The Italian I Was Never Supposed to Understand novel · Chapter 22 of 32
Chapter 22: Harvest
The cellar door hung off one hinge.
Somebody had taken a sledgehammer to the old lock, and then to the wood around it.
Splinters lay across the top step.
Tommaso went down first with his phone light.
I went down behind him.
The big barrels were fine.
The long racks were fine.
At the very back, the iron gate to the Riserva rack had been cut through with bolt cutters.
The rack behind it was empty.
Thirty-six slots.
Thirty-six bottles of 2016 Riserva, the last vintage his father picked.
Gone.
His mother came down the stairs in her nightgown and a man's coat.
She looked at the empty rack.
She didn't cry.
She went very straight, the way Nonna went straight at City Hall.
"Who?" she said.
Nobody answered.
Nobody had to.
Chiara came across the courtyard from the barn, wrapped in a blanket.
"I heard a truck," she said. "Around four. No headlights. I thought it was a farmer."
His brother was already out in the vines.
He called us over to the end of the lowest row.
Two deep tire tracks ran through the wet grass between the vines.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of The Italian I Was Never Supposed to Understand are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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