II. I don’t care. I sink down into the tub and let the hot water wash over me, trying to swallow my pride.
It doesn’t go down easy.
I think this is what younger siblings probably feel like. You’re always in someone else’s shadow, always in competition with them. Our parents aren’t even alive anymore—and our mothers were different people, in any case—but she’s still my fricking sister.
My younger sister.
I come out of the bathroom and eye the phone like it’s my oldest enemy. I taste bitterness in my mouth and curse this day, curse this moment, curse the fact that I even came to this damned country again. Then I pick up my phone and dial Sienna’s number. It goes straight to voicemail.
I hesitate a moment then dial the agency campus. I get the switchboard operator and give her my identification number, at which point she loosens up a little. I ask for Sienna and get routed to her assistant. She’s out of town, the guy tells me. I don’t really like him all that much, to be honest. He tells me she’ll be back in a few days; she’s on assignment for some other government department. Probably a boondoggle, I know. He tells me to try her cell, and rather than shove a lot of heated words across the phone lines, I just thank him and hang up.
I fall down on the bed, my bare ass sitting on a threadbare comforter. I feel suddenly uncomfortable wondering how many people have had sex on this exact spot, so I stand up and eye the comforter. I think of those black light investigations of hotel rooms and get nauseous—
I shake that thought out of my head and get back on point.
As near as I can tell, I’m screwed.
I’m standing in the capital of Italy, and I clearly don’t know what I’m doing. Little sister is out of reach, and the bad guy has killed my only lead and then run off into the night. A mystery woman has pulled some mystery shit and then vanished, and I’m left with a phone number my tiny fricking brain can’t figure out how to dial.
Talk about a stranger in a strange land.
I pull the comforter down and sit directly on the sheet. Somehow this makes me feel better, thoughts of a black light aside. Besides, it’s a single bed. How could anyone—never mind. Lust will find a way.
I’m reliving that memory of the villain at Guiseppe’s shop shouting something to his cohorts in Italian when a little bitty seed of an idea gets planted. I reject it as stupid and go on thinking for another hour, beating myself up all the while. But that idea keeps growing until I start to think maybe—just maybe—it’s a viable idea. And after another thirty minutes or so, when the clock almost reads midnight, I give up and dial the agency again, figuring I’ll at least ask. I get the operator again and make my request, having her transfer me to another number entirely.
12.
I open my hotel room door the next day to find Dr. Isabella Perugini looking at me over those wide-eyed, extra-dark sunglasses of the style that seems to be popular in America at the moment. Dr. Perugini would look good in those military birth control glasses, though, so this is not exactly a bold statement. She has that long-suffering look that I’ve come to expect from her, the one that drives my sister batty, but she shoulders her way into the room without so much as a “Buongiorno.”
I am okay with all this for one reason: Isabella Perugini is, without a doubt, the hottest woman on the agency campus. Bar none.
Not one of the guys has the balls to say it to her face—she’s pretty scary when angry—but we all talk about her behind her back. She is the perfect storm of fury when she’s mad, balancing on those heels that she wears, hiding her assets pretty poorly under that ever-present white lab coat and scrubs when she’s been at work for a long day. She can’t hide them that well, though, because she has what I heard one of the teens call—this was in the Directorate days, before the school got blown up —“a bangin’
It doesn’t go down easy.
I think this is what younger siblings probably feel like. You’re always in someone else’s shadow, always in competition with them. Our parents aren’t even alive anymore—and our mothers were different people, in any case—but she’s still my fricking sister.
My younger sister.
I come out of the bathroom and eye the phone like it’s my oldest enemy. I taste bitterness in my mouth and curse this day, curse this moment, curse the fact that I even came to this damned country again. Then I pick up my phone and dial Sienna’s number. It goes straight to voicemail.
I hesitate a moment then dial the agency campus. I get the switchboard operator and give her my identification number, at which point she loosens up a little. I ask for Sienna and get routed to her assistant. She’s out of town, the guy tells me. I don’t really like him all that much, to be honest. He tells me she’ll be back in a few days; she’s on assignment for some other government department. Probably a boondoggle, I know. He tells me to try her cell, and rather than shove a lot of heated words across the phone lines, I just thank him and hang up.
I fall down on the bed, my bare ass sitting on a threadbare comforter. I feel suddenly uncomfortable wondering how many people have had sex on this exact spot, so I stand up and eye the comforter. I think of those black light investigations of hotel rooms and get nauseous—
I shake that thought out of my head and get back on point.
As near as I can tell, I’m screwed.
I’m standing in the capital of Italy, and I clearly don’t know what I’m doing. Little sister is out of reach, and the bad guy has killed my only lead and then run off into the night. A mystery woman has pulled some mystery shit and then vanished, and I’m left with a phone number my tiny fricking brain can’t figure out how to dial.
Talk about a stranger in a strange land.
I pull the comforter down and sit directly on the sheet. Somehow this makes me feel better, thoughts of a black light aside. Besides, it’s a single bed. How could anyone—never mind. Lust will find a way.
I’m reliving that memory of the villain at Guiseppe’s shop shouting something to his cohorts in Italian when a little bitty seed of an idea gets planted. I reject it as stupid and go on thinking for another hour, beating myself up all the while. But that idea keeps growing until I start to think maybe—just maybe—it’s a viable idea. And after another thirty minutes or so, when the clock almost reads midnight, I give up and dial the agency again, figuring I’ll at least ask. I get the operator again and make my request, having her transfer me to another number entirely.
12.
I open my hotel room door the next day to find Dr. Isabella Perugini looking at me over those wide-eyed, extra-dark sunglasses of the style that seems to be popular in America at the moment. Dr. Perugini would look good in those military birth control glasses, though, so this is not exactly a bold statement. She has that long-suffering look that I’ve come to expect from her, the one that drives my sister batty, but she shoulders her way into the room without so much as a “Buongiorno.”
I am okay with all this for one reason: Isabella Perugini is, without a doubt, the hottest woman on the agency campus. Bar none.
Not one of the guys has the balls to say it to her face—she’s pretty scary when angry—but we all talk about her behind her back. She is the perfect storm of fury when she’s mad, balancing on those heels that she wears, hiding her assets pretty poorly under that ever-present white lab coat and scrubs when she’s been at work for a long day. She can’t hide them that well, though, because she has what I heard one of the teens call—this was in the Directorate days, before the school got blown up —“a bangin’
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