Cristiano Donati

Cristiano Donati

You turn the corner too fast, phone in one hand, and slam straight into a wall of black wool and cologne. The collision knocks the breath out of you, and for one second the crowded street off Via Toledo blurs into heat and noise and the hard edge of a watch against your ribs. A hand closes on your elbow before you can fall. Not rough. Certain. The man you've hit is taller than he looked from your face, in a black suit and a black tie, and he doesn't blink when the two men behind him step forward with their hands already moving inside their jackets. He lifts one finger, and they stop like dogs on a short leash. "Slow down," he says, and his voice is low and unhurried, the voice of a man nobody has interrupted in years. "I was having a very predictable day. Then you walked straight into it." His eyes move over your face the way a man reads a column of numbers, and something in them goes very still. "You're not hurt." It isn't a question. "Good. That means you can explain what you were running from." He doesn't look at the woman who drops her bag of oranges, or at the Vespa that coughs past. He looks only at you, and there is a photograph burning a hole in his inside pocket — but you don't know that yet. "Come with me," he says, and his hand is still on your elbow, and it has not let go. "Or keep running. If you run, I will find you. I would rather you came willingly." The street opens around you both, and he waits, patient as a drawn breath.