Rico only crossed his arms over his chest and braced his feet wide apart. “Let me see the dagger first.”
Gianni chuckled and shook his head. “This is what is wrong with the world today. No one trusts anymore.”
Amused, Rico pointed out, “Says the thief.”
“Touché, and yet it saddens me that the world has become such a cynical place.”
He hadn’t expected to almost like Teresa’s brother, but damned if he didn’t. “Makes stealing more difficult, does it?”
“There is that,” Gianni acknowledged as he carefully unwrapped the ancient dagger he’d stolen five years before. “This…is magnificent.” His gaze locked on the antiquity, he smiled as if watching a lover. “Intricate carvings, jewel-encrusted handle—but it’s the history behind this piece that sings to me.” He glanced at Rico. “And to you, I believe.”
“Yes,” Rico admitted, barely glancing at the once all important dagger. “It has been in my family for generations and we have all, at one time or another, felt the hum of history in that blade.”
Gianni nodded, still studying the dagger. “When I took this from you, all I saw was its beauty. The jewels, the gold.” He shrugged. “I am a mercenary man, trained to appreciate the finer things.”
“That belong to others.”
“As you say.” Gianni shrugged that off and continued while Rico listened, oddly fascinated. This should have been a short meeting. An exchange and then a fast goodbye. Instead, Teresa’s brother was acting as though they were old friends settling down for a visit.
“As I was saying,” Gianni mused, looking down at the dagger in his hand, “when I first took the dagger, all I saw was its worth. But I couldn’t bring myself to fence it. Couldn’t sell it. It became a part of my collection and also, it became a sort of talisman.”
“What do you mean?” Interested in spite of himself, Rico waited for an answer.
“As I held this dagger in my hands, for the first time in my life I felt the history of a piece.” He turned it, studying it thoughtfully. “And I began to see that I had not been taking things from people. I had been stealing away pieces of their lives.”