Page 110 of Roberto

Then…

On the sixth night…

Something happened.

47

It was raining slightly when my driver picked me up at 2 AM.

I paid him 10,000 Hong Kong dollars up front – our new arrangement for keeping him up so late for only a few hours – and he drove me to De Sade.

After five minutes of being unable to see anything through the rain-smeared windows, I grew restless.

“I’m going for a walk,” I announced.

“Mrm,” my driver mumbled sleepily as he continued to nap.

I exited the car and walked towards the end of the alleyway.

The rain was only a light drizzle. My suit would be fine, but the water would probably wreak hell on my Gucci shoes.

I didn’t care. If there was even achanceI could glimpse Mei-ling, I would have gladly thrown everything I was wearing into the ocean.

As it turned out, I got much more than a glimpse.

As soon as I reached the end of the alleyway, a figure appeared around the corner.

It was a woman in a trench coat and short black dress, her face only half-visible in the darkness –

Mei-ling.

And she was pointing her .22 Smith & Wesson at me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she hissed.

As soon as I realized it was her, joy shot through my veins like a hit of cocaine – or what I imagined cocaine would feel like, having never taken it before.

I was so overcome with relief and happiness I didn’t even care about the gun.

“Darling,” I whispered – although I said it in Italian:Tesoro mio.Literally, ‘my treasure.’

She probably had no idea what I’d just said, but the tenderness in my voice was unmistakable.

A flash of confusion passed over her face –

And maybe a tiny bit of longing.

“What are you doing here?” she repeated angrily.

“Should you really be showing that in public?” I asked as I glanced at her gun.

When I looked back up at her face, I could tell she was worried.

“There’s no one around,” she snapped.

“Will that stop a police car from driving by?”

She looked caught between anger and indecision.

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