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“Good luck,” I say wryly. “I’ve been here two years, shopping at the same stores all that time, and my grocer still treats me like an outsider. You’re never truly considered a local unless you speak Venetian.”
“I’m working on it. Ah, here we are.”
The restaurant is small, and if I’m being honest, not that great. It’s empty inside. There’s only one person in the place—a sour-faced man who seems to be the proprietor, cook, and waiter all rolled into one. The pizza is lukewarm, and the wine has an odd taste. I eat everything on my plate, but it’s only because I’m really, really hungry.
Gemma doesn’t seem bothered by either the food or the surly proprietor. She orders a carafe of vino sfuso and keeps filling my glass every time it’s half empty. By the time we’re done with the food, I’m more than a little unsteady on my feet. “I’m drunk,” I tell her with a giggle.
She smiles at me. “You are,” she says, signaling the man for the check. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
My knees feel wobbly as we get up to leave. When we head outside, my head starts to spin, and I have to cling to the side of a building for a second until the wave of dizziness passes.
The sun set while we ate dinner, so it’s dark outside. Castello is one of Venice’s quieter neighborhoods. The Grand Canal is brightly lit no matter how late it is, but the streets here are shadowed and spooky. Fog descends over the canals, and it feels like it’s going to rain. After the stiflingly hot restaurant, the fresh air feels glorious.
Home. Home would be nice. Climbing into bed, hugging the pillow, turning on something dumb on TV. It’d be nicer if I had something to hug that wasn’t my pillow. Like my sarcastic yet protective new partner. But our date is tomorrow, not today, and anyway, calling him because I’m not feeling super great is veering into relationship territory, and I’m not going to do that. He’s made it pretty clear that’s not what he wants.
It takes my wine-addled brain a few minutes to figure out that Gemma is walking next to me, even though she lives in the opposite direction. And then a little longer to realize that she probably means to walk me home, a thirty-minute walk out of her way.
“You don’t have to come with me,” I protest, swaying a little. God, my head feels like it’s going to detach from my body and float away. “I’m fine.”
She gives me a probing look. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I lie.
“Well, at least sit down for a little while.” She leads me down a narrow street to the waterfront. We’re a five-minute walk from the nearest vaporetto stop. Maybe I’ll take a vapo home, I think as I sink down on a stone bench. It’s dark here. The streetlight is out, and the air itself feels hushed. I lean my head back and close my eyes.
I must have drifted off. When I wake up, Gemma is nowhere to be seen. I grope for my phone to see how long I’ve been asleep, and there’s a bunch of increasingly worried messages from Tomas. I start to text him back, but my fingers feel numb, so I call him instead.
He picks up on the first ring. “Ali, thank fuck.”
“That seems like a very un-Tomas thing to say. You’re always so calm and collected.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour.”
“I went out to grab pizza with a friend.” My mouth feels wooly. My entire body is in rebellion. I try to stand up and my legs give out. Back to the bench I go.
I’m half-expecting him to interrogate me about my friend, and I’m thinking of a snappy retort—something about him being jealous, maybe—but instead, he says, “What’s wrong with your voice?”
“Have I ever told you that you’re hot?” A boat is pulling up to the dock in front of me. Its lights are out, and the engine is cut. I frown. Something doesn’t seem right about that picture, but I can’t figure out what.
Tomas’s tone sharpens. “Ali, where are you?”
I look around to give him a landmark. Two guys are climbing onto the dock. They’re dressed strangely. It’s still the tail end of summer, but they’re wearing caps pulled down low. No, not caps. Ski masks. That’s weird—it’s far too warm for skiing.
“It’s far too warm for skiing? What the hell does that mean? Ali, where are you?”
I have just enough time to say, “These guys are wearing them,” before one of the ski-masked guys knocks my phone out of my hand and sends it flying to the canal.
He steps right up to me, a wicked-looking knife shining in his hand. “I thought she was supposed to be unconscious,” he complains to his partner. “On your feet, signorina. We’re going on a trip.”
30
TOMAS
The moment I finish teaching my class, I text Ali.
She doesn’t respond.
Which is a little weird. I thought she’d be itching at a chance to remind me I now owe her a hundred thousand euros.
