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“You didn't use the card,” Vittorio says, drawing my attention back to him. “You had a card of immeasurable value in your hands, and you didn't use it for anything.”
“Immeasurable?” I ask, furrowing my eyebrows. When the white envelope was handed to me, I didn't question it, because the Don had already told me it would arrive. But what does he mean by immeasurable?
“It's an unlimited card, Gabriella. You could have bought almost anything with it, and you didn't even buy a bottle of water.” His tone is amused, but my eyes widen.
“Unlimited? You should have warned me! I would have left it at home!” I protest, horrified at the idea that I could have lost it.
“Why would you leave it home?”
“What if I’d lost it?” I put my hand on my chest, feeling my heart speed up just thinking about the possibility, and Vittorio blinks slowly before focusing all his attention on me.
The Don stares at me like I'm the person at the table who isn't making any sense. What did he have in mind to give me an unlimited card? I carried it in my pants pocket, for God's sake! The thing could have been lost in the sand due to my carelessness.
Vittorio runs his tongue over his lips, moistening them, and rests one of his arms on the top of the round table between us.
“Don't you dare leave this property without that card,” he orders, seriously.
“But Vitto...”
I stop myself and my eyes grow even wider when I realize I was about to call him by his first name than they did when I realized I might have lost the millionaire card. Vittorio's gazebecomes hard and his nostrils flare. Of course, I had to find a way to irritate him. Congratulations, Gabriella.
“Sorry, sir,” I say with red cheeks and now, Vittorio clenches his teeth. “What I meant, Don, is that I might lose that card.”
“Do you need bags?”
“What?”
“Are there no bags in your closet?”
“Yes, there are.”
“Are any of them punctured?” he asks, and I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes.
“No.”
“Then you have your solution. If you leave without the card, it will be the last time you leave,” he warns in a definitive tone, and I exhale slowly so as not to huff. What kind of man wants a woman who isn't even his to spend his money? “Or do you have a problem with the origin of the money you are going to spend?” he asks, and my mouth opens when I realize that this hadn't even occurred to me.
From the mafia. The money comes from the mafia, and, consequently, from crime. I tilt my head to the side, thinking. How had I not even thought of that?
Seeing armed men walking up and down doesn't shock me, because it's something I was already used to. In fact, most days, Vittorio's men are much more discreet than the drug dealers on the favela where I lived as a child used to be.
While they walk around with rifles across their backs or golden pistols strapped to the front of their pants, Sagrada's soldiers, for the most part, don't even appear to be armed, eventhough I know they are. The Don himself is such a case. In all the weeks since we arrived, I've never seen his gun.
“I hadn't even thought about that,” I say honestly.
“And now that you have?”
“I suppose there are worse things.”
“Worse things,” he repeats and lets the silence pull up a chair and sit with us for a while, breaking it only to murmur something I can't hear.
I take the opportunity to finally start eating, because my stomach feels like it's about to start a revolution. It's funny how in a short time I just got used to eating all the time just because I have food at my disposal.
“May I ask two questions?” I can't keep my damn mouth shut.
“Three, then.”
“No, actually, only two. If I could ask, was the first.” He lets me see a gleam of amusement cross his eyes before nodding. “What is the mafia?” I ask.
