Page 18 of Don't Bite The Boss
“Hi, Pru, snap!”
“Snap what?”
“We are literally a few kilometres away.”
“I thought you guys were touring Tuscany?”
“We changed our minds,” she pauses, as though she is holding something back from me, and I narrow my eyes at the phone. I always know when Charlotte is being evasive.
“Charlotte, why haven’t you gone on your holiday? What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when we get there,” she promises, hanging up.
I pocket my phone as I see car lights on the horizon and make my way back to the mosaic work I was undertaking so happily before I was rudely interrupted. It crosses my mind to move the bodies, but I decide, on balance, that Nick needs to see their faces. He’s spent a great deal of time in and around the local townships sourcing building products and making deals, he might have some clue as to who they are, and who this Bruno guy is.
As it turns out, he does have a clue.
“But there was no drama on the boat?” he asks as he leans on a large stone stele the team had uncovered just last month and stares down at me, brushing and digging in my underground archaeological wonderland, “nothing to indicate this was coming?”
“What kind of drama, Nick? Stop being so bloody cryptic. Why should there be any drama?”
“Cosa Nostra,” Charlotte says, coming to lean next to him and wrapping her arm around his waist.
“Are you saying the mafia is on Tristan’s back?” I frown, a dozen little pieces of information, hints and murmurings from over the past months’ resurfacing and slotting into place in my mind.
“I’d say that’s who these guys are,” he nods. “They don’t like that a yank has come over and taken over the building in this area,” his voice becomes serious, “and I’ve lost countless men from the site as they make their displeasure known. I thought you knew.”
“Your men are dead?”
“No, just too scared to come back to work for us. When ‘The Families’ issue a warning over here, you listen to it, or you and everyone you love ends up at the bottom of the sea, feet encased in concrete. I can’t believe Tristan didn’t mention it to you.”
“I would have thought you would have figured it out anyhow,” Charlotte quips, brushing invisible dirt from her long, floral dress.
“No,” I shrug and look back down to my work, “how the fuck would I know that? I’m here every day.”
“And you’re sure the councillors didn’t say anything at your boat dinner the other night?” Charlotte asks quietly.
“What? Like, ‘by the way get out of Italy or blam, blam?’ No,” I snort, “although now that you mention it, some didn’t seem as friendly as I expected, and I saw Tristan having some low and serious conversations here and there. But mostly they were flirty, grabby old men.”
“Risking their lives, feeling you up,” Nick grins.
“You betcha,” I smirk up at him, “but luckily for them, I’d eaten. Which reminds me, Charlotte, why cancel your holiday? Were you worried about issues with the food supply?”
“No. Tristan’s been supplying me with blood bags, as he has you,” she frowns, ignoring my question, “Pru, you haven’t been snacking on the locals, have you?”
“Only the bad ones,” I shrug.
“And your boss,” Tristan’s voice pipes up from behind Nick and Charlotte, his arrival interrupting my imminent violent interrogation of Charlotte over why she cancelled her holiday.
“Boss,” Nick says, shaking his hand, “didn’t know you were back from France.”
“Yes, I’m back,” Tristan says, his voice subdued. “I thought I’d make a quick visit to my foreman, interior designer and landscape designer – it’s a happy coincidence you are all together here.”
“Not so happy,” Nick says, his voice deep as he nods towards the pile of bodies a few feet away.
Tristan stiffens and looks down to where I sit, looking up at him with a ‘what the fuck haven’t you told me?’ glint in my eye.
“Are you alright?” he asks quietly, his eyes scanning me from top to toe.
