by Rachel Renee
“Taylor is the guy’s name. He used to work with the United States military but has since found out that he can get a lot more money by working with the foreign markets as well. He seems to be playing both sides and at the moment, and Paolo seems not to care about that. He wants the weapons. He wants the intel and is most likely paying a pretty penny for it.”
“He is,” she mumbles.
“You know all this already, don’t you?” I accuse.
“I do.”
“Why am I here? What is my purpose in this mission if everyone already knows what’s going on before I do?”
“I’m the only one who knows this. Well, unless you shared with Charlie. Now he knows, and probably Moretti as well. Those two share everything.”
As I stare at her, the person she is behind the mask starts showing a little more. “How do you know?”
“Niccolo, my mission is the same as yours, but also different. If I trust in you, you have to agree to keep who I am a secret. Charlie and Moretti cannot know. At least not yet.”
“They know you are in contact with Paolo.” I don’t know why, but I feel like I needed to tell her that.
“What? How?”
“Moretti came across an email chain of yours. Messages between you and Paolo have been discovered.”
Sophia’s eyes grow bigger and she sets her cup back on the table with a clunk. Speaking in Italian, in a voice so low I struggle to understand her, she begins pacing around the room. As she passes me, I can hear a few words and something that sounds like, “I was so careful.”
“They have nothing yet. The emails are not too incriminating. Well, that’s what they’ve told me. It is just the fact that you are in contact with him that they are worried about. Tell me, Sophia. What are you doing talking to Paolo?”
She stops pacing for just a moment, long enough for her to look me in the eyes before she begins again. The certainty that is usually there is lacking. “I was involved with him before anyone else came along. I am the reason everyone else is here. Why you are here.”
“What?”
“Yes. I was trying to get close to him—working this mission solo. He came onto me. I tried to keep him at bay but his advances kept coming and I realized if I didn’t do what he was asking of me, I may never get the information I needed from him. His wife caught us.” A few stray tears fall from her eyes and she wipes them away as her feet move back and forth across the floor. “It was terrible. I had to call the agency. I had no choice but to get back up. His wife decided to leave for a while and told him he better get his act together before she came back. I told him that I was through with our relationship. I never wanted to come between him and his wife. He was angry but he said he understood. If I’m being honest, I figured that once he took me to bed, he wouldn’t want me anymore anyway. I was not the first woman that Paolo took to bed outside of his marriage. I was just the one who got caught. I knew I was playing with fire, that I could be ruining my chances of getting his secrets, but I was also ruining my chances by not giving in. I had to take the risk. His patience was wearing thin.”
“It could have happened to anyone.” I push myself up from the couch, wanting to comfort Sophia. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than seeing a woman in tears. She notices what I’m doing as I approach and pushes me away.
“No, Niccolo. I am angry, not sad.”
I sometimes forget that tears happen for more reasons than just sadness. I brush off Sophia’s rejection of comfort and reclaim my seat once more.
“I haven’t seen him since then, well, until the Colosseum. That’s when he started contacting me again.”
“Why didn’t you tell us? Why keep this from the team?”
“Humiliation. It’s not easy for a woman to get to where I am within the agency. I screwed up and had to call men in to rescue this mission. I hate it!” she shouts. Seeing me wince causes her to apologize. “Niccolo. It is not your fault you are a man, just as it is not mine that I was born a woman. You just need to realize that it is so much harder for us to build up to what comes so easily for you.”
“I have never once thought of you as inferior to me or any other member of this team.”
“Maybe not intentionally, but you do treat me like I am glass at times. Allow me to do things that you wouldn’t a male counterpart.”
My eyes shut as I lean back on the couch. She’s right. I didn’t even mean to do it. “I’m sorry.”
“No need for apologies. Just remember that I deserve to be where I am and as a member of this team, and I want to be treated as an equal.”
“You’ve got it.” I sit up and turn into the direction I heard the voice come from.
Her lips turn down before she speaks again. “We’ve been sending messages back and forth. He’s asked me to meet up with him. I just can’t, Niccolo. Not right now. I’m hoping that I can lead him on long enough that we will have this case solved and Paolo will no longer be an issue.”
“I can understand that. Why not just tell the team so we can help counteract his advances?”
“Charlie and Moretti would need to know the other part of the story in order for me to do that. I will not tell them.”
“Fine. What do you want me to do?”
“Keep my secret and keep doing your job. You are leaving for university next week and the three of us will be here to keep Paolo in his place. We’ll be doing our part while you are doing yours.”
“If we all just confided in each other what it is we are working on, maybe we could solve this quicker?”
“Niccolo, there are reasons why each of us keeps the secrets that we do. We will continue to help each other without being completely forthcoming with our information.”
“Is this how it will always be?”
“Yes. Well, at least for me it has.”
It’s hard to hear her say that. When I signed up to be a part of the agency, I knew there would be some things that I would work on individually, but to have whole parts of missions completely out of my grasp—that’s not something I was anticipating.
Sophia finally takes a seat once more. The two of us finish up our conversation. I tell her about what I learned at the dinner and just as I did with Charlie, I left out the biggest secret of them all.
17
I’m packing up my bags, all the items I have acquired over the summer and the few pieces that I brought along with me when I started this journey. My suitcase is so full that it will barely zip. “Sit on this so I can get it past the mid-section.”
Sophia strolls over from the doorway and plops down atop the suitcase lid. The zipper moves easily as the two sides are now meeting perfectly together. “Thanks.” I smile down at her as she pops off the suitcase.
“It’s going to be weird with you gone. I’ve gotten used to having you around. Charlie and Moretti are so dull.” She laughs.
“Hopefully it won’t be too long. One of us has to come up with something soon.”
“Then you will be gone forever.”
“I’m sure I could come back. Work with you again.”
“Once this is over, we will not see each other again.”
“I don’t believe that”—her eyes widen—“really?”
“Can’t be risked.”
“That sucks.”
The team and I are planning to have dinner tonight. One last hoorah before I head to Florence. I’m so nervous that I may vomit. I feel like I did just as the plane landed in Rome all those weeks ago. I’m starting to get this agent thing down pat, but the thought of moonlighting as a college professor seems like an undertaking. My hand goes to my bag, reaching for that brown paper sack that I know is crumpled at the bottom.
“What are you looking for?”
“My sanity,” I answer with a grunt.
“You are plenty sane. Let’s go get some dinner. You’ll feel better.”
“I’m not really sure I can eat.”
“You need to.” Sophia grabs my wrist and starts yanking me towar
d my bedroom door.
“What’s taking so long?” The gruff voice of Moretti rings out through the hallway.
“Nic is having a panic attack,” Sophia shoots out as she continues to drag me out of my room and to the awaiting men.
My feet glide across the wood, my legs moving even though I don’t really want them to. “I’m not having a panic attack.”
“Stand back,” I hear from Charlie. “I’ve seen this before.” The smile on his face is so big that I’m sure his cheeks must be sore. He starts running toward the kitchen, no doubt for the brown paper bag he thinks I am in need of. Within seconds he is running at me, full speed with the brown paper out in front of him. “Here. I’ve got the solution.”
Ten feet from me, he trips over the decorative rug and slams to the hard floor just beyond it. The whole room is silent, and not one of us moves to help him for what seems like an eternity. After a loud gasp from the floor, we are awoken from the trance and I run over to him.
“You okay? That was a hard fall.” I grab ahold of his shoulder and feel him shaking beneath my hand.
His face turns up, tears in his eyes. He’s not crying, it’s laughter that has him vibrating on the ground. His voice is unsteady as he tries to tell me to take the bag. I don’t need it now though. The fall has taken me out of myself and I’m now focused on my make-believe dad.
“I don’t need it. Can you get up? Here, let me help you.”
I grab ahold of his hand and try to pry him from the ground. He is laughing too hard to move. “I haven’t had a fall like that in years,” comes out in between chuckles.
“Glad you can laugh about it.” I look up to Sophia who is now standing right behind me, then to Moretti who is bent down on the other side of Charlie.
Moretti grabs ahold of Charlie’s other hand and the two of us start to drag him up, his slightly overweight body harder to move than I expected. “Come on, get up.”
“I’d like to but I’m afraid my leg is broken.” He’s still laughing.
All eyes avert to his lower extremities. Sophia gasps from behind me, and Moretti clears his throat. “Yeah. I’d say it is.”
There is blood soaked through his khaki-colored pant leg. That’s not the only thing coming through them either. The splinter of bone is what ripped the pants in the first place. Moretti and I try to get Charlie to move, but it’s no use.
Moretti phones the ambulance and Sophia and I try our best to comfort Charlie until they arrive. I now realize that the laughter is from the shock—to hide the pain that he must be experiencing. Sophia has grabbed some towels and we’ve stabilized the leg the best we can without Charlie crying out in agony.
After ten minutes of waiting, and me worrying that Charlie is going to bleed out before medical care can get to him, there is finally a knock on the door. I get up to get it as Moretti has made himself scarce.
The four men in uniform have Charlie on the stretcher and out the door in less than two minutes. They operated quickly the moment they saw what they were working with. “I’ll come with you,” I told Charlie.
“No, no, you stay.”
Sophia is standing next to me, pulling on my arm. “I’ll go. You have a lot to do before you leave in the morning.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I will keep you posted.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, kissing her on the forehead and shooing her in the direction that the medical team just went.
Looking down at my attire, I realize that I’m completely covered in Charlie’s blood. Peering around, I see that so are the edge of the rug and the wooden floor. “Moretti, you still here? We’ve got some clean-up work to do,” I yell out into the apartment, not sure where he went off to.
Seconds later, he is struggling into the room with a bucket in one hand, the water sloshing all over the place and another bucket filled with cleaning supplies in the other. “I am prepared.” He laughs.
This is how we will spend my last night in Rome. Cleaning blood off the floor and rug in my apartment. Not how I pictured this night going.
After what seemed like hours of mopping up blood, scrubbing the rug, which thankfully was already a marbled grey and black piece, I was finally able to eat a bowl of cereal before drifting off for a couple of hours. With Charlie still gone, and probably unable to operate his vehicle, I asked Moretti to drive me the almost three-hour trip into Florence. I’m a little nervous that Santi will see Moretti, but as far as I know, only Paolo knows the guy. He was said to have dropped Santi off two days ago and is already back home, celebrating his son being away at school. Which means I won’t have to worry about him spotting the two of us together. Plus, Moretti didn’t seem fazed by my asking, nor worried about the fact that we might be seen together, so I take that as a good sign.
After loading up the Fiat, the same one that brought me to the apartment, it is now taking me away from it. At the rate the team is going, I will probably be back over the holidays, so I’m not saying goodbye to Rome for good, just yet.
Moretti and I sit in silence for the majority of the trip. I tried to turn on the radio at one point but he turned it back off. When I tried to have a conversation with him, he shut me down.
I don’t know what is going on, but I’m going crazy.
“Why can’t we talk? Or listen to the radio?”
“I’m thinking,” he grumbles.
“About?”
“You.”
“That’s creepy.”
He side eyes me and grumbles. “Not like that. You’ve made some moves but you are not getting to where we need you to be quickly enough.”
I feel the tension in my face as the words leave his lips. I know I haven’t gotten too far with Santi, but I feel like I’m moving at a pace that is natural. “What more do you want me to do? I’m trying to keep the connection with Santi natural. The more natural it feels, the more he will trust me.”
A noise that almost sounds like a snarl comes from Moretti. “I get that, but we need to move. There are things happening as we speak.”
“If you are in the know, speak up. I’d love to know what’s happening so I can do my job better!” I’m pissed that he has a problem with the way I’m working but hasn’t given me any indication that he’s going to spill the beans on what he’s working on or what’s happening that I apparently have no clue about.
“What have you been talking to Sophia about?” He asks as though I didn’t just yell at him.
“That’s none of your business.”
“It is if you want me to tell you what I know.”
I feel my face redden and the sudden urge to knock the guy upside his head comes over me. “There is always some sort of stipulation for me to get information about the case that I’m working on—with you. I thought we were all supposed to be working together. Seems we are four separate people working on the same case.”
“I need to know what you know. I’m your superior!” It’s his turn to yell at me. Moretti slams on the brakes, craning his head so that he is staring directly at me.
“I do not work for you. I work with you. I may be new but I’m not so stupid as to know that the only superior I have is all the way back in Savannah, Georgia.”
“That’s where you are wrong, Nic.”
“Listen, Moretti. I will happily work alongside you. I will happily give you information. I want the same consideration. As far as Sophia goes, if you want information about what she’s working on, you need to ask her. Her intel is not for me to share.”
Moretti sighs but silences himself once more. I stare out the window, frustrated at the turn of events. Moretti will not intimidate me into telling him what I know. I’ve given the information I want shared. If he wants more, he needs to be a little more forthcoming about what he knows. Such as the fact that he hangs out with Paolo Rubio on occasion. I’d love to know what he’s doing. He tells me that, I may just tell him about the entire weapons deal.
Thirty minutes away from Florence, and Moretti
hasn’t spoken again. I haven’t either. Until now. “You can trust me, Moretti. I will keep your intel, just as I keep Sophia’s. If you give me information that I can use, I will share what else I know.” Sharing an olive branch with my teammate.
Fifteen more minutes pass and I think Moretti is going to keep his secrets. “Guns. Santi is going to help his father recruit while at school. They’re moving guns and using American intelligence to find out where our military is shipping them, to get their hands on the weapons before our troops can.”
“Who’s the contact? I mean through our military?”
“Don’t know.”
“I do. Or at least have an idea. Rubio is working with a man named Taylor. Taylor is delivering the latest technology in weaponry to Paolo. Guess that is or includes what you’re talking about.”
“Taylor,” Moretti repeats. “Taylor. Where do I know that name?”
“He was at the dinner party. Older gentleman, early sixties maybe, leather skin, shaved head but full beard. Definitely military trained.”
“Yes! I know that guy. I’ve seen him.”
I’m wondering where. Possibly at the Rubio estate. “You ever been to Rubio’s?” Now’s as good a time as any to ask the question. “Maybe you’ve seen him around there?”
I see his eyes darting back and forth though his head points straight ahead. Is he going to lie to me?
“Yes. I’ve been there,” he deadpans. “That’s probably where I’ve seen him.”
“So, you know Rubio?”
“I didn’t say that I knew him. I’ve been to his place.”
“Did you meet him?”
“I’ve talked to the guy. Was there for one of his little parties.”
I know for sure he’s talked one-on-one with the guy. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Maybe they were at a party, but it certainly seemed more like he was visiting him privately, poolside. I don’t want him to know I know.
