LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Even if you aren’t going to join us, can you do one thing for me?’

      Matteo nodded.

      ‘Get him royally pissed so he sleeps like a bear through the morning.’

      ‘Done.’

      Luka walked away then and Matteo was in no doubt that he was heading off to try and persuade Sophie to join him.

      Malvolio was processed through the court quickly and Luka had been right. It was clear that Matteo was now the go-to man—everyone was turning to him and asking what would be happening tonight.

      ‘Perhaps a street party,’ Matteo said. ‘Everyone can see him that way and welcome his release.’

      Matteo just wanted to keep him away from the bar and Bella.

      He sat outside the jail house in his boss’s car and shook Malvolio’s hand in congratulations when he climbed in.

      ‘What happens tonight?’ Malvolio asked.

      ‘A street party,’ Matteo said. ‘All the town wants to see you.’

      ‘Am I ten years old?’ Malvolio scoffed. ‘Matteo, I thought you could do better than that for me. I want a very exclusive party. Perhaps I need to organise it for myself.’

      ‘I will sort it,’ Matteo said. ‘Do you want to go home first?’

      ‘Yes, then we will go straight from there to the hotel. It has been a long wait....’ He told Matteo to slow down and he halted the car and the window slid open and Malvolio called over Pino, a young boy who cycled around town, delivering messages.

      ‘Hey, Pino...’ Malvolio said but, instead of giving his instructions in front of Matteo, got out to speak to the young boy and then returned to the car.

      ‘Now it will be a good night,’ Malvolio said.

      They drove on to Malvolio’s home and Angela, his housekeeper, greeted him anxiously.

      Malvolio took a drink of whisky and so too did Matteo. Then Matteo paced the floor, making calls to the hotel to arrange the party as the fat man showered and changed and then came down in a loud suit.

      Malvolio was, Matteo noted, still sweating even after a shower.

      He was repulsive.

      ‘You look nervous,’ Malvolio commented when he saw Matteo’s strained features. Usually Matteo was the coolest of the lot.

      ‘Why would I be nervous?’ he asked. In fact, he was asking himself the same thing.

      He neither knew nor cared anything about Bella Gatti.

      Then he remembered how she blushed around him and a day a couple of years ago when Dino’s mouth had gone too far and he had stepped in.

      Yes, he noticed her more than he cared to admit to and he could not stand what awaited her tonight, but for now all attention had to be placed on Malvolio, who was grilling him.

      ‘I thought you would be honoured to find out that you are to be my second man.’

      And Matteo knew his life depended on his response.

      ‘Now that you have said that I shall be...’ Matteo smiled ‘...I don’t need to be nervous. I’m honoured, Malvolio. I thought Luka would be your choice.’

      ‘Your friend thinks about sex but will soon be grovelling. For now he tries to make up with Sophie.’ He looked at Matteo. ‘Sophie is too much like her mother, Rosa.’ He made a yapping motion with his hands. ‘She talks too much, and says no, instead of minding her own business. Luka will soon tire of her. Anyway...’ Malvolio shrugged ‘...we all know what happened to Rosa.’

      Matteo took a belt of his drink before he spoke. ‘I have to admit that I was worried, if not Luka, that you might consider Dino,’ he said, referring to his brother.

      ‘Dino talks too much, everyone knows what is going on in that stupid head of his because he tells them, whereas you...’ He looked at Matteo and still he could not read him. That Matteo cared about no one was either a blessing or a curse. It would prove a blessing if he stayed loyal and a curse if he ever again attempted to stray. For now Malvolio chose to practise what he was about to preach. ‘Tonight,’ Malvolio said, ‘is not a night for questions. Tonight is all about putting people at ease. A lot of my men were forced to give evidence. They had to say things about me that they did not want to...’

      Matteo nodded.

      ‘Tonight you are to let them know, as I shall, that I understand the pressure they were under. You are to tell them that there are no bad feelings, that I understand that they did what they had to do.’

      Matteo let out a small breath of relief, but it did not go far, it halted even before it had fogged the glass as Malvolio spoke on.

      ‘Tonight let them think they are forgiven. Tomorrow you make sure that they pay. All of them.’

      He meant Luka also, Matteo knew. Malvolio would even make an example of his own son.

      Thank God that Luka was getting the hell out.

      Matteo drove them to the hotel. It was starting to get dark and as they came down the hill the sun was firing the ocean so that it rippled like molten lava. As he parked the car and they walked into the hotel, Matteo felt as if he were entering the gates of hell.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      AS THE CONVOY that would take Paulo Durante to a prison in Rome left, Bella took Sophie back to her home as the photographers packed up.

      ‘It’s just news to them,’ Sophie said. ‘This is my father’s life.’

      ‘Come on,’ Bella said, and they walked up the hill.

      Since the arrests Sophie had lived with Bella and her mother as Malvolio had had his lawyer take ownership of Paulo’s home to cover legal fees.

      Sophie wasn’t upset yet—instead, she was furious. Her father had taken the fall for the entire town’s dark dealings. Aside from that, months of pent-up frustration and the pain of hearing Luka say on the stand that he considered her a peasant all flooded out now.

      ‘He humiliated me,’ Sophie choked. ‘I bet right now he is with his father, toasting their freedom.’

      ‘You know that he’s not,’ Bella said.

      ‘He said, under oath, that I threw myself at him, even after he had dumped me.’

      ‘He said that rather than admit, in court, that you and he were making plans to leave together,’ Bella reminded her friend as they walked. ‘You told Luka that you were worried about the things your father was getting up to. How would you feel now if that was the reason your father was being locked away?’

      ‘Well, it did no good,’ Sophie hissed. ‘Because he has been locked away. Luka called me a peasant to his father...’

      That would have hurt, Bella knew.

      Luka had spent the last few years in London and Bella knew Sophie had felt left behind and not good enough.

      Having Luka, however reluctantly, confirm that in court had been cruel to hear indeed. ‘Luka cares about you. Remember that he was trying to get away from his father when it all happened and he said those things.’ Over and over Bella had told her Luca hadn’t meant what he’d said, that he had only been trying to protect Paulo, but this evening Sophie didn’t want to hear it.

      ‘I’m going to Rome to be near my father and you need to leave too,’ Sophie urged. ‘Malvolio is back and all his yes-men are still here.’

      ‘I cannot leave my mother,’ Bella said.

      ‘She will understand...’

      ‘I

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