Chapter 14: Varenna House

The security man took Fiora by the elbow and walked her back up the stairs without another word.

He didn't speak to her.

At the top he turned and looked at me.

I put the pill bottle into his big hand.

"My mother had this in her pocket," I said. "Your boss's real pills, I think. Take them to his own doctor, not hers."

He read the label and his face changed.

"Yes, miss."

"And don't let anyone near his drip."

"Nobody will."

He was gone, and Rocco's arm was still around my waist.

"My shoulder's going to be purple," I said.

"I'll find something to kiss it with."

"That's a terrible line."

"It's four in the morning."

He drove us to Kensington's far edge, to a rowhouse with a green door and a light left burning in the kitchen.

I had been picturing a fortress.

It was a narrow brick house with a potted tomato plant on the step.

"My mother won't let me move out of it," Rocco said. "I own six buildings and I still sleep in my old room."

"Is she going to hate me?"

"She's going to feed you."

She was already standing in the kitchen doorway in a quilted robe, a small woman with a grey braid and her son's eyes.

She looked at the vest, and the goggles around my neck, and the bruise coming up on my cheek.

"Sit," she said.

I sat.

She put a bowl of soup in front of me, and I took the pen out and ran it over the surface without thinking.

Rocco said nothing.

His mother watched the pen, and then she watched me, and her whole face softened.

"Good," she said. "Test everything. I would have, in your house."

I ate every drop.

She sat across from me while Rocco leaned in the doorway.

"My husband used to say Emilio Gattuso was the only man he ever liked who wanted him dead," she said. "They were boys together."

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