We head back to the kitchen, where someone has stocked the fridge with fresh produce and the freezer with ready-made meals. When I dig out a couple of frozen pizzas and place them next to the microwave, Lorenzo pulls a face before shrugging and nodding. He manages a smile when I haul out a six-pack of Peroni Nastro Azzurro.
While he showers, I check the metal container beneath the lean-to. The unit bears an electronic keypad rather than a standard padlock, which seems odd for storing surplus lodge equipment. Having memorised Romano’s access number, I unlock the door and find four black metal drawers. The topmost houses handguns and ammunition, the lower knives and other weaponry. One has two sets of car keys, which is strange because I saw no garage on our way into the grounds. I lift out two pistols and spare ammo, lock the unit up again, and return to the house.
Lorenzo is emerging from the shower when I show him the stash. While towel-drying his hair, he simply nods and gives me a half-smile.
“Il dottorewould not leave us unprotected,” he mutters. “Put one in each of the bedside drawers.”
Both showered, fed and lounging in front of the open fire, I allow myself to relax fully for the first time since leaving Monticiano. Lorenzo cradles my head against his chest as we stare at the flames dancing in the grate.
He tells me about the military man who saved him from the streets, who had a far more rustic cabin in the remote countryside. Lorenzo rarely gives away his emotions but talks of the old man with fondness. Less than six months after taking Lorenzo in, the man found out the names of the gunmen who had assassinated Lorenzo’s parents. Naturally, Lorenzo hungered for revenge, but instead of letting him loose, the old man taught him to restrain and channel his anger, to store up and use the rage only when needed. Years later, when Lorenzo was in uniform and took leave to attend the man’s funeral, he learned that his parents’ killers had been executed in a downtown suburb of Napoli, two blocks from where the old man had lived. With that knowledge, he had travelled to Rome to find his parents’ graves, to tell the news to their headstones and let them rest avenged.
“Didn’t you ever wonder about your parents?” he asks me. “Who they were. Whether they might still be alive?”
“Not until we found that file.”
Josh used to ask me the same thing and could never understand why I wouldn’t want to know, wouldn’t want to try to find them. ‘What if they’re rich and powerful?’I told him I didn’t care. Life is too short to be squandered, worrying about a past that cannot be changed. And if they had really wanted to find me, they would have done so. Why should I be the one taking the initiative to find them?
Although Albert actively encouraged and inspired me to solve mysteries, that is one sleeping dog he never encouraged me to wake. Strange, though. In all the time I knew Albert, he never mentioned the subject. And thinking back, that is precisely the kind of real-world mystery he would have relished. But that does make me wonder. What did Albert know? And what was the real reason he took me in? I’d thought he simply wanted companionship. But the more I learn, the more I believe he was protecting me.
I recall the night he turned up at the bar. I had noticed him purposely hanging back until I was free to serve him. Many of the bar boys got off with customers, and I could take care of myself, so I hadn’t been worried about the attention. And he would not have been the first man I’d gone home with who wanted company without sex. Had he recognised the mark on my wrist?
“If the weather is better tomorrow, shall we swim?” asks Lorenzo.
“Where?” I ask, my mood lifting at the prospect. I am sure he made the suggestion to pull me out of my thoughts.
“Isn’t that a big lake down the hill?”
“Can we swim there?”
“In Italy, you would not need to ask. But according to the local magazine I found in the bedroom drawer, swimming is not only allowed but encouraged. I have extra swimming shorts you can use.”
“Yes, then,” I answer. “After a day in the saddle, I need to stretch my muscles and burn some energy.”
Lorenzo falls silent for a moment before muttering in my ear. “How about I massage you on the bed?”
We kiss as we remove each other’s clothing on our way to the bedroom. Once we are naked, he instructs me to lie face down on the bedclothes, then fishes a small bottle of musk-scented oil from his wash bag. He sits over my upper thighs and splashes the liquid along my spine before rubbing firmly into the muscles with long, slow strokes. Inevitably, after touching and kissing and nipping my skin, the massage turns sensual.
My body stiffens when he delves his fingers into the ridge between my buttocks. He stops instantly, but this time, I murmur for him to continue, to probe farther than he ever has. He knows me well and leans down to bite on my shoulder—not too hard but enough to distract me—when his fingers push inside while his hot erection rubs along the oiled surface of my backside. The sensation is new, and after the initial burn, I am pushing back onto his fingers. All too soon, he withdraws his hand, and I wait for him to finally fuck me.
“Not today,mio amato,” he whispers in my ear. “You are still not ready. But soon. Turn over.”
Maybe I ought to be cautious of how Lorenzo can easily manipulate me, but tonight I happily succumb to his wishes. He oils up my straining erection and sinks onto me. The tightness and warmth feel better every time we make love, and once he is loosened up, I take over, thrusting into him. When I see his eyes rolling back in his head as he jerks his cock, I pull his mouth down for a kiss, and his eyelids flutter open in surprise.But I pay them no heed because I need my fill of him. He comes seconds before me, shooting his hot seed onto my stomach. My hands clamp around his shoulders when I fill him. We collapse together, and I pull his body to mine, letting the sticky mess on me glue us together.
How I’ve lived so many years without allowing my body to experience such pleasures is a crime, and I do not plan on wasting more time. With Lorenzo, I may let him take control and get his fill of me, but I am also conscious of returning his attention with as much passion. And when we climax together, it feels as though we are one person.
For the following days, we fall into a comfortable routine of swimming, lighting fires, eating and making love—and the world stops spinning.
Romano’s suggestion that Sylvie’s words meant Scotland has stirred something inside me. Some nights, I find myself lying awake for hours, trying to grasp the meaning. I have a strong intuition that my journey’s end is near and lies somewhere in Scotland, but like an elusive dream, I have no idea where to begin looking.
On the upside, I wake each morning to Lorenzo’s warm body pressed into mine and permit myself to wallow in the happiness of his proximity. Before anything else, we head down the narrow tree-lined path that meanders from the lodge to the lake jetty. Stripping down to our swimming shorts, we dive into the mist-covered waters. Since arriving, I have ditched the wig, but, as a precaution, I always wear a black baseball cap when in the water. Lorenzo invariably mutters a few curses at the shock of cold when he surfaces, but after swimming alongside each other for a few metres, the exercise warms our bodies. We swim to thenorth and around the island before heading to the south, where the River Rothay joins the lake. At that time of the morning, there are no kayaks or rowing boats on the lake, but the road that hugs the east side of the lake can get busy, so we stay away from the shoreline. The swim takes over an hour and is a chilly but pleasant change from swimming lengths. We race each other freestyle back to the jetty ladder. I am always the first to climb out and wait to help him from the water. Lorenzo then races me barefoot back to the lodge and, naturally, he wins.
Lorenzo showers first in the lodge while I put our towels and shorts into the dryer. When he’s finished, I take my turn, after which he helps me to change the dressing on my wound. Each time he voices his surprise at how quickly I heal.
Like Albert, I have never been interested in television entertainment, but Lorenzo enjoys having the news on in the background while he fixes us breakfast each morning. I am tasked with tidying the bed and bathrooms, fixing the bedcovers, removing trash and, after eating meals, washing dishes. I’m sure he’s as amused as I am by our assumed domesticity.
On the tenth day of our stay, I hear him call out as I make the bed.
“Gabriel. Come quickly.”