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‘Even if it’s true—which is up for debate—you’re telling me he made you believe that it was your fault? That you can’t—?’
‘I said draw your next hand.’
The next round was more heated, with Dani using her best tricks to ensure she won. She knew she was a damn good card player, even if it was an utterly ridiculous game.
She met his eyes across the table. ‘Time for your most shameful secret, Mr Marchesi. And it had better match mine.’
Valerio sat back in his seat, still feeling the tension within him from her revelation. He wiped a hand down his face, wishing they’d never started playing this game. She was just giving him as good as she got—she had no idea how many secrets he held in. But she had asked to know before...about Rio. Maybe this was his chance to share his burden with her. He only hoped she would be able to handle it.
‘Valerio, you don’t have to answer,’ she said quickly, obviously taking in the change in him. ‘I’ll choose a different question.’
‘You answered yours,’ he said simply. ‘I have no problem continuing to play by the rules. My most shameful secret is easy. Most people believe me to be some kind of hero, but the reality is that I’m the opposite. I’m a coward. It was my fault that your brother was killed and I will never forgive myself for that.’
‘Valerio...’ she breathed.
‘No. You asked me for the truth once before, and I walked away. You deserve to know how he died.’
An unbearable pity was there in her deep brown eyes as she nodded once and gestured for him to proceed. He felt her attention on him like the warm heat of the sun, watched her delicate hands folding and unfolding in her lap as she waited. They both knew this wasn’t just a game any more.
‘I followed him to Rio when he asked me not to. We were attacked by a van full of men and taken,’ he began, hearing his own voice sounding out perfectly clear in the night air, as somewhere deep inside his chest ached. ‘I woke up in a shipping yard, surrounded by men in black hoods. They roared questions in a Portuguese dialect that I couldn’t even begin to understand. Duarte was tied up beside me for a while but then they separated us. They were far more interested in him than me.’ In his mind, he remembered the solemn look on Duarte’s face as he apologised for dragging him into such a mess... He swore he would get them both freed. That he had a plan, but he made him vow to protect Dani if anything happened to him.
But for days on end they had tortured him and Duarte in turn, in front of each other, never allowing him to speak, only Duarte, using their loyalty to one another against them.
‘Days passed... They tortured me for fun. I didn’t have anything else they needed. I had already offered them money... After they broke my knee and I could no longer fight back, they got bored. Then they mostly just left me alone in the dark.’
He heard a sob and looked up to see that Dani had covered her face with her hands, but he had to finish this while he could. He owed her this story, even if he knew it might break her to hear it. He hoped she was strong enough.
‘Eventually they lost their patience. A man brought Duarte in and held a gun to my head. Someone asked in English how much his friend’s life was worth. But one of the guards who I hadn’t seen before turned his gun on the others. He freed us both before they killed him. I had a gun in my hand but I hesitated. I had the chance to end it and I didn’t. They shot Duarte by accident. I saw the panic in their eyes once they realised. They debated shooting me too but got disturbed by someone outside and just knocked me out instead. When I woke up, Duarte’s body was gone and so were they.’
Valerio remembered staggering out of that shipping yard. He was found on the street. When the police came, they found tracks leading to the dock—evidence that a body had been dumped in the water. Washed out to sea. They’d dragged his friend’s body away, denied him a proper burial.
He shook his head as if coming out of a daze.
‘You know the rest.’
He felt a warm weight on the seat beside him and felt himself cocooned in the soft comfort of her intoxicating scent. She leaned her head against his shoulder, her sharp breaths telling him that she was crying even though she hid her face.
‘Thank you,’ she said simply, and then she allowed the silence to stretch on for a long while. She seemed to know instinctively that he couldn’t speak any more, that he needed to just...be...for a moment.
No matter how many times he allowed himself to access those memories, they always seemed to hit him with the same force. The look on Duarte’s face as he’d realised they weren’t getting out of that shipping yard alive. The look of pure hatred in the masked men’s eyes as they’d tried aga
in and again to beat him into submission.
Every single moment was like a pinprick in his skin, every vision a reminder of what he might have done differently, how he might have saved his friend’s life if he’d not hesitated that split second.
After a long time Dani sat up and turned to him, her eyes a mess of smudged make-up.
‘Lie,’ she said, an echo to their earlier game.
‘Is that your attempt at a joke?’
‘I would never joke about what you went through. You came back alive—you survived the unimaginable. But the way you tell that story... It’s as though you feel you were to blame for my brother’s death. As though you could have saved him if you’d done something different. You’re lying to yourself. Punishing yourself for surviving.’
Valerio looked away, his jaw tightening with anger. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I know that you’re a good man. That you would have done what you believed was right. You were under so much pressure—’
‘Stop.’ He stood up, fury and resentment choking him, making him want to lash out. ‘You blame me for his death just as much as everyone else. Are you telling me you have never wondered how I survived when he was clearly the more experienced fighter? You think I don’t know what people say about me behind my back? You’ve had the luxury of grieving him without knowing the details, without having them permanently etched in your memory as a lifelong torture. Do you think you can just pull me out of my life, tie me to a bed and order me to get back to work...go back to living my life? Do you think I can just switch any of this off?’
