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“Have you seen Caterina?” I ignore her comment.
Gia pauses. “No?” she says, the word a question.
My heart is in my throat.
I run back to the kitchen, where Sal and Gia are sitting with Luna. “Your sister is missing,” I growl at Sal.
He frowns. “No way. That’s not possible. Where would she go? Don’t you have guards?”
“Yes,” I snap. I grab the phone to dial Nico, but to my surprise, the phone rings.
And, it’s Nico.
I pick it up. “Boss,” Nico’s voice resonates through the phone.
“What?” I snap.
“Someone here to see you down at the gate.”
I glance back at Gia. “You’re coming with me.”
She nods. “Okay. So is Sal, then.”
“Fine, Gia. Whatever you want,” I sigh. On the way out, we ask the housekeeper, Lucia, to play with Luna.
Luna seems fine with this, once Lucia smiles at her.
Sal, Gia, Nico and I walk out of the house. We’re part the way down the driveway when I notice that there’s something unusual at the edge of the drive.
For one, there’s a car I don’t recognize. It’s what people would call a ‘classic’ American car, from a bygone era. Tacky and loud, as most things American are, but in good condition.
Two of my guards have their weapons up, trained on the man leaning against it. As we get closer, I get a better look at him.
He’s tall. He has brown hair, the scruff of a beard, and blue eyes.
And he’s staring at me like I’m something he’s waited a long, long time for.
I sigh. I don’t have time for this. Caterina is missing and I need to find her. I glance at my guards, who are staring at the man with confusion.
Why didn’t they just shoot him?
“Who the fuck are you?” I snap.
The man laughs. “Right, you’ll be Elio then?”
“You know who I am. I didn’t ask that. I asked who the fuckyouare,” I signal to Nico, who moves behind me. I can feel Sal at my right, and Gia next to him.
The man gives each of us an assessing look. His eyes are the light blue of the sky, and they give his face a ghostly appearance. Altogether I find him unremarkable to look at, except for one thing.
His tattoos.
They crawl up his neck, spiral out down the sleeves of his shirt and wrap over his hands. I certainly have my fair share of tattoos, as do many in my line of work.
It’s often impossible to go without them, and we wear them as marks of who we are, even when we cannot mark ourselves with clothing.
If you have nothing but your skin, you still can never leave.
However, this man’s are not just tattoos that cover his skin. He does not have skin. He only has ink. Every spare part of his body, it seems, except his face, has some form of tattoo on it.
