The Passionate Italian 11 DECEMBER EPUB (17 page)

“Here, is this what you’re looking for?”

She screamed and jumped away as a hand touched her waist.

“Alberto!”
 

“Rose!” He said in mock surprise, echoing her tone. “Whatever are you doing here?”

“You know what I’m doing here.” She tried to stem the shaking, tried to control her voice but she could hear the shock and trembling that would indicate weakness to Alberto.

“Are you scared of me, little Rose?” He reached out and tried to stroke her hair. She pulled away. She had to be stronger.

“Why would I be scared of you?”

“Because I’ve hurt you before and I’ve spent the time since we last met very profitably, enjoying myself, honing my skills, if you like to think of it that way.”

She shook her head.

He smiled. “No, I don’t suppose you would.”

“My cell phone please.” She held out her hand while standing as far away from him as possible.

“Come and get it.” He grinned, dangling the cell phone between his fingers.

She held her hands together in an effort to stem the shaking and then lunged for her phone. Surprised he gave it to her, she shakily moved away and pressed in the quick dial number for Giovanni, watching Alberto all the time.

The phone didn’t work.

Alberto laughed.

“I’m afraid your SIM card has just gone out the window.” He sighed in mock sympathy. “Come sit on the bed with me and talk.”

“There’s no way I’m going anywhere near you.” She strode over to the lift.

“No point I’m afraid. Unfortunately the lift isn’t working at the moment. Missing a vital part.”

“Don’t tell me, it’s a vital part that you have on you.”

“So quick, cara.”

She flinched at the use of the word that Giovanni used for her, but remained silent.

Alberto smiled, his eyes cold and calculating. He walked around her, a complete circle. “I thought you might come.”

She shook her head and backed off from him, to the window.

“I watched you and my brother going out to the island.” He looked at her with mock surprise. “Had you forgotten that I was confined to Switzerland? Lugano, is in Switzerland remember.”

“You watched us?” Rose couldn’t believe it. The specter of Alberto had been real. He’d been there, watching her when she’d been at her most vulnerable.

“Yes. Very touching too. A bit too emotional for my taste though. Anyway, I thought to myself, how easy it would be to take one of the boats from the boathouse and slip across, unnoticed back to Italy. Back to the palazzo where I could gather your files and disappear. Then you’d have nothing.”

“I have back-ups.”

“At the office? Ah, Allegra seemed quite happy to give them to me. Such a persuadable girl.”

“You didn’t hurt her?”

“I didn’t have to.” He stepped towards her. “I have everything I need to stop you from blackening my name. I’m innocent.”

“No you’re not. You’re as guilty as hell.”

He laughed. “No. I’m innocent. You have nothing on me now. I hold all the copies of your report. It’s a shame for you that my big brother insisted on absolute confidentiality. Even he hasn’t seen the final report, has he? Nothing signed; nothing formal that the courts would require.”

“How do you know?”

“Allegra was so forthcoming, as I said. So I have all your evidence and, as a bonus, I have you.”

“You don’t have me.” The anger of two years of watching and waiting and hating flamed deep within her and she brought up her fist to punch him but his hand, more quickly than she’d imagined, shot up and stopped her blow. His fingers squeezed around her arm tightly, cutting off all feeling.
 

“You didn’t fight so much last time did you? I remember.”

Rose felt sick at the reminder.

“Perhaps you enjoyed it, despite your pretty remonstrances.”

“I had a baby to protect.” She spat the words out.

“Ah, but no more.” He slid his hand up her arm. “But perhaps in the future?”

She struggled to free her arm.

“There’s no point in trying to get away. There’s going to be no-one coming to your rescue, my little English slut. The meeting isn’t until this afternoon. That’s hours away. You won’t be missed until then and, by that time, I’ll be long gone. And so will all your evidence.”

“I need air.”

He flicked her away as if she were worthless and turned his back on her as if to underline the point.

She slowly stepped back until she could feel the catch of the window beneath her fingers. Desperate, she balled her fist and punched it for all she was worth into the glass and screamed.

There was only a dull crack as pain shot through her fingers.

“Good try.” He clapped his hands as he approached her. She scrambled with the latch once more.
 

But he was quicker and she screamed for all she was worth, hoping that the sound would carry through the cracked window, down into the street. The sound stopped abruptly as he grabbed her around the waist, winding her.

He picked her off her feet and threw her onto the bed. Her head hit the corner of the large granite lamp base with a sickening thud. Dizzily she brought her hand up to her head and felt the warmth of the blood. She looked up at him—two of him. He was advancing towards her and she tried to move, to stand, to do anything. But sickness and darkness threatened. Despite the adrenalin rush of panic, the darkness won. The last thing she remembered was the sweet smell of his aftershave as his body touched hers.

“Where the hell was she?”

She’d said she wouldn’t be late and he’d told her the meeting was at ten. It was, in fact, later, but she wasn’t to know that. He’d needed some excuse to get her back to him early.

It was now ten past eleven and there was no sign of her. She was always one hour late—no more and no less. He’d sometimes reckoned her body clock was in a different time zone—one of her own making. But, whatever, it wasn’t like her.

Something was wrong.

And where the hell was Allegra? She’d disappeared off the face of the earth. What the hell was going on?

He double-clicked icons madly, trying to work out where things had been filed. It was all too logical—he didn’t understand it. He couldn’t find a thing.
 

His staff didn’t know—hadn’t been involved because of the secrecy—and were running around trying to appease him. It was driving him mad.

“Let me have the mouse, signore, I’ll try to find what you’re looking for.”

“Here,” he yanked the mouse from its connection and tossed it to one of his executives. Then he took the laptop and pitched it in the wastepaper bin.

“You find her work. I want it here—on paper—when I get back.”

Within minutes he was in his car driving back to the Palazzo. He’d felt strange earlier on, leaving her by herself. He cursed himself. He shouldn’t have listened to her. He’d always worked on gut instinct and he should have followed it then.
 

The car bounced over the potholes and juddered as he sped over the paved streets in the old city. He blared his horn at a group of young people, not a care in the world, who were dancing in the square, stopping all traffic. Cars tried to overtake and he was soon hemmed in—stuck with nowhere to go.
 

Damn. The phone went suddenly. He glanced at the screen. Allegra.

He listened for a few moments.

“How long since he was last seen?”

He cursed roundly, furious with himself, and threw down the phone.
 

Icy anger filled his veins. He revved the engine and drove between cars, turned around and sped off the wrong way down a one-way street.

Giovanni looked briefly up at the Palazzo Visconti. The window was cracked. He jumped out of the car and ran up the front steps.

Then he stopped. There was none of the usual signs of Rose’s occupation: no window open, no sounds of opera. Only silence. Something must have gone wrong.

 
He entered the palazzo stealthily, his mind racing, his body moving quietly, with deliberation. Once inside he pressed the lift. Nothing. No whirring sound, no movement. Quietly he pulled open the grille and saw the bottom of the lift was stuck on the upper floor.

The sight made him sick with fear. He started to run for the stairs but cursed, remembering they didn’t yet exist—still under repair.

Then the cold realization hit him. Rose was in the attic suite with Alberto and there was no way in.

He was about to slam his fist into the lift but stopped. That would only alert Alberto to his presence—if he didn’t know already.

He had to think.

The attic. There had to be other ways to access the attic.
 

He closed his eyes with relief when he remembered. He had a vision of darkness and safety: the smell of mothballs, decaying papers and wood and the sound of scurrying rodents. But, above all, he remembered the feelings of safety when, as a young boy, he’d climbed from attic to attic, to get away from the violent arguments of his parents. He was safe because no-one, including his younger brother, knew about how the attics opened one upon another—a throwback to the war in case of invasion—to enable people to move around unseen.

He turned round and quietly closed the front door.

“Awake yet?”

Rose groggily sat up in bed. She’d been stripped down to her underwear and was lying, covered by a sheet, in bed.

Her head pounded and she tentatively felt the encrusted blood. She swallowed dryly. A strip of towel had been tied tightly around her mouth as a gag. She tried to scream.

“What are you trying to say? I can’t hear you. Just lie back and enjoy because you’re not going anywhere for a long time. I’ve been very patient waiting for you to wake up. You know, I don’t like it when people are mean to me. And you were mean to me, weren’t you, that last time? First, you wouldn’t let me kiss you. And then I had to make you. Second, not wanting me to make love to you. And then, well, we didn’t quite make it that far did we? Shame. Still, I helped out old Giovanni with getting rid of the baby. He should be thanking me, not trying to frame me.”

Rose brought herself up on the bed but had to lie down again because the room was spinning. Slowly Alberto came into focus. It was the first time she’d really looked at him. He was the same, smoothly handsome man, all golden hair, golden skin and broad, white smile. The same, that was, except for his eyes: his pupils were dilated and his eyes shifted constantly and his hands shook. She recognized the signs instantly from her mother. She wondered how long he’d been hooked; whether his early attempts at violence were because of drugs or the drugs were in response to his perversions.

“And then, you top the insults off by try to prove that I’ve been stealing from the family. What that’s to do with you, I’ve no idea. You’re a nobody.
 
Always was and always will be. You’re simply useful to my brother. I mean, you can’t think he loves you. It’s obvious he only came to get you when he needed you. Not before, did he? Now don’t look like that.”

She tried to wriggle away from him but he pinned her down with his arms, and the throbbing of her head increased until she thought she’d faint again. She needed to remain conscious.

“I want to see your mouth Rose. Promise me that you won’t make a noise.”

She nodded. He reached over and undid the scarf and she took a deep lungful of air and screamed.

She didn’t feel the pain of his blow until several minutes had passed, disguised as it was by the existing pain.

Alberto turned her to face him and she could do nothing else but what he asked. She was too weak to fight him any longer. She could see the features, similar to Giovanni’s but diluted in their fleshiness and insipid in their coloring. He was a shadow of a man.

Then time seemed to slow.

At the same time as the sound of splintering wood reached their ears, panic and fear filled Alberto’s eyes.

Shouts and voices, more than one, filled the room and Alberto was hauled off the bed by unknown arms.

She moved then, risking unconsciousness, to see who the arms belonged to. Five policemen surrounded and held Alberto. Behind them, surrounded by other policeman stood Giovanni, his face livid with anger.

“Giovanni?”

Pray God he wouldn’t do anything stupid and endanger himself. She couldn’t lose him now.

“Rose.” He was beside her in an instant, gently touching the places where she’d been hurt—her cheek, her chin. She saw the blood on his hands. There mustn’t be any more.

“Giovanni. Don’t,” she winced as he touched the open wound with a cloth one of the officers had given him.

“Shush, don’t speak. Let me deal with this.”

“No. Don’t do anything. Don’t hurt him, Giovanni.”

Giovanni looked at Rose in disbelief. And then he looked up at his brother and stepped back. He wanted to hurt him as he’d hurt Rose but more than that he wanted to kill him.

Alberto’s scared face melted into a smirk.

“You see big brother, your wife doesn’t want me hurt. Isn’t that touching? And you thought I had her here under duress. Well, her words say it all.”

Rose lay back, white-faced and weak. Giovanni smoothed the blood-matted hair off her face. “Did he do anything else to you?”

“Just this,” she touched her head. “I fell…”

“She fell, you see brother. Why would I hurt my darling sister-in-law.”

Giovanni let the pounding in his veins slow before turning to the policemen. “Send for the ambulance.”

“They’re on their way up, Signore.”

Giovanni walked purposefully over to Alberto.

“No, Giovanni!” shrieked Rose.

But Giovanni ignored her cries, opened up Alberto’s jacket and pulled out the missing lift part. “This will make it easier for them.” He handed the part to the police.

He could see Alberto relax with relief. He’d thought Giovanni was going to hit him. Well, he’d learnt a few things since he’d met Rose. He began to walk away.

“She didn’t tell you about her and me? About the last time we were together? This isn’t the first time you know. I know Rose intimately. We spent her last evening at the Palazzo together. Downstairs in your bedroom.”