Jess threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck, forcing herself not to recoil from a cocktail stench of booze, cigarettes and sweat. “You were right, nothing is more important than family.” She kissed him on the neck, forcing back bile in the pit of her throat, and kissed him again.
With Jess’s weight on him, Enzo took a few steps back to balance, moving back into the middle of the landing.
The guard who opened the door stepped away, raising his eyebrows and smiling.
Jess glanced at him and smiled back, taking a moment to size him up: slender, not more than a hundred and thirty pounds. Just a boy, really; he wore beige linen slacks with a white shirt stuffed in at the waist, a brown beret on his head cocked at an angle, his rifle slung carelessly over his right shoulder with the safety still on.
Enzo hesitated when Jess first threw herself at him, seeming to half-expect a punch in the face, but he put his arms around Jess. “Ah, so you are not angry?”
Jess stepped back, still keeping hold of his hand. Two hallways led off the landing; one extended to her left, with three doorways. She’d heard Hector whimpering over there. To the right an exterior door led to the terrace she saw from her room. “No, I’m not angry. You just took me by surprise. I didn’t know that was you in Rome.”
She glanced down the stairs. It led to a main hall where five men played cards on a table littered with empty wine bottles and overflowing ashtrays. This wasn’t a castello, it was more of a villa, a large house. Like the one across the valley from Castello Ruspoli.
“We talked about all this, in my Facebook emails, about the Ruspolis?” Jess continued. “Don’t you remember?”
A gamble.
Enzo’s brows came together in a frown. “Facebook?” The frown vanished, replaced by a smile. “Yes, the Facebook, of course. But why didn’t you say something before?”
“I was trying to do the same as you.” Jess squeezed his hand. “Seduce the Baron, get inside the castello, you understand.” She beamed her best high-wattage smile.
The frown returned to Enzo’s face. “You were?”
Jess leaned in to whisper in his ear. “But now, that’s all over. Come inside”—she nodded to the open door of her room—“and let me show you.”
“Show me?”
Jess nuzzled his neck, whispered into his ear. “Privately.”
Narrowing his eyes, he took a long look at Jess. “Private?” He looked at the young guard. “You took everything out of that room, yes?”
Enzo wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he wasn’t that stupid. He said it in English so Jess understood he didn’t trust her.
The guard nodded. “Yes, everything. Just the cot and blanket.”
“Okay.” Enzo nudged Jess forward. “Show me then.” He smiled at the young guard and winked as he followed Jess into the room, closing the door behind them.
Walking into the middle of the room, Jess sat on the cot and pulled the blanket over herself, patting the spot next to her and inviting Enzo to sit.
“So what did you want to show me?” Enzo asked as he sat down, reaching under the cover to hold Jess’s thigh with his left hand. He kept his right on the gun holstered on his hip.
Jess didn’t flinch, but overcame her revulsion and inched closer to him, putting her arm around him. “I wanted to show you that.” She pointed out the window.
Following Jess’s finger, Enzo squinted. “What, the window?”
“No, look at the sky.”
White fingers of light danced across the starry night sky, visible even from the bright interior of the room.
“What is it?” Enzo’s eyebrows came together as he squinted harder.
“Look closer,” Jess urged. “Auroras from a massive solar flare triggered by Nomad. We need to get out of here, Enzo. And look down at the water.”
Enzo stood and walked to the window to stare up. “So it’s true.” He leaned out and looked down. “Madre di Dio, where did the water go?”
While Enzo stared out the window, Jess was busy. Keeping her eye on him, she unstrapped her prosthetic leg under the covers. Quietly, she stood, balancing on one foot, holding the bottom metal rod of her leg with both hands, wielding it like a baseball bat. She swung her arms back, coiled her midsection around like a spring. “I heard what you said on the boat.”
Enzo still had his head out of the window. “What?”
“That you’d like to get my legs wrapped around your head.”
He pulled back from the window and turned. “You must have—”
Jess swung as hard as she could, cracking Enzo in the side of the head. He staggered and dropped to his knees, his head flopping as if it wasn’t connected to his shoulders. Taking a hop forward, Jess raised her club-leg and gritted her teeth. As he slumped forward, she savagely cracked his head again.
Panting, Jess wobbled on her good leg and sat back heavily on the bed.
With a shaking hand, she wiped a smear of blood off the top of her prosthetic, watching Enzo’s inert body, blood streaming from his nose, as she strapped her leg back into place. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you to be careful what you wish for?” she muttered under her breath.
34
ISOLA GIGLI, ITALY