Chapter 7 - The Things Men Call ProtectionVittorio did not touch the note.
He stood beside Renzo with both hands loose at his sides and looked at the four words as though they constituted a business proposal whose disadvantages he had already calculated.
“Cameras,” he said.
Renzo nodded.
“Already being pulled.”
“Entrances?”
“Locked.”
“Garage?”
“Donato is there.”
Only then did Vittorio turn toward Katarina.
“Come with me.”
It was an order.
Her body recognized it as one before her mind did.
Something inside her hardened.
“No.”
The word surprised all 3 of them.
Renzo’s face revealed nothing, but he became very interested in the sketchbook.
Vittorio did not move.
“Katarina.”
“I said no.”
His jaw changed slightly.
“There is an unidentified person inside my building who placed a package on your desk.”
“And you are doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Deciding what happens to me before asking.”
A faint silence appeared between them.
Katarina could hear employees moving behind closed office doors. Somewhere, a telephone rang twice before stopping.
Vittorio looked at the bruises still visible on her wrist.
Then at her face.
Something in him shifted.
“You are right.”
The answer arrived so quickly that Katarina lost part of the anger she had prepared.
Vittorio took one step backward.
“What do you want?”
The question was harder than the command.
Commands required obedience or resistance.
Questions required knowledge of herself.
Katarina looked at the sketchbook.
“I want to stay until security determines who brought it.”
“All right.”
“I want Agent Ellison called.”
“All right.”
“And I want the notebook.”
Renzo finally looked up.
“After they process it for prints.”
Katarina nodded.
“That is reasonable.”
Vittorio’s expression remained unreadable.
She realized he was angry.
Not with her.
With himself.
That mattered.
Forty-three minutes later, security had the answer.
The package had not been delivered by Chase.
A temporary janitorial worker had placed it on Katarina’s desk after finding it beneath a trash bag in the service hallway.
The man had been hired only 3 days earlier through an outside contractor.
The contractor had never heard of him.
The identification on file was false.
Security cameras captured his face beneath a baseball cap for approximately 2 seconds.
Agent Ellison arrived at 3:20.
She looked at the photograph once.
“Elias Venn.”
Vittorio’s eyes changed.
Katarina noticed.
“You know him.”
“Not personally.”
“That is not what your face says.”
Vittorio glanced at Agent Ellison.
The agent folded her arms.
“I would prefer not to discover 2 hours from now that everyone in the room except me understands what is happening.”
Vittorio reached for his jacket.
“Conference room.”
They moved into one of the smaller rooms near the executive offices.
Joanna remained outside after Katarina promised to call.
The door closed.
Vittorio stood rather than sat.
“Elias Venn worked with Chase.”
“Worked how?” Katarina asked.
“Chase found companies that required money moved. Venn provided the structure.”
“Shell corporations.”
“Yes.”
Agent Ellison looked at Vittorio.
“And how do you know that?”
Vittorio’s mouth moved by the smallest amount.
“I employ competent accountants.”
“I also employ competent accountants.”
“I pay mine more.”
Under any other circumstances, Katarina might have laughed.
Agent Ellison did not.
“What does Venn want from Ms. Aiello?”
“I do not know yet.”
“That answer I believe.”
Katarina looked at her sketchbook inside the transparent evidence bag.
“Why send this?”
Agent Ellison answered.
“To prove access.”
The room became colder.
“He entered Chase’s apartment?”
“Or obtained property from Chase before Chase left.”
Vittorio’s hands closed slowly.
Agent Ellison noticed.
“Mr. Servino.”
“Yes?”
“Whatever thought you are currently having, replace it.”
“I am considering lunch.”
“At 3:40 in the afternoon.”
“I have an irregular schedule.”
Katarina covered her mouth.
A laugh escaped anyway.
Both of them looked at her.
For one ridiculous second, Katarina laughed harder.
It hurt her ribs.
It made tears collect at the corners of her eyes.
It was completely inappropriate.
It was also hers.
When the laughter ended, the fear had lost some of its size.
Agent Ellison gave her the ghost of a smile.
“We will increase protection around you.”
Katarina’s eyes moved toward Vittorio.
He said nothing.
Agent Ellison continued.
“And I would strongly recommend you remain somewhere Venn does not know.”
“He knows where I work.”
“Yes.”
“He may know Vittorio gave me an apartment.”
“Possibly.”
Katarina thought of the key in her pocket.
She did not like the idea of leaving.
She hated that fear could make a new home feel temporary.
“I am staying there.”
Vittorio inhaled slowly.
Katarina waited.
He nodded.
“Then we secure the building.”
Not you.
The building.
The distinction was intentional.
She saw it.
That night, 2 additional guards appeared in the lobby.
Neither stood outside Katarina’s door.
Vittorio had wanted them there.
Katarina knew because Donato accidentally looked toward the hallway while explaining the new security arrangement, then corrected himself with the expression of a man who had just remembered instructions.
She almost smiled.
Vittorio was learning.
So was she.
The sketchbook returned 2 days later.
No useful fingerprints.
No trace evidence.
Nothing except the drawings and the note.
Katarina sat at the desk beneath the window and opened the book slowly.
She turned each page.
Her father.
A bowl of apples.
The fire escape outside her childhood bedroom.
A woman on a bus.
Joanna laughing with her head tilted backward.
There were more drawings than Katarina remembered.
On the final used page, she found a sketch of herself.
She had drawn it before meeting Chase.
Her hair was loose.
Her face was turned toward sunlight.
She looked directly at whoever observed the drawing.
No apology lived in the expression.
Katarina touched the charcoal line of her own cheek.
She had not realized how much she missed that woman.
The elevator chimed.
She checked the screen.
Vittorio.
Katarina opened the door.
He held a paper bag in one hand.
“What is that?”
“Dinner.”
“You cook?”
“No.”
“Then you are holding someone else’s achievement.”
“That is most of management.”
Katarina laughed again.
He entered after she moved aside.
They ate at the counter because Joanna’s promised dining table had not yet arrived.
Vittorio removed his jacket.
His sleeves were rolled.
Katarina had begun to understand that rolled sleeves meant he considered himself off duty, even if everyone in Philadelphia would have disagreed.
The sketchbook rested near the window.
Vittorio noticed it.
He did not reach for it.
“You may look.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
He washed his hands before touching it.
The gesture was so Vittorio that Katarina had to look away to hide a smile.
He moved through the pages without comment.
At the drawing of her father, he stopped.
“You resemble him.”
“You have never seen him.”
“I see you.”
Katarina’s throat tightened.
Vittorio continued.
When he reached the self-portrait, his hand became still.
“That one.”
“What about it?”
“You should draw her again.”
Katarina looked at the woman she had been.
“I do not know if she exists.”
“She does.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she argued with me in the office 2 days ago.”
A silence followed.
Katarina looked at him.
“Were you angry?”
“When?”
“When I told you no.”
“Yes.”
Her stomach tightened automatically.
Vittorio saw it.
His expression changed.
“Not because you refused me.”
“Then why?”
“Because I gave you a reason to believe you needed to.”
He closed the sketchbook.
“My father called everything protection.”
Katarina said nothing.
It was the door he had opened on the balcony.
This time, Vittorio continued.
“My mother was 20 when she married him. He was 35. He adored her.”
The last phrase contained no warmth.
“He bought her a house. Then guards. Then a driver. Then he decided which friends were safe. Which restaurants were safe. Which dresses attracted too much attention. Which relatives wanted money. Which telephone calls created problems.”
Katarina remained very still.
“He never called it control.”
Vittorio’s eyes rested on the dark window.
“He called it protection.”
“What happened?”
“My mother became very good at disappearing while remaining inside the room.”
Katarina knew that skill.
She knew it intimately.
“One morning, when I was 16, she left.”
“Without you?”
“Yes.”
The answer was honest enough to hurt.
“For years, I hated her. My father helped me hate her. He said she was selfish. Ungrateful. Unstable.”
Vittorio turned the wineglass slowly between his fingers.
“When I was 22, I found the letters she had written to me.”
“What letters?”
“The ones he never gave me.”
Katarina closed her eyes.
Vittorio continued in the same restrained voice.
“She had asked to see me 31 times.”
“Vittorio.”
“She died before I found them.”
The room became completely silent.
“How?”
“Cancer.”
He looked at Katarina.
“Nothing dramatic. Nothing I could shoot or purchase or threaten. She simply became sick while I was busy believing the man who kept me from her.”
Katarina moved around the counter.
This time, she did not wait.
She wrapped both arms around Vittorio.
For a moment, he did not know what to do.
It was almost imperceptible.
A man feared by hundreds of people stood completely still because a woman had embraced him without asking for anything.
Then his arms closed around her.
“My father loved her,” Vittorio said quietly.
“I believe you.”
“That is the part people do not understand.”
“I do.”
Love did not automatically make a person safe.
Katarina had learned that at considerable cost.
“My father believed loving someone gave him the right to arrange the world around her.”
Vittorio lowered his forehead to Katarina’s hair.
“I inherited many things from him.”
“Not everything.”
“I am capable of everything he was capable of.”
“Capability is not choice.”
Vittorio became still.
Katarina leaned back enough to look at him.
“If you ever decide that loving me gives you ownership of me, I will leave.”
The words frightened her.
They also felt magnificent.
Vittorio looked at her for a long time.
Then he nodded.
“You should.”
“No threats?”
“No.”
“No locked doors?”
“Never.”
“No sending Donato to bring me somewhere because you decided it was safer?”
A pause.
“That one is difficult.”
“Vittorio.”
“I am being honest.”
Katarina stared.
He sighed.
“No.”
She smiled.
“No.”
“No sending Donato.”
“Good.”
Vittorio touched her cheek.
“And if you ever become afraid to tell me no, tell Joanna.”
Katarina raised an eyebrow.
“Joanna?”
“She appears willing to hit me with office supplies.”
“She is.”
“I noticed.”
Their mouths met softly.
No urgency.
No claim.
When they separated, Katarina looked toward the easel.
It had been waiting since the first day.
She walked to it.
Opened the box of pencils that had belonged to her father.
Selected one.
And placed a clean sheet of paper on the board.
“What are you drawing?” Vittorio asked.
“I do not know.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Because not knowing means no one has decided for you.”
Katarina placed the pencil against paper.
The first line trembled.
The second did not.
She drew until after midnight.
When she finally stepped back, the page did not contain a face.
It contained a door.
Open.
Beyond it was only white space.
The next morning, Agent Ellison called.
They had found Elias Venn.
Or rather, they had found the hotel room where he had been staying.
The room was empty.
Inside the bathroom sink lay a Servino Holdings access card.
It belonged to Katarina.
The card she had lost 11 months earlier.
And beneath it was another note.
This one contained a telephone number.
May you like
And 6 words.
ASK HER WHAT CHASE STOLE FOR YOU.
