’t lie and say that I feel better per se, but I don’t feel as lost, and that feels like the best I can ask for right now.

Unfortunately, I can still hear Giulio’s voice in my head telling me that I deserve better. I deserve better than Ryan, certainly. But Giulio and I… I don’t let myself finish that thought. I decide that he knows himself better than me. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I do deserve better than him as well.

According to my original trip itinerary, I should be leaving Milan tomorrow. The plane ticket Giulio bought is scheduled to leave this afternoon. On the train ride back, I considered not getting on that flight just to waste his money. It sounded petty and oddly gratifying, but in the cold light of day and considering everything that I saw while I was with him, I decide to put my pettiness aside. I can nurse the bitterness I feel at his rejection on a transatlantic flight. I’ve done it before, why not one more time for the hell of it?

It takes me less than half an hour to pack. I never really unpacked, to be honest. I’m ready to go in no time. I sit on the bed and reach for the hotel phone, but then remember that my cell phone is in the bedside table. I pull the drawer open and collect it. On a whim, I power it on for the first time since I arrived. While I wait for it to connect to some cellular service, I pick up the receiver for the hotel phone and call down to the front desk.

“Buongiorno,” a female voice I recognize says on the other end of the line.

“Hello, this is Zahra…” My voice trails off as I consider whether or not I can bear to say my would-be married name, even just for simplicity’s sake. I can’t. “This is Zahra Port in the honeymoon suite. I’d like a car to the airport.”

There’s a moment of silence, and some wrestling on the other end of the line. When the desk clerk speaks, her voice is a small whisper, but louder, as if her mouth is very close to the receiver. “Miss Port, I was just about to call you. There’s someone on the way up to see you.”

“Who?” I know who I want it to be. But it’s not. I know it’s not.

“Your husband.”

“I’m not married,” I clarify, just as the door to my hotel room opens. “The fuck?”

“I know. But that’s how he described himself,” she says. “It’s Ryan Fuller. He’s on his way up, and he told us not to tell you.”

I shake my head in utter disbelief. It literally cannot be, I think to myself. I hang up the phone without saying goodbye and walk through the bedroom into the sitting area. And there he is.

I can’t believe it’s been almost a week since I’ve seen Ryan, and I really can’t believe that I don’t feel much of anything now that I have. Not even rage.