Chapter 16: An Enemy at the Table

Massimo's POV

Her mother had made me promise on the last Thursday.

"If my daughter ever has to sit at that table alone," her mother had said, and then she had stopped to get her breath.

"If she ever sits there alone, go."

I had said I would.

I hadn't known it would be a Sunday.

I hadn't known I would walk into the Galli dining room with the mark of Elisa's hand still on my face.

The men were on their feet.

The guard behind me had his gun half out and didn't know whether he was allowed to use it.

Alberto Galli looked at me over the top of his glasses.

"You have a very bad sense of timing, Montanari."

"I have a very good sense of it, Don Galli. I've waited two years for this chair."

I set my hands on the table where everyone could see them.

Elisa sat near the head of the table.

She was white around the mouth, and she didn't look at me.

I didn't blame her.

"Open it," I said.

Alberto opened the folder.

He read the bookings first, then the car service ledger, then the still from the lobby camera.

It showed a woman in a dark coat leaving that coat on a chair.

"Anyone can print an invoice," Vittoria said.

Her voice was calm. Her hands, I noticed, had gone flat on the tabletop.

"They can," I said. "Ask the Alder's night manager who paid the room.

"Ask the car service whose office signed for the drivers.

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