Chapter 40: Painting the Marble Floor with the Blood of Enemies
**...but the reaper doesn't know how to turn on a camera.**
06:00 AM — Aosta Police Station
The interrogation room is small and gloomy. A fake mirror occupies one of the walls, behind which the officer's superiors watch intently.
Officer Ricardo had more than 30 years of experience and could hardly bear to see that he was there. The man who single-handedly dominated Europe's biggest mafia. Thiago Blaze. Everyone in the Italian police knew his name. The night he killed all of Uncle Marcio and all his accomplices became known as *La Tela Rossa del Mietitore*. **(The Reaper's Red Screen)** The legendary night when the entire floor of Marcio Volpini's marble mansion was painted with the blood of him and his allies. Nobody saw Thiago Blaze leave or enter the mansion, but drawings of scythes in red are drawn on the walls and roads of Palermo. The forensic team said it was human blood, but could never link it to the dead. No one ever managed to catch the **Mietitore** (reaper) until he showed up at that cabin with a body. It was perfect. The cabin belonged to him. He had reason and he was spot on.
Police officer Ricardo saw Thiago Blaze as a promotion and his face was plastered in newspapers across Europe: *The one who made the biggest mobster confess.*
“Do you know why you are here, Mr. Blaze?” said Ricardo.
Ricardo sat in front of a metal table folders with several documents. On the other side of the table was Thiago Blaze, handcuffed to a chair. He wears a black suit and a black mask that covers his entire face except for his dark eyes.
“Sure” Thiago Blaze replied.
“So you hated your brother, Otto Blaze?” shot Officer Ricardo.
“What does Otto have to do with the conversation?”
"Answer!" snarled the policeman.
Thiago Blaze shrugged.
“I spent my whole life in Palermo. Otto was born after I went there. I have never talked with him."
"You did not answer my question."
“I didn't hate him” replied Thiago Blaze calmly. “I felt nothing for him. He was just a nine-year-old boy who lived in a world very different from mine.”
"A different world? Do you mean a world where people don't kill for money, power, and revenge? A world where people don't wear masks to hide who they are?”
“You don't know anything about me, Ricardo. You're just a mediocre narc.”
Richard actually laughed. Oh yes, he had caught the scythe of Palermo!
“We have proof. We have all the forest police as witnesses. We have your gun at the crime scene.”
“That gun was never fired” replied Thiago Blaze sincerely.
“That's what the forensics will tell us. But I understand you. That man kidnapped your little brother and you got angry, right?”
"No."
“He kidnapped your brother at your family party. That must have made you furious, right? I would be furious if I were a legend in the underworld. And then a mere mortal tries to kidnap my family in my face.”
"No."
“If you got mad, Mr. Blaze. I know you stayed. He tried to shoot his brother and then he kidnapped his brother. I would want him dead too, right?”
"Not really."
"Maybe you've lost control."
Thiago Blaze dismissed with his hands.
Ricardo slammed the table hard.
"Let's go. I know you love blood. They had to replace the entire floor in your uncle's house thanks to your painting, didn't they?"
Thiago Blaze stifled a yawn. He was bored.
Ricardo took a deep breath.
"If you didn't kill the shooter then what did you do?"
“I hid behind a tree and watched. I was following him and wanted to know who was behind Marcus' assassination attempt."
Ricardo placed both hands on the table and leaned over to Thiago. He looked deep into the mobster's icy eyes.
“You are a monster, Thiago. You are a psychopath. You have no feelings, no remorse, no conscience.”
“Why so many compliments? I should warn you that I prefer a pussy. Go horny in another place.”
Ricardo punched the table so hard it bounced. He was going to say something, but he realized that the reason he couldn't read Thiago was because his face was hidden in that mask. In a quick movement, Ricardo raised his hand to remove Thiago's mask. Ricardo then felt the table slide even faster to the side, pushing him back.
Ricardo's head hit the glass with such force that the sound startled the officers on the other side of the glass.
“YOU SON OF A BITCH... YOU ARE-”
A plainclothes policeman walked into the room.
Thiago Blaze was still sitting in the chair with a bored expression.
“You better see this,” said the pale policeman.
“This can wait,” spat Ricardo.
"NO. CAN'T” said a voice from the other side of the glass.
The plainclothes officer crossed the room and handed Ricardo a cell phone showing the report. All banks and police property, including vehicles, were being vandalized across the country. The scythe symbol was being drawn in blood all over the country. Italy was declared a state of public calamity after a series of criminal attacks, the newspaper's presenter said. Nobody knew where the attacks came from.
Ricardo (astonished) looked up from his cell phone at Thiago Blaze.
“Is there a problem?” asked Thiago Blaze.
At that moment, trouble came through the door.
Antonio Blaze.
He was still wearing his fancy suit from the masquerade party. Antonio Blaze advanced on Thiago cursing,
“You stupid brat!”
Thiago Blaze didn't move when he felt the strong blow to the head inflicted by his father. Blood trickled down his forehead, but he didn't move a muscle.
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?” spat Antonio Blaze.
“I didn't do anything” answered Thiago Blaze.
“Prove it!”
Thiago Blaze opened his suit and showed the camera attached to his clothes by a clip.
“You were filming everything?” asked Richard.
Antonio Blaze walked around Thiago Blaze and looked deep into his son's eyes.
"What happened?"
ON THE PREVIOUS DAY,
10 PM — Eleganza Beauty Salon, Aosta
Sunny Hirsch was frowning in front of the mirror. Between nearly drowning in Moonstone's hot pool, nearly fleeing the country, traveling to Aosta, and being made a farm worker, she hadn't had much time to take care of her hair. Even as she tried on the Chanel dress, she left her hair tightly tied up. She wanted to deal with the “problem” later and then the latter arrived.
“Who did it, honey?”
“The devil,” Sunny Hirsch replied.
"I didn't know Tom Ellis had become a hairdresser," said the hairdresser critically. He was a black man, with a beautiful smile and chocolate eyes. He was the only one in the room who spoke English.
"He's my boss,” said Sunny Hirsch.
The hairdresser frowned at the uneven blonde locks.
“Well, tell him to go back to hell because hair isn't your boss's talent… What do you think about trying to make it look like your hair is longer? I have a good trick.”
"What do you mean?"
“I call it the Hair of Troy. We throw in some slivers to make it look like there's something there... when there's nothing.”
Sunny Hirsch looked at her reflection in the mirror and nodded absently. The hairdresser's phrase repeated in her mind like a zombie. *Looks like there's something there...*
Scissors cut.
*There's nothing.*
More scissor cutting.
*There's nothing…*
“Excuse me,” Sunny Hirsch said loudly.
The hairdresser looked at her scared and said,
"Miss??"
“I need to make a call!”
“Who in God's name are you going to talk to now?!” asked the hairdresser.
“With the devil,” Sunny Hirsch replied, picking up her cell phone.
Sunny Hirsch picked up the receiver and called Thiago Blaze. He answered on the first ring.
"It's a trap!" whispered Sunny Hirsch.
"What?"
"Whoever is trying to kill your brother is going to try to frame you."
"Why?" asked Thiago Blaze in a monotone voice.
"Think about it. The Blaze clan is powerful. Your father has you and all of Europe. Who from the outside would dare to be so audacious as to hurt any of you? It can only be inside work. And to do this at the masquerade is to make it clear who is to blame.”
“If someone wanted to kill Marcus, they would do it in the dirt” Thiago Blaze nodded. “The masked ball is just a show for Antonio. I got it. Farewell.”
"Wait! You are not going to do anything?"
“Other than not killing my brother… no.”
“May I suggest something, sir?”
"No."
“You should use a camera. No one can incriminate you as long as you have proof.”
“The problem is that I always do things to incriminate myself” Thiago Blaze reminded her.
“Only turn on the camera when necessary. I will buy it for you.”
Long pause.
For a moment Sunny Hirsch thought he was going to say no, but Thiago Blaze finally sighed,
“Hm. I'm not good with these tech things.”
"I will help you!" she said excitedly. "Can you come here, sir?"
1 HOUR LATER
Sunny Hirsch felt the gentle touch of scissors in her blond hair as she looked at Thiago in the mirror. He was sitting in a chair beside her, holding the small portable camera she had given him. She smiled at his confused expression, trying to understand how the device worked.
“You just need to press this button here to turn it on and off. And this one for record and pause” Sunny Hirsch explained, pointing to the buttons on the camera.
“Hm,” he did. Despite not being good with technology, he was a quick learner.
“You're a quick learner,” praised Sunny Hirsch.
Thiago Blaze's black eyes looked up from the camera. He stared at her for a moment so intensely that she felt like she was going to burn alive in the fire of his eyes.
“About yesterday…” Thiago Blaze started to say but was interrupted by the hairdresser.
“We need to wash our hair now, honey,” The hairdresser said.
Sunny Hirsch rose from her chair and turned to Thiago Blaze. She took the camera from his hand and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
“Don't let them get you, Mr. Blaze.”