Page 117 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
Before going out, I type a message to Enzo and hitsend. Gabriel is asleep, and you have keys. Please come if you have the time.
About ten minutes later, there's a brief knock on the door, and Enzo steps inside, sleep evident on his face. "I'm here," he says quietly.
I nod. "Can I go out?"
He doesn't ask, not in the way he would have five years ago. He simply dips his head. "Be safe."
I take a coat from the hook by the door and slip outside. The air bites sharply at first, then warms against my skin.
The security detail assigned to the perimeter says nothing when I pass through the gate. They know who I am now. Or rather, who I used to be.
I hail a taxi with cash I'd tucked into the lining of my coat—a habit from another life.
The driver does not ask questions when I give him the name of the neighborhood.
He only nods and drives.
The city unfolds around us in layers of stone and scaffolding. People bustle through markets, shout across alleyways, hang laundry between weathered balconies. Nuova Speranza never changes. It only forgets who was here last.
The car slows when we reach what remains of the Lombardi estate.
There is no gate anymore, only rusted hinges and weeds.
The front courtyard is cracked and empty, the fountain choked with moss and silence.
The house itself is nothing but a shell now, a skeleton of its old glory. Fire took the roof. Rain took the rest.
But I don't walk toward the main house. I walk to the servants' wing.
The door creaks, the hinges sighing like they remember me.
I step inside.
Dust lies thick on the tiles, but the space is intact.
Luciana's bed is gone. So is the old trunk at the foot of it.
But there are still scraps—a faded scarf I remember her wearing in winter, a book of recipes stuffed into a kitchen drawer. There is a letter pinned to the corkboard near the stove.
The date is from two years ago.
Aria,
I am leaving this letter, and if you ever come back, know that I am alive, but gone. I am leaving this place. There is no life in it with you gone. I will take a job with Doctor Rivetti in Altavilla. He says he needs help with the patients. I told him I don't know much about medicine, but he said what I do know is enough. If you come back, if by some miracle you live through this, you can find me there.
Please. Just find me.
L.
Altavilla.I know the town.
A fishing village not far away.
It's known for being cold and quiet, so definitely the kind of place you go when you don't want to be found. I take the note, fold it into my coat, and leave the house the way I came.
The next cab takes me further south. Along winding roads and through salt-heavy air. The doctor's address leads me to a modest building nestled between two olive groves. There is a small plaque by the door. No receptionist. Just a bell. I press it.
Luciana opens the door, sees me and clasps a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out in surprise.
