Everybody Knows

by Karen Dodd

  The evening started out well enough. Nico arrived at Ariana’s apartment a few minutes early, a bouquet of yellow roses and a bottle of her favorite Sant’Anna di Isola Capo Rizzuto Doc in hand. He kissed her on both cheeks, but as he pulled away he was shocked to see how much weight she’d lost and the dark circles under her usually sparkling eyes.

  “It’s lovely to see you,” he said, not wanting to start an argument.

  She smiled, accepting the flowers and taking them to the kitchen. “And you,” she said, reaching for a vase. “You look well.” She watched him over the flowers, as he searched through a drawer for a corkscrew, then reached into the cupboard for two glasses. “Though you have a little less hair than when I last saw you.”

  The heat crept up Nico’s neck, and self-consciously, he touched his head. He didn’t know one other balding Italian man. Well, certainly not one in his late-thirties.

  “I like it,” she said with a grin. “Why don’t you shave it off and be done with it? It gives you a certain savoir faire. Especially with the scarf and the round glasses you insist you don’t need. You look like a younger version of Stanley Tucci.”

  “Stanley Tucci is handsome. He can pull it off.”

  “So are you. Don’t sell yourself short.”

  While Nico knew he wasn’t ugly, he’d never considered himself attractive. That perception had been further reinforced by his father, who’d referred to Nico as “un tipo magro—a little scrawny.”

  He put her wineglass beside her on the kitchen counter and retreated to a nearby bar stool to watch as she effortlessly pulled ingredients from paper bags and prepared dinner. Another time, he might have kissed her lightly on the back of the neck. But this evening, a certain tension hung in the air and he found himself second-guessing his actions.

  Nico sipped his wine, although he noticed Ariana barely touched hers, while they caught up on each other’s respective cases. He was both cognizant of not drinking too much wine and not broaching anything about Ariana’s new position that might set off an argument. He wanted to enjoy their short time together.

  After she’d tossed the salad and put a simple, but sumptuous meal of spaghetti alla carbonara on the table, Nico pulled out her chair and then sat at the table so they were kitty-corner to each other. He caught a whiff of her perfume. Yves St. Laurent Manifesto.

  “Saluté,” he said, raising his glass. “You said you had something important you wanted to speak to me about.” The sooner they got that out of the way, the sooner he could relax. Perhaps after dinner, he’d be able talk her into going out for pan di spagna di dipignano, her favorite dessert, and a limoncello or two.

  “Yes.” She laid down her fork and took several sips of wine. The glass shook in her hand, and she looked down at the table. When she looked up, she had tears in her eyes.

  Nico put down his own fork and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Ariana, what is it?” The way she was looking, it could only mean bad news. “Are you all right?” he asked, although he dreaded the answer.

  She shook her head from side to side, and swallowed hard.

  He reached for her hand and leaned toward her, his face almost touching hers. “What is it? Bella, you can tell me anything.” Had something happened with her job? Nico would be lying if he said he wouldn’t be relieved in some way if Ariana could no longer take up the anticorruption position.

  She gulped down half a glass of water and took a deep breath. “You’re aware of the threats I’ve been receiving.”

  “Yes, of course. Have they become worse?” He was determined to be supportive this time and not say I told you so.

  “Yes, but now they aren’t only aimed at me.” She reached for her water again and downed the rest.

  “Are your staffbeing threatened as well?” That would hardly be a surprise. Though he’d be loath to admit it to Ariana, his office had received more threats than ever since he’d lost that huge case.

  She pulled her hand away and tears streamed down her face. In all the years he’d known her, he’d only ever seen her cry once: when she’d received the news that her parents had died. And even then, as their only child, she’d stoically gone about making all the necessary arrangements. That was Ariana’s way; just get on with it. But to see her like this, he didn’t know what to do.

  He rose from his chair and gently pulled her into his arms. She was as light as a feather. “Come and sit over here.” After guiding her to the sofa, he returned to the table, refilled her water glass and sat down beside her.

  “Bella, what’s happened? Tell me.”

  Her face crumpled. “I’m afraid you will hate me forever.”

  “I could never hate you.” But dread, cold, like an otherworldly creature’s skeletal hand, gripped his chest. She’d been so distant or combative each time they’d spoken of late and against his better judgement, he hadn’t pressed for details about what was bothering her. “Ariana, you must tell me.”

  “I have a son,” she whispered.

  The hand tightened like a vice grip, as if it was squeezing the air from his lungs. “I don’t understand.” He drew away from her and sat rigid, the arm of the sofa cutting into his back.

  “He’s five years old. His name is Max.”

  He stood up too quickly. Dizzy and numb, he struggled to slow down his breathing. What was she saying? This woman he’d known for years was telling him something he couldn’t comprehend.

  How was it possible for her to have had a child for five years without him knowing? Then it hit him. That’s why she’d held him at arm’s length off and on over the past few years. She’d been conflicted about being unfaithful to the father of her child. It wasn’t that he expected her to be celibate now that they were no longer dating, but given how close they’d once been, this was a hell of a shock.

  “But you . . . we—” He stopped. “Are you married to him? Is that why—?”

  She leaped up. “No! It wasn’t like that.”

  “Really, Ariana?” She reached for him, but he shrank from her touch. “What exactly was it like?”

  “Nico, it’s complicated. I kept meaning to tell you,” she said, at last looking up. “But there never seemed to be the right time. You were so busy, and each case I worked on got more and more demanding.”

  “That’s ridiculous! I was never too busy for you.” All the times they had sat over candlelit dinners for hours on end, and she could never find the time to tell him something as significant as this?

  He felt the warmth creep into his face. He didn’t know if it was anger at being lied to by omission, or if he was embarrassed that he’d held out hope that eventually they’d be a couple again. What an idiot he was; she must have known he was still in love with her. And all the while she’d been involved with whoever was the father of her child.

  “He’s yours, Nico. Max is your son.”

  Just like that, her words smashed into him like a runaway train.

  “You had a baby—my baby, who I never got see grow into a toddler.” He railed with a force so rancorous it frightened him. “What kind of person does this?” he screamed at her.

  He grabbed his jacket and stormed out the door.

  “Nico, please, we must talk about this!” She reached for his sleeve, but he pushed her out of his way, causing her to stumble backwards. “Nico!”

  He ran down the stairs and out onto the street, heading straight to the bar he’d planned to take Ariana to for dessert and liqueurs, and proceeded to get so drunk he had no idea how he got home.

  * * *

  Nico woke up on his bed four hours later, facedown with all his clothes on. His mouth was the consistency of cotton wool and tasted worse. Trying to push back the pain of a pounding headache, he prayed he’d just had a bad dream. But it wasn’t a dream; this woman who he thought he knew had gutted him with one declaration—he had a son that she had kept from him for five years. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t wrap his head around it.

  He stumbled to the bathroom a
nd turned on the shower. After fishing in the medicine cabinet, he downed two headache pills with a glass of water, then peeled off his clothes and stepped under the hot water. He lost track of how long he spent there, sobbing, until the water ran cold, and he slid down the tiles into a heap on the floor.

  Wrung out, he’d climbed back into bed, and sometime before dawn he awoke feeling marginally better. He reached for his mobile on the bedside table to check the time. There was a text from Ariana.

  Coffee at Cannone, 11 a.m. Please, Nico, we must talk.

  With a sigh, he turned the phone over and dragged himself out of bed. Literally overnight, his life had been turned upside down, and Ariana wanted to have coffee. She’d insisted they have dinner at her apartment last night, but this morning she was willing to discuss a matter so intensely personal at the café across the street from his office? No doubt, Nico mused, because if things got out of hand, the owner and their friend, Sebastian, would be there to referee. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to do it, but Nico suspected it would be the last.

  He dressed quickly and let himself out of the apartment. He took the shortcut through the back alleys so as not to run into anyone he knew. All the while, he did the math in his head. What was the longest he’d gone without seeing Ariana in person? There certainly had been times when their mutual schedules hadn’t allowed them to get together, but how was it possible she’d been able to conceal her pregnancy? And more importantly, why? What was it about him that she wouldn’t have wanted him to be a father to his own child? Even if she hadn’t wanted to marry him, they could have worked things out. But that brought about another disconcerting thought; perhaps she hadn’t been sure that he was the boy’s father. What if Ariana had got it wrong?

  When he reached his office building, he pulled out his phone and texted her.

  I can spare ten minutes. Don’t be late.

  He yanked open the heavy wooden doors of his office building and ran up the stairs. Gina, his assistant, looked startled as he virtually exploded in the door.

  “Get me Olivia Piccioni, please.”

  “The family lawyer?”

  “Yes. And if she’s not in, leave a message. Tell her it’s urgent.”

  He slammed the door behind him. Before he met Ariana, he needed to be apprised of his parental rights.

  Chapter Three

  May 7

  * * *

  An hour later, Olivia Piccioni still hadn’t called back. Unable to focus on anything of significance, Nico propped his feet on his desk and opened the newspaper. Flipping past the sports and leisure sections, he went straight to page six. The page where the country’s legal cases, won or lost, were retried by the public.

  A Tiger Declawed? blared the heading under the byline of investigative journalists Ervio De Rosa and Vincenzo Testa—Italy’s version of Woodward and Bernstein. Usually, the journalists wrote their respective pieces under their own bylines, each delivering scathing rebukes on the latest corruption they had uncovered in their unique areas of expertise. Today’s feature though, written under a joint byline, was their most recent exposé of Calabria’s rampant money laundering and corrupt government officials. Nico’s bailiwick. As be began to read, he groaned.

  * * *

  Gazzetta del Sud

  May 7, 2019

  Contributors: Vincenzo Testa and Ervio

  De Rosa

  A Tiger Declawed? Can Calabria’s Special Prosecutor Rid Italy of Corruption?

  How confident can the citizens of Calabria be with Special Prosecutor Moretti at the helm of the challenge to Italy—reported to be the most corrupt country in the eurozone—to clean up its act? A man, it appears, who will walk away from one of the largest money-laundering cases of his career, as he might dismiss a pesky fly.

  Instead of releasing the stranglehold organized crime has on the infamous region of Calabria, politicians and others sworn to uphold justice appear to have tightened the noose. There is no better example than the recent supreme court case that was thrown out by Judge Claudio Bianchi, who is himself, the embodiment of corruption. Since he’s been on the bench, the state of Italian politics has taken a turn for the worse. And Special Prosecutor Nicoló Moretti has been complicit in letting it happen.

  Not only have elitist politicians turned a blind eye to a plethora of corrupt judges, but they steal from Calabria’s citizens in the form of taxes, then use their money to pay off the likes of Bianchi, who is well-known to have Mafia connections. What other country would allow someone like this to sit on any court of justice, much less the kangaroo court we call the Corte Suprema di Cassazione?

  To make matters worse, we taxpayers fund prosecutors like Nicoló Moretti, who in a shameful display of ineptitude, backed down from applying to have the judge removed and retrying the case. For those who might say, “Well, he’s won every case but this,” the question that should be on the minds of everyone is how significant were those wins? While the average Calabrian may not see daily reminders of organized crime, everyone knows it’s still there, buried in a shallow grave. Like the grim reaper, with his ghoulish claw lurking just beneath the surface. And what does our special prosecutor do? We’re not sure, as his office has refused our calls and has made no official comment.

  It would seem the citizens of this beautiful country now have to accept the ugly truth: that omertà, the Mafia’s code word for silence and honor, also applies to our supposed saviors—our officers of justice.

  Part 2 of this series will be continued next week.

  Wonderful. More stories about how inept he was and why his office is a colossal waste of taxpayers’ dollars. No doubt his superiors’ phones in Rome will be lighting up like the fireworks of Tropea’s famous Red Onion Festival.

  De Rosa and Testa’s piece put the blame for the flagrant corruption squarely where they believed it belonged: the prosecutor who had not only lost his edge, but had backed down entirely—Nico Moretti. His anger turned to a slow burn as he recalled his colleagues’ furtive glances when he’d returned from court that day. He’d wanted to shout, “And which one of you has a solid history of winning every case you’ve ever tried, except one?”

  His feet hit the floor with a crash, his chair slamming upright. The article lambasted him for not standing up to the judge, who had cut him down to size before throwing out the case. For God’s sake, he’d been prosecuting a known Mafia kingpin. One who happened to be married to the judge’s sister. He rolled up the newspaper and hurled it across the room. Just what he needed, to be in a foul mood before he was to have it out with Ariana.

  * * *

  After a fitful sleep, Ariana had arisen early, the horrible evening with Nico weighing on her mind. On one of the many times she’d awakened in the night, she’d sent him a text, pleading with him to meet her in the morning. But he’d either been asleep, or had chosen to ignore her. It was an enormous relief when he replied, albeit with a terse message. She deserved his anger, but in Max’s interest she needed to prepare Nico for what was to come. By this time tomorrow, the announcement she was preparing would be on every news outlet in Europe. Perhaps then, while he still might not forgive her, he would understand.

  She was in the middle of amending her notes at the apartment when the internet went down. Did anything ever work properly in this damned country? With a sigh, she gathered up her things and walked the few blocks to Cannone Square.

  “Hello, Sebastian,” Ariana waved to the owner as she strode into the café and took her usual table on the waterside deck. “I’m meeting Nico, but my internet is down again. Do you mind if I work here for a bit?”

  “Of course,” he replied, wiping down the bar. “Your usual?”

  “Yes, please.” After settling in, she opened her laptop and resumed revising her notes for the sixth time that morning. In her usual acerbic style, she had entitled the announcement, Government Officials Charged With Money Laundering and Corruption. Soon, the cancer that had been a parasite on her country—one that exten
ded from the upper echelons of government to the corporations that obscenely paid CEOs hid behind—would be over. Not even the senior members of her staff knew the exact nature of what she was about to expose. Of course, they’d played an integral part in the investigation, but she’d been careful that no one could know the sum of their work until she was ready. In part, it was for their safety as well as for the integrity of the case. This time, she would name names. This time, nothing could go wrong.

  Forty-five minutes and two doppio con lattes later, a few more people had entered the restaurant. She looked at her watch and considered using the downstairs facilities. The area carved into the rock foundation beneath Cannone Square had been an air-raid shelter during the war. Now, it housed two restrooms for café patrons. But she put it off, wanting to finish up her notes before Nico arrived. She wanted nothing to distract her; this could be the last conversation she’d have with him for some time.

  The previous night he had left in such a rage—so uncharacteristic for Nico—that he hadn’t given her a chance to explain. Having a mother as a prosecutor who was both revered and hated didn’t bode well for Max’s family life, so in order to keep both Nico and Max safe, she’d made the agonizing decision not to divulge her pregnancy. It was only going to be until things settled down and she’d put the diabolical individuals she was prosecuting in prison for life. When she thought of their names, she wished Malta still had the death penalty. Instead, taxpayers would have to foot the bill for the same people that had stolen everything from them.

  But as her office had shut the book on one case, another one—even more egregious than the last—had come along. And the time to tell Nico about Max never came. She’d kept putting it off with each new prosecution. They became more complex, the perpetrators more dangerous. Max was only a few months old when the death threats started. When, as an enraged Nico had pointed out, eviscerated animals were left at her door. People spray-painted vile, disgusting things on the outer walls of her office building, and she’d panicked. She bought the house on Gozo, using an alias, and fled there with her baby boy. Francesca, one of only two people who had known of her pregnancy, offered to live on the tiny island during the week and look after Max. She was Ariana’s research-assistant-cum-struggling-writer, and it was a perfect fit. There was no one Ariana trusted more than Francesca and Max adored her.