Page 68 of The Broker
“No. I covered it up. Two officers of the Carabinieri showed up to investigate, and I paid them off. Pietro Casali, who retired six years ago, and Bruno Trevisani.”
Silvio passes by outside my office. When he hears me say Bruno Trevisani, his head jerks up. “Should I have stopped him?” he asks worriedly. “He said he needed to talk to you urgently, and he’s on the known associates list, so I let him in.”
“You let him into Dante’s house?” Leo barks. “What did he need to talk about?”
“He said it was about a background check Signor Colonna asked him to run. It was for an English name. I can’t remember—”
“Neil Smith.”
Leo raises an eyebrow. “The guy Valentina went on one date with?”
“Yes. Fat use his report is going to do now.” I clench my hands into fists. “Trevisani must have told her,” I say grimly. “I’m going to kill that fucker.”
Leo puts his body in front of me. “Stop,” he says calmly. “I know you’re furious, but you’re not thinking clearly. As angry as you are with Trevisani, you cannot beat up a member of the Carabinieri. Leave it alone. He’s not responsible for this situation. You are.”
He’s right. It might be momentarily satisfying to beat Trevisani senseless, but then what? I still have to go back to my silent, empty house. The lights will be off. There will be no cartoon dogs with Australian accents on my TV. No pieces of Lego waiting to be stepped on. No Valentina sneaking up to my bedroom after Angelica falls asleep.
There will just be emptiness.
“Fine.”
I settle back at my desk and bring up the never-ending stream of emails. I had everything, and I lost it all. Work is the only thing I have left.
32
VALENTINA
Our apartment is freshly painted. The living room window, the one that lets in an icy draft every winter, has been fixed. The kitchen has new counters, the cabinets have been sanded and painted, and there’s a brand-new dishwasher. New electric outlets have even been installed in my office so I don’t have to run extension cords everywhere.
Renovating our apartment so we could sell it and move to a bigger place was the cover story we gave Angelica to explain the move, but I thought Dante had forgotten all about it. I certainly had. I don’t even know when he found the time to have it done. Not to mention how much it cost.
I stare wordlessly at my renovated apartment, and fresh tears spring from my eyes. I blink them away before Angelica can see and go help her unpack. I can’t let myself be weighed down by the huge knot of sadness inside me. One foot in front of the other—that’s what I need to do to survive.
The week goes on. The one good thing about being miserable when you have a child is that you can’t fall to pieces. If I didn’t have Angelica, I would lie in bed all day, eating my way through tub after tub of ice cream. I would keep my drapes drawn so I never saw the sun and refuse to shower. I would just wallow in my misery.
But I can’t do that. I still have to take care of her. Angelica is off for Christmas break. She’s pretty good at keeping herself entertained, but I still have to shop for food, cook meals, do dishes, and make sure she doesn’t spend all her time on the computer.
I decide that I’m going to resign after Lucia and Antonio get back from their honeymoon. I don’t want anything to get in the way of their happiness, and even if it means seeing Dante more often than I want, I can hold on. It’s only a month away.
But seeing Dante at worksucks.We give each other a wide berth, but he is my boss, and I can’t avoid him completely. Every time we meet, I snipe at him with increasing venom. But of course, the Broker never responds. So frustrating. As much as I want to be indifferent, I can’t stop from lashing out. I’m still in love with him, and his betrayalhurts.
The atmosphere at work gets increasingly poisonous. The rest of the team—Leo, Joao, and Tomas—start giving me a wide berth, which only angers me further. I’m not the one who screwed up. They should be avoiding Dante, not me.
Antonio loses his temper the day after his wedding. “Enough,” he says, glaring at Dante and me. “It’s obvious there’s some sexual tension between you two.”
I see red. “Sexual tension?” I sneer. “With all due respect, Padrino, not even if he was the last man in Venice.”
Dante usually doesn’t respond to my provocation. This time, he does. “You wish,” he bites out, and I feel perversely glad that I’ve goaded him into snapping at me.
Antonio leans forward. “I’m delighted to hear you say that. Because you work together. Dante, you’re Valentina’s superior. If we had an HR department, they’d be freaking out about workplace harassment.”
Anger yields quickly to guilt. I can’t let Dante take the fall for this. He didn’t harass me—everything between us was enthusiastically consensual. “He’s not—”
“I’m not done,” Antonio interrupts. “Your personal issues are disrupting team morale. So, I forbid it. There are to be no dates. No cozy, intimate glasses of wine after Angelica has gone to bed. No sneaking around and no sex. Do I make myself clear?”
The days tick on, slow and miserable. Rosa calls me in the new year. “I just got back,” she says. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“You saw me at Lucia’s wedding,” I point out.