Nele Neuhaus - Swimming with Sharks

Just as she was checking her e-mails, Marcia transferred a phone call to her. It was Sergio. Her heart fluttered.

“I spent the whole night thinking about what you said,” he began, not even bothering to greet her, “and you’re right. What would you say if we scratch everything that happened so far and make a fresh start?”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Join me for dinner tonight, cara . Let’s talk about everything in peace and quiet. Please.”

A light was flashing on Alex’s telephone.

“I have one appointment after the other today,” she replied with hesitation. “The board of a new client from Texas is in town.”

Sergio couldn’t let her get away with such a lame excuse. Despite all of the doubts that Oliver had sown in Alex’s heart, Sergio was still the most important person in her life.

“I need to see you, cara ,” he said in a pleading tone that Alex had never heard before, “and I have a surprise for you.”

Alex hesitated. Sergio’s surprise could turn out to be a trip to Las Vegas or dinner in Miami.

“Okay,” she said halfheartedly.

“Wonderful. I’ll come over to your place at eight. Ciao, cara .”

The spacious penthouse apartment with a terrace and winter garden was located directly on Central Park West at Sixty-Sixth Street and offered a magnificent park view. Eight tastefully furnished salons on two levels were distributed over more than three thousand square feet. They were pure luxury, the dream of millions of New Yorkers. A single elevator led from the parking garage directly to the penthouse, and the all-around rooftop terrace was accessible from every room. A starry night sky arched across the city, and the air was mild and soft. The luxuriantly blossoming roses twining around a pergola exuded a bewitching fragrance.

Sergio observed Alex as she walked through the rooms in amazement and finally stepped out onto the terrace. He could tell she had spent the night with that guy again. Silvio had seen her arrive in a limousine at two thirty in the morning and walk into the building on Barrow Street. The hidden cameras that Silvio’s men had installed throughout the apartment recorded her doing it with this guy. Sergio watched the tape thirty times, listening in cold anger to what she’d said to him. “On that night it became clear to me that I didn’t feel anything for him. It was simply exciting to be with him. An excursion into high society.”

Sergio also heard what the guy had said, and the sheer desire to kill him had risen up inside of him. After much drama, Alex had left the house shortly after five and walked home.

While he and Alex had a sophisticated dinner at Le Cirque, Oliver Skerritt had a painful encounter with three of Silvio’s men. If someone had already found him, he was certainly in the hospital by now. With a feeling of spiteful satisfaction, Sergio thought about the images of Skerritt’s disfigured face Silvio had sent to his cell phone about an hour ago. The bastard would stay away from Alex in the future. He was pretty sure about that.

“Do you like the apartment?” He leaned against the open terrace door and looked at her.

“Are you kidding?” Alex turned toward him. “Who wouldn’t like such an apartment? Who lives here?”

Until three days ago, some other tenants lived here. But Sergio had them thrown out without notice so he could show Alex an apartment that she would definitely like.

“You mentioned once that you would like an apartment with a view of the park,” he said casually. He grabbed a bottle of champagne from an ice cooler. “And when I heard that this apartment was vacant, I thought of you. You can have it.”

Alex leaned on the railing and smiled. Her smile attracted Sergio like a compass needle is drawn to the North Pole.

“I can’t afford an apartment like this.”

“You don’t even know what it costs yet.” Sergio poured champagne into two glasses and held one of them toward her.

“Are you serious?” She tilted her head in disbelief.

“It’s a coincidence that the entire building belongs to me,” Sergio responded. “I would rent it to you for twenty-five hundred a month.”

“That sounds like a bad deal for you.”

“I never make bad deals.” He was standing very close to her. “So?”

She gave him a look that was hard to decipher. Her thick, glossy hair fell over her shoulders. She was so beautiful and desirable that he could hardly bear not to touch her. Strangely enough, he didn’t even care that she had slept with someone else not even twenty-four hours ago.

“When can I move in?”

This made Sergio smile. She had swallowed the hook.

“Today, if you like.” He took the glass from her hand. Before she could say a word, he lifted her up and carried her into the bedroom.

Long past midnight, as they were lying on the bed exhausted and breathing heavily, their sweaty bodies wrapped around each other, Alex remembered the things that Oliver had said about Sergio. She decided to take advantage of this moment of intimacy.

“Sergio?” She kissed his naked shoulder.

“Hmm…” He was lying on his back and smiling sleepily.

“I’d like to ask you something, but please only answer if you’re telling the truth.”

Sergio’s eyes opened wide.

“Okay.”

“They keep writing in the newspapers that your father was a Mafioso.”

“Yes, he probably was.” He turned his head so that she could see him better. “His bad reputation still haunts me today, as you’ve noticed. Unfortunately, people automatically think that you’re with the Mafia if you have an Italian name and are successful.”

“They claim that your father killed many people.”

Sergio looked at Alex pensively.

“I was nineteen when my father was shot,” he said slowly. “I think that he deserved it because he killed a lot of people.”

Alex shivered. “That sounds intense.”

“Intense?” Sergio grimaced. “My father was a hit man. He came to America from Sicily as a young man knowing nothing but tending sheep and handling weapons. He did that in order to survive, because legal jobs were hard to come by back then. Life in the 1930s was very difficult. Honest work was hard to come by and poorly paid.”

“Did you like your father?”

Sergio contemplated for a moment before he replied.

“To be honest, I don’t remember. I hardly knew him. He sent me off to boarding school when I was six. My brother had been killed, and he didn’t want me to get into any kind of trouble. For ten years, I just came home for Christmas. I didn’t move back to New York until after my father was dead.”

They lay next to each other in silence. Far below them, the city that never sleeps was bustling, and they could hear the muted sounds of street traffic.

“Have you killed anyone?” Alex asked quietly. Sergio looked at her with a spark in his eyes.

“Why do you want to know that, cara ?”

“There are so many stories in the newspapers,” she replied, “all these things about the Mafia and crime syndicates. I want to know if any of it is true.”

Sergio kissed her, gently disentangling himself from her, and got up. Somehow his naked body didn’t make him seem defenseless or ridiculous. He held himself with the nonchalant self-confidence of a classical statue.

“Is it important to you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said as she calmly returned his look, “it’s important to me.”

“Would it make a difference to you if you found out that I am all the things that the press claims? Would the past matter so much that you wouldn’t want to see me anymore?”