Chapter 79

Mafia Kings: Valentino: Chapter 79 I ran back to the east side of Ortigia – back to the tourists and sunbathers and people who didn’t have a care in the world.

I found Isabella and Ludavica in the same spot I’d left them. They were laughing and drinking white wine as they ate fried calamari.

Isabella looked at me in surprise. “Why are you back so early?”

“He ran out of steam and needed some oysters for stamina,” Ludavica joked.

“Lu!” Isabella scolded her but laughed all the same. “Where’s Paolo? He said he had to talk to you.”

I sat down opposite them, leaned over the table, and motioned them to come close enough that no one around us could hear.

“I need you to NOT react when I tell you something,” I whispered. “Do you understand?”

Both Isabella and Ludavica nodded nervously.

“I’m serious,” I growled.

“We’ll be quiet,” Isabella promised.

Ludavica nodded. “Promise.”

“Alright.” I paused. “Paolo’s dead.”

Both girls’ eyes widened in shock, but they stayed true to their word: neither gasped or cried out.

“What happened?” Isabella asked.

“He tried to blackmail me for a million euros.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. He said either my family paid him, or he was going to tell your father about me and Caterina.”

The color drained from Isabella’s face. “Does that mean... that you were the one who...”

She trailed off, but I knew where she was going.

You were the one who killed him.

I nodded.

Isabella was silent for a moment.

I thought she was going to freak out – start screaming and call me a murderer –

But instead she asked, “Is Caterina okay?”

Her concern for Cat touched me.

The fact that she was even thinking about her revealed a lot about who Isabella was deep down.

“She’s fine,” I said. “But we have a big problem.”

“‘We’?” Ludavica asked angrily.

“Lu,” Isabella hissed.

Ludavica shut up.

“What’s the big problem?” Isabella asked me.

“I need to make sure he disappears, if you get my drift.”

Isabella frowned. “Can’t you just tell Papa he attacked you?”

“In a hotel room? Registered in Caterina’s name?”

“...oh. Yeah, I guess that won’t work.” Isabella got a look of grim determination on her face. “What do you need us to do?”

“Stay here at the restaurant. Just keep ordering food and drinking,” I said as I pulled out three hundred euros and laid them on the table.

“That’s all you want us to do?”

“Yes – but you’re going to have to keep doing it until after dark.”

Ludavica’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s a long time.”

“Yeah, but I can’t do anything until it gets dark.”

“What are you going to do?” Isabella asked.

“The less you know, the better. Do you have a phone number to call your father?”

Isabella looked surprised. “Yes, but do you really think that’s a good – ”

“Don’t call it. Not until I tell you I’m ready.”

“Why would we call him at all? Can’t you just drive the three of us back home?”

“I have to make it look like Paolo ran. If he ran, he wouldn’t leave us the keys.”

“...oh. Yeah, that would look suspicious. But why can’t we help?”

“Because when your father asks you questions, I need you to be able to lie.”

“I can lie to my father easier than you think,” Isabella said.

Yeah, right.

“I need you to lie convincingly, and it’ll be easier if you just stay here all night. You can say Paolo told you he had to take a call, then he left and never came back. The servers will be your alibi. If anybody asks them, they’ll say you were here the whole time.”

“What about you, though?” Isabella asked. “Where are you going to say you were, if you weren’t here with us?”

I grimaced. “I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“We can help,” Isabella said.

“Speak for yourself,” Ludavica grumbled.

Isabella shot her an angry look.

Ludavica rolled her eyes – but she didn’t say anything else.

Isabella looked back at me. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”

“For right now, stay here. I’ll come back if I need you.”

“Okay,” Isabella said quietly. “By the way, do you have him on his back or his front?”

I frowned. “What difference does that make?”

“Lividity. Gravity’s going to pull all the blood in his body to the lowest point. If you have him facedown, his face is going to turn purple.”

“...oh,” I said uneasily.

Paolo’s face being purple could potentially fuck up my plans.

“How long ago did you – uh, did all this happen?” Isabella asked.

“About half an hour. Why?”

“Because rigor mortis starts to set in one to two hours after death. After eight hours, he’ll be stiff as a board.”

“Shit,” I snarled.

That would definitely fuck up my plans.

I wished I was back home in Tuscany, where nobody cared about lividity and rigor mortis and shit like that. You just dug a hole in the olive groves and threw the asshole in.

“How do you know all this stuff?” I asked.

I figured she’d learned it from her father –

But I was wrong.

“I read a lot of murder mysteries. How were you planning on moving him?”

“I don’t think this is a good – ”

“You didn’t know about lividity or rigor mortis,” she interrupted. “You might be overlooking something else.”

She had a point.

“Well?” she prodded.

“Ever seen Weekend At Bernie’s?”

Her face twisted in confusion. “...what?”

“It’s a movie – never mind. I was going to grab a bottle of wine, pretend we were drunk, take him out to the water, go for a swim, and then weigh him down with rocks.”

“Eh – that’s risky,” Isabella said, like she was weighing the pros and cons of how to patch a tire. “If anybody sees you up close, it’s over.”

“That’s why I was going to wait until dark.”

“People could still see you, though.”

“Which is why I was going to have Cat provide a distraction.”

“Not bad... but I think it’d be better if you find a luggage shop, buy the biggest suitcase you can, cram him inside before rigor mortis sets in, and take it down to the water with you.”

“People aren’t going to think it’s weird I’m taking a suitcase down to the water?”

“Take a look around you,” she said. “Seriously – take a look.”

I turned to glance at the tourists strolling by.

In the crowd of hundreds, I saw at least six people wheeling suitcases behind them.

“This island is full of people heading to and from hotels,” Isabella said. “Nobody’s going to think twice if they see you pulling a suitcase around. But if they see you dragging around a guy who’s stiff as a board, they’re definitely going to have questions.”

Crap.

She was right.

“What about getting the suitcase down to the water, though?” I asked. “I’ve got to go down a bunch of stairs to get there.”

“I thought you said Caterina was going to provide a distraction.”

SHIT.

Everything Isabella was saying made sense.

“Be sure to get a suitcase with wheels,” she added. “It’ll be way easier to move him. And I’d get a hard shell – something that can’t get ripped on the rocks.”

“Okay,” I muttered.

“Leave a bit of the zipper open so water can get in. You don’t want it to start floating because of air trapped inside. Actually, maybe you should let it float until you get it out into deeper water, then open the zipper a few inches so water can get in. Once it’s deep enough, put a few rocks inside just to be sure.”

“I was going to weigh him down,” I grumbled.

I mean, I had thought of some things.

Isabella ignored my petulant tone; she was figuring out the specifics. “After you leave here, get the suitcase first. Don’t waste any time, because rigor mortis is going to set in fast.

“Once you’ve taken care of that, go buy two new sets of clothes and shoes – as close to what you’re wearing right now as you can find.”

“Why?!”

“The Mediterranean’s crystal clear. It won’t be an issue at night, but if you stow the suitcase too close to shore, people will be able to see it during the daytime.

“Which means you’re going to have to swim out far enough so nobody can see it – which means you’ll be drenched from head to toe. And people will remember a fully dressed, dripping-wet guy coming up out of the water.

“So you need one set of clothing to take the suitcase out into the water... and you need a dry set to change into before you walk back to the hotel.”

“Why can’t I just change into these clothes?” I asked, pulling at my shirt.

“Because you can’t have any salt water on them. My father might smell it when he questions you. Once you’ve had a shower, you can change back into these clothes and throw the wet ones away.”

“...oh.”

I had to admit, I was impressed. She’d thought through every angle – way more than I had.

She’d make a fucking great consigliere.

“By the way,” she said, “buy a suitcase that’s black, or gray, or a neutral color so it won’t look out of place on the seabed. Nothing red or orange. You don’t want it to be easy to see from the surface.”

“You sure you don’t do this professionally?” I asked in amusement.

“Like I said, I’ve read a lot of murder mysteries.”

“Alright... I guess I’m going with your plan.”

Hers was a hell of a lot better than Weekend At Bernie’s.

“Don’t forget to get rid of his license and anything else with his name on it, like credit cards,” Isabella whispered. “Wipe everything off before you ditch them so your fingerprints aren’t on them. And from what I’ve heard Papa say about cell phones, you need to remove the battery so the police can’t trace it.”

I’d already thought about that, but I thanked her anyway.

“Let us know if you need help with the distraction part,” she offered.

I nodded as I stood up. “Will do.”

“Good luck,” Isabella said with a sympathetic smile.

“Thanks.”

I was going to need it.