Lost Your Mind novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The White Boat

Nico's POV

The note on Benedetta's pillow was four lines long.

"Don't look for her. She came home to me. Tell Mama I said thank you for the dress."

My mother held it in both hands and wept.

I folded it, put it in my pocket, and kissed her forehead.

Then I drove north with two of my father's men.

I didn't let myself think about the woman I'd left in her bed an hour ago with the phone still in her hand.

I had let myself think about her for years.

This morning she had put her cheek on my chest and said I was the one she looked for.

I wasn't going to waste it by being afraid.

The marina was a long gray row of boats under a long gray sky.

Dario's was at the end of the third dock, a white forty-foot cruiser with a dull brass nameplate.

It had been bought three months ago, in a name I'd never heard.

The money had gone through four accounts first.

I knew because I kept the books.

I knew because I had been looking for the leak for a year.

I left the men on the dock and went aboard alone.

The cabin smelled of varnish and a woman's soap.

On the table lay two passports.

One had Dario's photograph over a name that wasn't his.

The other had Benedetta's, with a name she'd never used.

Next to them was a folded nautical chart, and a printed catalogue from a quarry supplier.

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