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This isn't the first time I've heard these words used to refer to me. I ignored them before; I will ignore them now. Except this time, it's not other house staff being nasty for sport, and I realize my mistake when I bump into a hard chest that sends me backwards.
I manage to stop before I fall on my ass, but I swallow hard when I look up to see three men surrounding me. The three wear open shirts over a white t-shirt and long pants.
The one on the right has his hair cut close to his scalp, the one in the middle has blonde locks that fall over his eyes, and the third has dark hair long enough to be tied in a low ponytail at the back of his neck. They have bottles of drinks in their hands, and if that didn't give away their drunkenness, the smell of alcohol coming out of their pores would.
They are not as big as the men who accompanied Vittorio in Brazil, nor are they wearing suits, but there is something about them, something dark that makes me sure that they are not workers just arrived for the harvest, they are soldiers.
I grit my teeth, focusing on a way to get out of here. Maybe I can run faster than them. Perhaps. Not if they were sober, but drunk? It's a big maybe, especially with my feet hurting. However, it may be the only one I have. I've dealt with enough violence in my life to know that asking these men to please wouldn't be a solution. I take another step back.
“Il gatto ti ha mangiato la lingua?” The man in the middle asks and, nervously, it takes me a while to understand that the expression is the Italian version of “Did the cat get your tongue?”.
“No. The bitch doesn't speak Italian,” the man on the left responds and my heart accelerates, as if it knows what the next words are going to come out of his mouth. “I think we'll need to show what we want from her, talking won't help.”
I should shout that, yes, I understand them, I understand them perfectly, but my mouth feels superglued shut and my ragged breaths run over each other, trying to enter and exit through my nose. The man on the right takes a step toward me and my limbs react automatically as one of his hands grabs my arm.
I raise one of my knees, hitting his balls squarely, his eyes widen, first in surprise and then in pain. He didn't expect me to react, and his drunkenly impaired reflexes made him unable to react to my attack. His friend, however, delivers a powerful slap to my face as the man I hit falls to the ground. I'm next, feeling every inch of my cheek burn and hurt.
“Stronza[67]!” he curses, and a sob breaks through my throat without me being able to contain it.
I drag myself across the ground, pushing my body backwards, away from the men, and the dress bunches around my legs,exposing my thighs and scraping them against the roughness of the cobblestones. But if before I imagined that no words of mine would stop them, now I know for sure.
“Let's take her to the bedroom and teach the Brazilian whore some manners,” the man who hit me says, and my heart pounds in my throat while my eyes just about pop out of my face.
I shake my head frantically, denying it.No, no, no. Please, no. If you exist, God, please don't let them!I ask in my own head; however, he doesn't seem willing to listen to me tonight. I struggle, and finally find my voice.
“Let me go! Let me go!” I scream, forgetting my Italian when four hands touch my arms in an attempt to lift me off the ground. I push down, trying, at all costs, to make it impossible for them to move me out of my place.
“Tasi! Porca puttana[68]!”one of them says, but I don't know which one, completely lost in the effort to free me. I scratch at them and struggle, but against all my efforts they lift me up. And when the gaze of the man I hit between the legs meets me, the hatred I see makes me freeze.
I struggle harder and scream louder as I'm dragged to the edge of the path to the main house. My chest feels like it's about to explode from how strong my heart is beating, and that's when the bitter realization that I won't be able to stop them is about to spread like poison through every one of my veins that a voice, from behind us, sounds louder than my screams and the insults of my attackers.
“Che cazzo sta succedendo qui[69]?”
One of the men lets go of me and just turns his face towards the voice. He turns ashen, the alcohol affectation vanishing from his face is enough to make the others turn away too.
“Consigliere”the man I kicked says before swallowing hard, and the other two completely turn their bodies towards the newcomer. The one who keeps his grip around my arm forces me to do the same, and for the first time I face the mafia’s advisor. Rafaella told me about him, about his role in all of it.
The man has blond hair combed back, his eyes are dark, and he wears a suit and tie, but the coldness that surrounds him is the first thing to notice about him. Hope fights in my chest with the possibility that, instead of helping me, this man may decide to join in the plans of others. The three attacking me are filthy animals, but in relation to the one who is looking me up and down at this moment, there is something much more than lethal about him, there is something just dead. He continues his scrutiny, looking at the three men and pausing on the one whose balls I kneed.
His gaze lingers on the soldier's lower limbs for two more seconds, which are enough to register that the coward's attempt to maintain a normal posture failed. The advisor knows he is in pain.
The newcomer's observant gaze turns back, as if he could see, despite the poor lighting, the trail left by the weight of my body as I was dragged on my feet from the middle of the cobblestone path to here.
“I believe I asked a question,” he says in Italian when none of the three around me seem particularly interested in breaking the silence that has established itself since his arrival. The sound of his voice competes with the roar of my heart in my ears.
“Nothing happened,Consigliere,” the one who still has his hand on me responds, and the eyes of the blond in the suit go down my body again, mapping the ruined dress, the scratchedskin and, finally, the painful side of my face which is probably swollen and red.
“It doesn't seem likenothingto me.” Calm. Each of his words is spoken in an absolutely calm cadence.
“We're just celebrating the beginning of the harvest. We were about to take the party to the dorm.”
“And does your Don know that his newpetis your guest of honor?” I don't have time to take offense at being called a pet, because the relief that washes over me with his next words is almost as great as the apprehension and sweeps away any and all thoughts or emotions that were occupying my body. “Let's tell him,” he announces before stretching his arm towards the path to the main house and giving the order disguised as an invitation. “Gentlemen.”
CHAPTER 23
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Vittorio Cataneo
