#thread: ivan.

Valentino D’Alesio’s penthouse is grander in design than she’d imagined it to be. With the early morning sun hitting the windows just right, all the modern artwork and obscure referential paintings seem to come together to form one image. It’s impressive, it’s intense, it’s everything she would have imagined a man like D’Alesio to live in. But he didn’t really live here. He just haunted the place, from room to room, until it was time to go travel the world and preach the word of the Capulets.

Not anymore, though. She’d heard what Genevieve had said, read the email -- he’d fallen out of favor with Cosimo, for whatever reason, and now he was hiding. It was the perfect time to strike. She passes by a bust of Nero in the hallway (how pretentious) and peaks around the corner of a doorway. No family, no friends, lovers. Just poor little Valentino, living his entrepreneurial life all by himself. Miserable, sad, lonely. She wonders if he’s still asleep. If she could get away with sneaking into his office across the hall from the master bedroom and successfully open the safe with all of his Big Important Documents and get out without a fuss. Damiano hadn’t said he’d needed to be dead, after all.

She sort of hopes, in a grim way, that he’s awake. That she’ll get the excuse to dig fingers into flesh and yank until it’s clammy-cold. That’d be a way to start the day right. Wouldn’t even need a cup of coffee, after that. Or a cigarette. The nicotine patch at her elbow itches.

Down, down, down. Past the living room, the two closets, the door to the deck and his needlessly large pool. What is it with the wealthy and their pools, exactly? She’d had one. That’s beside the point. Down, down, down. She finally reaches the kitchen. It’s modern. A large stove, island countertop with what is likely genuine marble. All white-silver-gold-cream hues, matching the rest of this cursed place, which looks so synonymous with a museum she could scream. She hates museums because they are quiet. She ‘rounds the corner of the island and looks over the dining table to the windows that view Verona in all its glory. The dining table is made of glass. She immediately thinks of fingerprints.

A soft wheeze from right beneath her. And then Grace looks down.

And -- he’s dead.

Well, not quite dead-dead, but close enough that it’s basically over for poor Valentino, who is bleeding out on his kitchen floor in his underwear. His eyes are staring blankly up at the ceiling, glassy and full of fear. She follows his gaze. Nothing. His chest rises, slowly and not at all surely. Up for one second, down for five. Up for two, down for ten. There’s a knife lodged just below his right rib cage at a weird angle. There are other wounds, on his neck and chest. His phone sits, open and unlocked, not three inches from his hand. She kicks it away with her shoe. Sighs. Crouches.

“Did you do this?” She asks.