Page 74 of Brutal Vows

“You have no idea.” I follow him into the office. Now isn’t the time to spill the beans to Benedict, even if he is my biggest confidante.

“You went for a ride?”

“Had to clear my mind.” I immediately spot Gabi’s Bible where it lies next to his keyboard, totally out of place. “This is it?” I ask, thankful for the distraction.

He picks it up and it looks odd in his hands, what with the leather binding and golden cross embossed on the cover. He opens the first page and shows me the inscription.

Randazzo’s handwriting. “Fuck. That gives me chills.”

“You’re telling me.”

But to think our mom paged through that very Bible; it makes it a relic in my eyes.

“Have you discovered anything yet?”

“No, not in here,” Benedict says. “I haven’t really looked at it.”

The statement hangs. He has discovered something. “Where, then?”

“I’m not sure. I need to dig deeper, but I think I’ve found Chiara.”

Wow. What? Some good news at the end of this clusterfuck of a day?

“You have?” I ask, not popping the champagne yet. Lately, everything has been a cautionary tale; this might just be another one. “Where?”

“I mean I found her online on some porn site. I have to show you.”

Fuck. That’s the last thing I want to watch right now. Not when I can still feel Milana coming on my hand as if we were at it minutes ago. “Oof, not now, bro.”

“Listen, it’s not what you think it is.”

I roll my eyes. “Porn is fucking porn, dude. I’m not in⁠—”

“Fuck, Luca, just shut up and let me show you.”

I raise my hands in surrender. “Okay. Jeez.”

Fucking tensions are running high everywhere and I don’t blame anybody. This thing with Gabi is a breach into our most sacred sanctum, and we won’t say it but we’re all freaking out.

Benedict opens some files he’s saved, and I’m already bracing myself.

“This is her,” he says as he presses play.

A woman’s moans fill the space as she’s getting fucked by two guys on the screen. She’s looking down, staring at the bottom guy, before she brushes her hair away to reveal her face and look over her shoulder at the guy giving her anal from behind. It’s so fucking staged, it gives me the ick.

“Just turn the fucking sound off already.”

He kills the sound. “Look closely and tell me what you see.”

“Jesus, Ben, I’m not in the mood. What is it?”

He pauses the video, changes the settings, zooms in. When he presses play again, it rolls at an agonizingly slow speed…and I spot it. “What the fuck? You’re sure it’s her?”

“I’ll make screenshots and check with Gabi. I’m about eighty percent convinced this is the Chiara Bellini Gabi spoke of. There are many Chiara Bellinis out there, but this woman matches Gabi’s description, as well as the image I sourced on an Italian church website for Catholic nuns.”

“It’s a deep fake,” I state the obvious. “The porn is a deep fake.” The body belonging to one person, the face to another.

“Yep. Begs the question who is this Chiara Bellini and does she really do porn? Does she even exist?”