Chapter 2 - Sixty Seconds on the Stone
The distance from the bakery to the corner of Via Marquez was forty-two steps.
Salvatore Romano walked those forty-two steps at the pace of an old man taking a Sunday stroll through a park. His long, black-gloved fingers held Sophia’s small, warm hand gently—not pulling her, not rushing her, but matching his long stride to her short, uneven steps.
Behind them, the black Mercedes rolled forward at three miles per hour, its tires making a low, rhythmic crunch against the damp gravel scattered over the cobblestones. The two SUVs followed, their engines purring like giant cats stalking through the fog.
Across the street, the man by the fountain—his name was Valerio Rossi, though no relation to the pharmacist—was trying to dissolve into the stone wall behind him. His hands were out of his coat pockets now. They were hovering near his stomach, trembling so hard that his fingernails rattled against the brass buttons of his jacket.
"Don Salvatore," Valerio stammered as the shadow of the tall man fell across his face. His voice was high, thin, reeking of sweat and cheap wine. "Don Salvatore... good morning. It’s... it’s a cold morning on Via Marquez."
Salvatore didn't answer. He stopped three feet from Valerio. He didn't let go of Sophia’s hand. He stood there, tall, silent, his coat blowing slightly in the cold breeze coming off the sea.
Sophia hid her face against the side of Salvatore’s hip, her small nose buried in the expensive wool of his trousers, but she didn't let go of his hand either.
"Don Salvatore," Valerio tried again, taking a tiny half-step to the left. "I was... I was just waiting for the bus. The number four tram is late today. I didn't mean any disrespect—"
"What is in your pocket, Valerio?" Salvatore asked.
His voice wasn't raised. It was a flat, conversational tone, the kind a man might use to ask about the price of figs at the market.
"Nothing, Don Salvatore!" Valerio cried out, lifting his hands immediately, palms out, fingers spread wide. "Nothing! Look! Just my tobacco! Just my paper!"
"Your right coat pocket," Salvatore said. "The heavy one."
Valerio swallowed hard. A drop of greasy sweat rolled down his temple, cutting a clean line through the dust on his cheek. His eyes darted toward the mouth of the alley twenty feet away. He was thirty years younger than Salvatore. He was faster. If he ran into the fish market, through the maze of wooden crates and wet marble slabs, he might reach the lower docks before—
Antonio stepped out from behind the Mercedes. He was holding an iron tire iron he had pulled from the trunk—a heavy, eighteen-inch bar of solid black steel. He didn't point it at Valerio. He simply held it by his side, his face completely devoid of expression.
"Take it out," Salvatore commanded. "With two fingers."
Valerio’s hand shook so violently he could barely find the opening of his trench coat. He reached inside, his teeth clicking together like dice in a cup. Slowly, using only his thumb and forefinger, he pulled out a small, silver Polaroid camera.
Beside it, caught in the strap of the camera, was a small black notebook bound with a rubber band.
"Drop it," Salvatore said.
Valerio dropped the camera. It smashed against the cobblestones with a wet, plastic crack. The back latch popped open, spilling three small, rectangular photographs onto the damp stone.
Salvatore didn't look down. He didn't need to.
The edge of the top photograph was visible near his left boot. It showed the entrance to Apartment 3B. It showed a seven-year-old girl in red shoes stepping out into the morning fog.
"Who paid you for those, Valerio?" Salvatore asked.
"Nobody!" Valerio wept, his knees buckling until he was nearly sliding down the dry wall of the fountain. "Nobody, I swear on my mother’s grave! I was just... I was just taking pictures of the street! I’m a photographer, Don Salvatore! I do weddings! I do communions!"
Salvatore turned his head slightly toward his driver. "Antonio."
"Yes, Boss?"
"The hands," Salvatore said softly.
"No! No! Please, Don Salvatore! Per l'amor di Dio!" Valerio screamed, dropping to both knees, his hands clasped together in frantic prayer. "It was Moretti! It was Don Carmine’s nephew! Marco! Marco Moretti! He gave me five hundred Euros! He told me to watch the girl! He said... he said they needed a leverage point against the dockworkers' union! They were going to take her on Friday!"
The street seemed to get five degrees colder.
Sophia felt the hand holding hers tighten—not enough to hurt her, but enough that she could feel the steel tendons beneath the leather glove lock into place like iron cables.
Marco Moretti was twenty-eight years old. He was the favored nephew of Don Carmine Moretti, the old ruler of the Northern Quarter. For three years, the Romano family and the Moretti family had maintained a bitter, fragile peace—a line drawn down the center of Via Roma that neither side crossed without three cars and ten armed men.
The Moretti family dealt in human cargo. They ran the brothels near the train station. They imported young women from the East and children from the refugee camps along the coast.
Salvatore Romano did not allow those things in the Southern Quarter. He killed men who sold heroin to schoolboys, and he buried men who touched children. It was the one law he had inherited from his father, the one line he had drawn in the blood of his own brothers twenty years ago.
"Marco Moretti," Salvatore repeated the name slowly, testing its weight on his tongue like sour wine.
"He forced me!" Valerio sobbed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "He said he’d break my legs if I didn't do it! I didn't touch her! I swear to God, Don Salvatore, I never touched her! I just took the pictures!"
Salvatore looked down at Sophia.
She was looking up at him, her large, dark eyes wide with a strange mix of terror and understanding. She didn't look at Valerio. She didn't look at the smashed camera. She was looking at Salvatore’s face, watching the gray eyes that seemed to have no light left in them at all.
"Sophia," Salvatore said softly.
"Yes, sir?"
"Close your eyes, Piccolina."
Sophia didn't ask why. She pressed her face back into his coat wool, squeezed her eyelids shut, and covered her small ears with her hands.
Salvatore looked at Antonio. He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
Antonio stepped forward. The movement was fast, professional, devoid of emotion. The heavy iron tire iron swung through the air with a quick, wet whistle.
CRACK.
Valerio’s right knee collapsed sideways at an angle that no human joint was designed to make. A scream tore out of his throat—a high, wet shriek that echoed off the shuttered windows of Via Marquez like a dying pig in a slaughterhouse.
Before he could fall completely forward, Antonio brought the iron bar back across in a horizontal arc.
CRACK.
The left kneecap shattered into forty pieces.
Valerio hit the cobblestones face-first, his mouth open, gasping for air that his lungs couldn't hold, his legs twanging like broken guitar strings against the stone. Blood, thick and dark, began to seep from his crushed trousers, pooling around the broken plastic of his camera.
"Get up," Antonio whispered, leaning down until his scarred face was two inches from Valerio’s ear. "If you scream again, I’ll take your teeth with this bar."
Valerio bit his own tongue so hard blood ran down his chin, but he didn't scream again. He lay there, twitching, his fingers tearing at the moss between the cobblestones.
Salvatore reached down and picked up the black notebook that had fallen from Valerio’s coat. He flipped it open with his thumb.
Inside were four pages of dense, handwritten notes. Dates. Times. Addresses.
Page 1: Maria Benedetti—Pension check arrives 3rd of the month. Heart condition. No family left.
Page 2: Sophia Benedetti—Leaves for school 6:45 AM. Returns 3:15 PM. Path: Via Marquez -> Alley of the Fishmongers -> Via Garibaldi.
Page 3: Drop point—Warehouse 14, Lower Docks. Friday, 7:00 AM.
Salvatore closed the book and slipped it into his inner breast pocket, right beside his leather cigar case.
He looked down at the bleeding man on the ground.
"Tell Marco Moretti," Salvatore said, his voice carrying clearly to every shuttered window on the street, "that Salvatore Romano has picked up the child’s school bag today."
He tapped Sophia’s shoulder gently with his black-gloved finger. "Open your eyes, Piccolina. We’re going to be late for class."
Sophia opened her eyes. She didn't look down at the floor. She didn't look at the dark red stain spreading toward her shoes. She looked straight ahead at the long, gray stretch of Via Marquez, her tiny hand tightening once more around Salvatore’s gloved fingers.
"Okay," she said.
May you like
They walked away together.
Behind them, the black Mercedes rolled slowly over the broken Polaroid camera, the heavy tires crushing the plastic and film into black dust against the stone.
