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“Are you asking me or thanking me?”
“Thanking you.”
“Then you’re welcome,Bella mia. You're welcome.”
CHAPTER 54
________
Gabriella Matos
Two days have passed since Vittorio gave me access to the Internet and two days have passed without me doing anything really useful with it. I keep telling myself that later I will use it, that later I will figure out a way to turn it into the answer to at least some of the questions running around in my mind, but that “later” never really comes.
At least thirty times I have already decided that the admission I will make to myself today will be to acknowledge out loud why I continue to postpone making this decision and at least thirty-one times I have already decided, five minutes later, that it was absurd for me to force myself to do such a thing.
“You know that looking at your phone won't make it move with just the power of your mind, right?” Rafaella asks as she enters the kitchen with a pile of sheets folded in her arms.
“Ha, ha, very funny!” A smile forms at the corner of my friend's lips before she shrugs and answers me.
“I thought so.” Rafa transfers the bedding she had in her arms to a basket on the counter. “Alright. If we're not trying to develop telekinetic powers, what are we trying to do?”
“Nothing?” She raises an eyebrow, making it clear, without saying a word, that I didn't convince her. “Gathering courage,” I admit.
“To do what, exactly?”
“Look for my sister.” Rafaella blinks, and her surprised reaction isn't exactly unexpected.
I've never talked about Raquel so openly before, about anything about the life I left behind in Brazil, actually. Rafa licks her lips and turns her face from side to side before she opens her mouth and closes it. My friend leaves the work she was doing, walks around the kitchen island and sits next to me at the counter.
“This is important.”
“Yes.”
“And it can't be easy.”
“It isn’t.”
“Do you need help?” I laugh without humor.
“I need courage.” Rafa scratches her throat in a sound of disappointment.
“I don't even have that for myself, my friend.” Her sincere answer makes me laugh. “Cell phones and the internet aren’t going anywhere, Gabi.”
“Not even the truth, right?”
“Not even the truth,” she agrees.
“I don't think I'm going to find anything, and I don't know if that scares me more or less than finding something.” Rafaella nods. “But honestly, I don't think it's any of those things that's stopping me from looking. I'm afraid of breaking his trust,” I admit to my friend what I hadn't yet admitted to myself.
“The Don’s?” she asks, and I nod my head feeling foolish.
Pleasing Vittorio has become such an ingrained reflex in me that the mere idea of doing something that might displease him makes me prefer to do nothing.
“I think he was aware of what he was doing when he gave you access to the Internet, Gabriella. And to be very honest, I highly doubt that there isn't a tracker on that cell phone that tells Don Vittorio every step you take on and off the network. Still, if it worries you, you can just ask him.”
“And then he'll be able to say no.” I make the second admission of the day, and someone should bring me a prize, because this must be some kind of record. Rafaella is silent, and I fold my lower lip into my mouth before biting it.
“Yes.”
