Vendetta(34)

He nodded.

“She’s beautiful,” I said.

“She’s angry,” said Valentino dispassionately.

I reached out and pulled the next portrait toward me. Luca. He was sitting alone on a stoop, dressed in a black suit. His knees came up to his chest, supporting his elbows as he leaned forward. His shoulders were hunched, making his frame appear smaller, like Valentino’s. He was looking at the ground, at nothing, and his fingers were scraping through his hair, like he was trying to hurt himself.

I swallowed hard. It was difficult to look at it. I glanced at Valentino and found he wasn’t looking at it anymore, either.

“Pain?” I guessed quietly.

“Grief,” he replied.

“It must be difficult to look beneath the mask,” I said, my throat suddenly tight.

Valentino raised his chin. “No more difficult than it is to wear one.”

I pulled my hands back and straightened up as a wave of something unpleasant washed over me. I didn’t want to look at the portraits anymore. It was an uncomfortable feeling, staring into the darkest moments of someone’s soul without them knowing. “Do you think you wear a mask?”

“I’m wearing one right now.” Valentino smiled softly. “We both are.”

“It’s a sad thought.”

“Yes,” he said. “But sometimes I wonder about the alternative. Imagine if we had no secrets, no respite from the truth. What if everything was laid bare the moment we introduced ourselves?”

The idea swirled around my head. Hello, I’m Sophie. My uncle’s a paranoid loon, my father’s in jail for murder, and my mother buries herself in work to distract herself from her broken heart. I’m pretty sure I prefer cartoons over real life and I only have one real friend. I’m terrified of storms and I’m deeply suspicious of cats. I obsess over the cuteness of sloths and sometimes I cry at commercials.

“It would be terrible,” I confirmed.

Valentino smirked as though he had just listened to my embarrassing inner monologue. “Absolute chaos.”

I nodded, feeling subdued. Somewhere deep down I was trying to fight the sudden urge to burst into tears. As if sensing my inner struggle, Valentino afforded me a moment of privacy. He deflected his gaze and started to rearrange his sketches into a pile, until I could only see the one he was still working on. It was a man in maybe his midforties, dressed impeccably in a glossy dark suit and staring right at me from the page. For a heartbeat it felt as though I already knew him, that I had seen him somewhere before, but the moment passed, and I knew it was his son I was seeing. He was so like Nic it hit me like a punch in the gut. He had the same dark eyes with lighter flecks swimming inside, the same straight, narrow nose, and the same curving lips. His hair was gray in parts and receding, revealing a forehead etched with worry lines. His expression was grim.

“Seriousness?” I ventured.

“No,” Valentino said without looking up. “This one is Death.” I watched him smudge the edges. “I draw my father every day so that I’ll never forget him. But there’s nothing more to find in him now. He’s with the angels and he doesn’t need to wear a mask anymore. Everything he was is gone.”

“I’m sorry,” I offered weakly. It really was the only thing I could think to say, and still it didn’t seem like half enough.

Valentino shrugged, his expression matter-of-fact. “You can’t avoid the inevitability of death. It comes at you one way or another, and takes us all to the same place in the end. To apologize for it is to apologize for the sun shining or the rain falling. It is what it is.”

I wanted to tell him he was lucky for his pragmatism, but I didn’t get the opportunity. A door opened behind me. I noticed the smell first: a faint sweetness in the air.

“Valentino?” A man’s voice, crisp and gentle, followed.

I turned to find a slim, middle-aged man staring at me with surprise. His skin was olive and his hair the brightest silver I had ever seen. His eyebrows were so light I could barely detect them, but by the way they were denting his forehead, I could tell they were raised.

“Oh my,” he said in a faint accent. “Hello there.”

He advanced toward me like a well-dressed beanpole, his head tilted to one side. I didn’t know much about men’s clothing, but I could recognize an expensive suit when I saw one. It was black with thin pinstripes, and beneath it he wore a shiny gray shirt and a silk neck scarf. If he was burning up in the humidity, he didn’t show it.

He stuck out his hand and I took it; his handshake was cold and firm. The sweet smell was stronger now that he was so close; it was almost cloying. There was something vaguely familiar about it, too, but I couldn’t place it.