Arcadia Awakens by Kai Meyer

squealing.
    “Tano didn’t want us to come here,” she said abruptly.
    Alessandro glanced at her over his shoulder. Anger flashed in his eyes. For the first time she saw something in him that wasn’t just attractive, it was exciting, too.
    “If Tano has any objections,” he said with deliberate calm, “he’s welcome to come and make them.”
    He was about to walk on, but Rosa took his arm. A fine film of sweat gleamed on his bare torso, and the light reflected off it like gold dust on marble.
    “Wait a minute,” she said. “If you weren’t afraid of Tano, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”
    He pressed his lips together. Her faint hope that she might have been wrong burst like a balloon.
    “Yes or no will do,” she said.
    He hesitated for a moment and then nodded.
    “Because of the concordat,” she stated. “As long as I’m with you, Tano and his friends won’t touch you.”
    Another nod. A cautious one.
    “So I’m kind of your guardian angel. They can’t do anything to me no matter what happens.” This time Rosa didn’t wait for confirmation but forged straight ahead. “And they don’t want anyone knowing if they do harm you. If they kill you here on the island and get rid of the body. Those men down there aren’t Tano’s friends at all.”
    “Depends how you look at it,” he said. “But they’re not the killers Cesare has set on me.”
    “They’re not?” She frowned. “The girls ?”
    He nodded.
    “All three of them?”
    “Only the two who ran into the water. The third one’s harmless.”
    “But they can’t do anything to you while I’m around, is that right?”
    He sighed. “Look, I don’t want you to think I was—”
    “Shit, Alessandro!” She prodded him firmly in the chest with her forefinger. “Don’t try that emotional shit on me. Cesare and Tano wanted to get rid of you—that was their original plan. They were going to do it here, today.”
    “My family is split,” said Alessandro. The white villa shimmered in the heat haze behind him. “Half of them are on my side, the other half back Cesare. If it got around that he’d had me murdered, that would lead to the final break—maybe the downfall of the Carnevares. He hoped to do it here, without witnesses, so that it could pass for an accident, at least in theory. But you —well, you’re an Alcantara, so whatever happens he can’t touch a hair of your head. As long as you could tell the truth to my supporters—”
    “—you’re safe.” She finished the sentence for him. “Never mind what you find out here in the villa. About your mother’s death. And whoever was responsible for it.”
    He nodded again. “Yes.”
    She felt deceived and exploited, but she’d be damned if she was going to let him see it. Suddenly she wanted to cover up the bikini top that left so much of her on view, but her T-shirt was down on the beach. She took a deep breath.
    “Okay,” she said. “Is that all?”
    “No,” he said. “I like you. It’s the truth.”
    She swung her arm back and slapped his face. Hard.
    He didn’t move a muscle. “It is true.”
    She did it again. Then she looked at him for a long time without saying a word.
    Finally she walked past him to the entrance of the villa. “Come on, then. Let’s find what you’re looking for.”
    Ahead of them was an entrance hall with daylight flooding in from all sides through huge windows. Even the stairs up to the next floor were made of thick Plexiglas.
    “This way.” He led her through several rooms so white that she began to shiver in spite of the sunshine. The furniture was unique as well, with curving bowl-shaped plastic chairs, floor-standing lamps on complicated columns that looked like DNA models, rounded plastic shelving—all of it white with a touch of bright orange here and there. The psychedelic chic of the early Bond films. “My Death” was echoing in the back of her head again, and it seemed like it had been composed for this place.
    The house