The sunlight in the Vomero apartment is a heavy, syrupy gold, catching the dust motes that dance above stacks of yellowed vellum. Beatrice Marenghi does not look up from her desk when the bell rings. She knows the sound of leather soles on the marble landing; it is the gait of a man who values his own time more than the silence of others.
Miller enters without waiting for an invitation. He is a man of sharp angles and expensive wool, looking entirely too clean for a city built on top of its own ruins. He places a heavy cream envelope on the mahogany surface, the weight of it displacing a stack of 19th-century birth certificates. The American, Vincent Hale, requires a lineage. Three generations, fourteen days, and a fee that would pay Beatrice’s rent for a decade.
This is more than a pedigree; it is a sanitization.
Beatrice adjusts her reading glasses, her hands steady as she surveys the retainer. The deadline is an insult to the slow work of the archives, yet Miller’s expression suggests he is not here to negotiate. He reaches for his bag, his movements rehearsed and efficient. Miller’s hand hovers over the brass latch of his briefcase.
