Novel Palace
Chapter 18
She might not have changed the channel, but that didn’t stop the complaining.
“I’m hungryyyyyyy.”
After five minutes of her whining, I stopped to get gas at a tiny, out-of-the-way gas station. While I did that, she went to the restroom.
Before we left, I bought a bottle of water and a cheap charging cord for my phone to stick into the cigarette lighter.Belongs to NôvelDrama.Org - All rights reserved.
Lucia got an energy drink and an armful of junk food, which she proceeded to eat with her shoes off and her feet up on the dashboard.
“I’m BORED,” she announced.
“Too bad,” I said.
“Can I watch something on your phone?” she asked as she picked it up off the ashtray.
“NO,” I said. “I need the GPS. Plus, I don’t have anything on my phone.”
“There’s this thing called ‘the internet’ where you can download stuff. Have you heard of it, Boomer?”
“Put the fucking phone down,” I snapped.
“It’d probably take forever to download anything, anyway,” she grumbled as she looked at Google Maps. “Which mountains are we going to?”
“The Dolomites.”
“Oh,” she said absentmindedly.
“You’ve heard of them?”
She shot me some side-eye. “Of course.”
They were a relatively famous mountain range inside Italy.
“Dolomites…” she muttered to herself. “That’s such a weird name.”
“It’s because the mountains are made out of a mineral called dolomite,” I explained. “It’s – ”
“Didn’t ask,” she said, not looking up from my phone.
I gritted my teeth and thought about strangling her. It was becoming my go-to fantasy for getting through the drive.
“Why there?” she asked. “Why not the Alps or something?”
“The Dolomites are part of the Alps.”
She rolled her eyes, then looked at me like I was boring her beyond comprehension. “Okay – why are we going wherever we’re going instead of someplace cool?”
“Because I have a cabin in the Dolomites where we can stay the first night.”
She perked up. “Oh – like, a ski chalet?”
“No, not like a ski chalet.”
She frowned. “So… like a hunting lodge or something?”
“You should reduce your expectations quite a bit.”
The cabin was something I’d bought with my own money. The family’s purchases tended towards the grand side of things – unless we were buying safe houses. Safe houses were in case our men were attacked and needed to hole up somewhere, like Adriano had done in Florence. With safe houses, we tended towards the low-key and unremarkable.
But my cabin was something I’d wanted for me and me alone. I went up there a couple of times a year to get away from my family. I loved them dearly… but sometimes I needed a break. To relax.
Although Lucia was 180 degrees in the opposite direction from a ‘relaxing break.’
“What do you mean, ‘stay the first night’?” she asked suspiciously. “Why not stay there for a while?”
“It’s possible my uncle or cousin knows about it. Not likely, but possible.” I had bought it three years ago while Fausto was still my father’s consigliere, and I’d told the entire family when I purchased it. It was possible Fausto or Aurelio might remember. “I think we should stay one night, then move on.”
“Why the mountains in the first place? Why not Paris?”
“For one, we shouldn’t fly or take a train. Too dangerous. And I’d like to stay close to Venice so we can get to your grandmother quickly. And finally, the mountains are remote… not many people… and we can move through the forest without being detected.”
I didn’t say it out loud, but in my mind I added, Plus there’s lots of cover if anybody starts shooting.
“Great,” she grumbled, but she didn’t bother me any more about the Dolomites.
She just bothered me about everything else.