Chapter 5: The Saint’s Shadow

Mira’s room was a hole beneath the roof that smelled of lye, stale tobacco and rain leaking through crooked tiles. A mattress lay on the floor beside three wooden crates used as furniture and a chair with a torn rush seat.

Small objects had been arranged in the corners: pocket watches without chains, brass lighters and bunches of keys bound with rubber bands. None appeared valuable on its own, yet Mira had placed them with enough care to notice the absence of any one piece.

Leone collapsed onto the mattress. The slanted ceiling seemed to shift above him. His right arm was swollen, the skin around the wound tight and shiny, streaked with an unhealthy red.

Mira knelt beside him without speaking. She took a bottle of cheap liquor from a crate, opened it with her teeth and poured it over the wound.

Pain tore a groan from Leone.

“Stay still, mountain boy,” she said, wiping away blood and dirt with a gray rag. “If you pass out, I’m leaving you here.”

While she bandaged his arm with a clean strip of bedsheet, Mira kept glancing toward the door. Her body remained partly turned toward the exit, one knee positioned beneath her so she could stand quickly.

“Why are you helping me?”

“The dead don’t bring luck.” She tightened the bandage. “Besides, I like you. You’re different from the addicts downstairs.”

Her fingers stiffened around the knot.

Leone doubted affection had anything to do with it. She had tried to take the ring, and whatever she knew about the mark on his finger had been enough to bring him upstairs.

Before he could press her, footsteps sounded on the wooden stairs.

They were heavier than Mira’s and too steady for someone wandering through the building. Each step made the ceiling beams tremble.

Mira rose. Her hand brushed the brass key at her ankle before disappearing into the pocket of her hoodie.

Someone knocked three times.

“Mira. Come out. We know you’re in there.”

The voice was deep, thick with smoke and a guttural Cagliari dialect.

Mira glanced at Leone. Something exposed itself in her expression and vanished. “Stay down.”

She opened the door only a few centimeters and blocked the gap with her body. From the mattress, Leone could see a narrow portion of the landing.

A tall man in an oversized leather jacket stood outside, his nose flattened like a boxer’s. Behind him, a younger man kept his hands in the pockets of a sporty coat.

“Raimondo,” Mira said lightly. “The month isn’t over. Sardara knows the money comes on Tuesday.” “Old Sardara doesn’t care about Tuesday.”

Raimondo pushed the door with his shoulder, forcing Mira back.

“There’s movement at the port we don’t like. You were seen near the Customs containers last night. What did you take?”

“Nothing. A couple cartons of cigarettes from the open warehouse. Ask Efisio. I already sold them.”

Leone watched from the floor.

Raimondo wore a thick gold chain, heavy and conspicuous, but his shoes were worn through at the edges. The younger man behind him kept glancing toward the stairs and wiping his nose with his sleeve.

They lacked the controlled stillness of the man from Nivàra. Whatever authority they possessed seemed to end at the walls of that room.

Perhaps they had come on Sardara’s business. Perhaps they owed him money and hoped to find it there.

Leone pushed himself upright, catching the wooden crate when the room tilted. “She’s lying, Raimondo.”

Mira stared at him.

Raimondo looked Leone up and down: pale face, mud-stained clothes, bandaged arm. “Who the fuck is this? Your new protector?”

Leone had little more than the chain, the ruined shoes, the younger man’s unease and Mira’s reference to money. It was not enough to prove anything.

He chose a story and delivered it as though he already knew it was true.

“You’re not here because of the containers. Sardara asked for the week’s accounts, and you’re short.” He looked at the chain. “That isn’t yours, is it? You took it from the pawnshop on Via Roma two days ago.

Thought you could sell it before they noticed.”

Raimondo’s pupils narrowed. Behind him, the younger man took one quiet step back. For a second, Leone believed the gamble had worked.

Then Raimondo struck him.

The blow sent Leone into the wooden crate. Brass lighters scattered across the floor, and the metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. He tried to rise but found no strength in his legs.

Raimondo had not denied the accusation. He had answered it with his fist.

As the man stepped closer, Mira moved between them. She pulled a pointed shard of glass from her pocket and drove it into the back of Raimondo’s hand.

He howled and staggered away, blood running between his fingers.

“Get out!” Mira shouted. “Or I tell Sardara you came here running private shakedowns in his territory. You know what happens when someone touches his business without permission.”

The younger man caught Raimondo by the jacket. “Come on. Leave it. She’s crazy, Raimondo. Let’s go.”

Raimondo held his injured hand against his chest and stared at Leone. “You’re dead, mountain boy. You and her. I’ll find you before tomorrow.” The two men disappeared down the stairs.

Mira stood in the sudden quiet, breathing hard. She dropped the glass and wiped her fingers on her hoodie, leaving two dark streaks across the fabric.

Leone spat blood onto the floor and tried to sit up. The left side of his face had already begun to swell. He had seen Raimondo’s weakness and mistaken that knowledge for protection.

Mira stopped above him.

“You’re an idiot. You think you’re still at home?” Her voice shook with anger now. “Guessing something doesn’t make people here afraid of you.”

Leone had no answer.

“Now we have to move.” Mira crossed the room and picked up a canvas bag. “Raimondo will go to Sardara. Not because of the money. Because you embarrassed him in front of someone.”

“The Saint,” Leone said when she mentioned the men above Sardara. “Yes.”

As Mira tightened her grip on the bag, Leone noticed that the key was no longer tied around her ankle. She had moved it inside her hoodie.

“Who is Sardara?”

“The man who handles debts for the old man.” Mira opened the door and looked into the corridor. “If Raimondo tells him there’s a boy from up north with a ring mark, Sardara will understand. Then we’re both finished before sunrise.”

Leone wiped his mouth with the back of his good hand.

The next time he identified a weakness, he would need something the other man could not answer with a fist.

“Where are we going?”

“Down to the outbound pier. Sardara avoids one place there.” Mira stepped into the corridor. “Move, orphan. His shadow already reaches farther than ours.”