Page 127 of Marcello

It all seemed like a dream…

The most beautiful dream I’d ever had.

I just prayed she would actually call me.

She was the one good thing that had happened to me in years, and I wasn’t sure I could take it if I never saw her again.

After a leisurely breakfast, I went down and checked out.

Turned out they’d added a 500-euro late charge to the bill.

Oh well.

It was worth it.

Cesare was blowing up my phone, but I ignored his calls. I checked every time, though, in case it was an unknown number –

But Giulietta was apparently playing coy.

I took an Uber back home, changed clothes, and then drove to the practice site. It was a condemned motel on the outskirts of the poorest suburb of Naples, half a mile away from any other buildings. The motel was on a dead-end street that fed into a shopping center that never got built because of the last big recession.

As soon as I parked my car and got out, I heard Cesare. He was screaming at somebody in one of the rotted-out motel rooms.

Cicciobello was outside, sitting on the hood of an SUV, smoking a cigarette and looking forlorn.

He also held a paintball gun. That was what we were using so we could actually practice shooting each other.

Plus, if a cop car rolled up, we could just claim we were having fun –

Not practicing to kill a bunch of gangsters.

As soon as Ciccio saw me, he brightened up. “Oh, hey! My cousin said you went to the rave!”

“Yup.”

“Didja get laid?”

I wasn’t about to sully my evening with Giulietta by telling Ciccio the details, so I lied. “Nope.”

“Why’d you get here so late, then?”

“I got trashed.”

“Ohhhh,” he said, nodding. “Well, at least you had fun.”

If he only knew.

The screaming from the motel room notched up another ten decibels.

I sighed. “How long’s that been going on?”

“All morning.”

“Because of me?”

Cicciobello shrugged. “Just Cesare being Cesare.”

“Mrm,” I grunted as I walked off.