Chapter 4: The Courtyard

I slept four hours on a bed that still had the garage smell in it.

At seven I went out into the courtyard to run laps, because I always ran at seven.

Three of my father's guards stood by the fountain with their coffee, and they watched me come out.

The biggest of them had a shaved head and a neck as wide as his jaw.

"There she is," he said. "The cage girl."

"Good morning," I said.

"They say you knocked out a big man last night."

"He lay down on his own."

The other two laughed.

The big one set his coffee on the fountain edge.

"Papà wants to know what he's paid for," he said. "Show us."

"I'm not here to fight you."

"You're here because the boss said so. Show us."

Doors had opened along the back of the house.

A cook, two maids, a driver with a hose in his hand.

Upstairs on the long balcony Cosima stood at the rail in a silk robe, one hand at her throat.

Corrado came out of the kitchen door with his sleeves rolled up and stopped on the step.

He didn't say anything to stop it.

I put my bag down.

"One round," I said. "If I win, you carry my bag to the garage every morning."

The big man grinned.

"And if I win?"

"You won't."

He came at me with both arms wide.

I stepped inside them.

My left fist went into his ribs, under the arm, where the liver sits.

He grunted and his hands dropped.

I put the heel of my palm under his chin and drove his head back.

His feet came off the ground for an instant, and then he sat down hard on the cobblestones with his legs out in front of him.

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