“How should I know? I never went there,” he spluttered.
“Oh really? I supposed you really loved her, didn’t you?”
“Why do you want to find it anyway?” Fabi gasped out as I flipped my knife between my fingers expertly.
I shrugged. “Maybe I want to pay my respects. Put flowers on her grave,” I said, and then gave him a bloodthirsty grin. “Talk to the doctors in charge.”
He shook his head. “There are no graves. It’s gone, all of it. It burned down, and I’m sure they salted the earth after it. I can’t remember anything else about it except that.”
His words cut through my calm and sent black fury racing back along my veins. I hauled him to me just as his hand rose toward my face.
Dust hit my eyes, gritty and blinding. I dropped him to swipe at them, and he stumbled back.
I didn’t have time to throw out a hand or take a step forward before Fabio stumbled too far backward and disappeared from view.
I walked to the edge of the drop and stared down. He was already sprawled lifelessly on the cement below, his head cracked on the ground, dark-red juices peppered with bits spread all around. Just like watermelon seeds... but brains.
With a sigh, I straightened up and tucked my knife away. I took a cigarette from my coat pocket and lit up.
Finding Fabio had taken years, and now I was once again at a dead end. The hospital where she’d died had burned down? Why were there no records of it? No graveyard to visit, no explanations for the families?
None of it made sense.
I smoked, enjoying the quiet of the night, then stubbed out the cigarette and tucked it into my pocket. I hadn’t gotten to where I was by leaving my DNA at crime scenes.
“I care, Fabi, because men like you shouldn’t get to do whatever they want to the women they employed, and then stuff them away somewhere when they were inconvenient,” I murmured, finishing my conversation with the man who had destroyed my life. “They had lives and families of their own before you ruined it all.”
I crouched and studied Fabi’s lifeless body. It had been too quick in the end.
“My mother deserved more from you, and from the world. And in her name, I’ll burn it all.” I spit down at his body. “See you in hell; keep it warm for me. I’ll see you soon.”
A shuffling sound pulled my attention to the stairs. A teen stood there. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Dirty and wrapped in rags. He stared at me with hungry eyes.
“You got a cigarette?” he asked in a rasp.
He’d seen it me with Fabio. I was sure of it, but he didn’t flinch when I walked toward him. I never flinched in the face of death either; usually, quite the opposite. I welcomed the final darkness with open arms. It was some cruel twist of fate that I’d never been caught for my crimes or killed in the line of duty—or the countless other times I’d put a target on my back. Living was my punishment, and I had no idea when it would end.
I took my wallet and the cigarette pack out of my back pocket and slipped a fat roll of bills into the slim box.
“Here,” I called, and tossed it to him as I approached.
He caught it and held onto it like it was a life preserver in a stormy sea. He wouldn’t tell a soul the things he’d seen in the dark. Maybe by now he’d stopped even noticing them. We, the damned, were all so similar, really. A family you never wanted to belong to.
I passed him by and he didn’t say a word.
There wasno time to stick around and read in the papers about the tragic death of local millionaire Fabio Carrozza. I had a job waiting for me, and I was behind schedule.
I flew first-class to Torino. The hands that only hours ago beat the shit out of someone were now being pampered with hot, lemon-scented towels and flutes of champagne. I glanced around the cabin at the other people sitting in their little pods, their towers of wealth and power. I’d bet good money my hands were no dirtier than the majority of them.
I landed and made my way into town to see an old friend. Father Vittorio had joined the Church not long after we’d both left the Italian Special Forces a lifetime ago. The Col Moschin changes a man. It had led Vittorio to God and me in the other direction. It wasn’t the Col Moschin’s fault. I’d been hell-bound from birth.
I knocked on the door of the apartment situated in the back of the little chapel in downtown Torino.
After a moment, the door opened, and Vittorio was there. He looked up at me with his warm, round face. He’d always been small but strong. The kind of guy who could sneak in anywhere. He’d been a hell of a solider, but even I could admit, he was also a hell of a priest. The only one I’d ever trust.
“You made it,” he said, and smiled at me.
I nodded and stepped into the apartment. “Duty calls. I need to get over to that sanatorium or whatever it is tomorrow.”