“Some good today, then,” I allowed as we broke apart and moved in tandem toward the house. “I’ll add it to my win with Rocco.”
“He agreed to back our plans for the city?”
“If I marry Mirabella Ianni.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
“Another fire,” he pointed out gently.
“Not afraid to get burned, Frankie,” I reminded him casually as we made our way into the kitchen at the back of the villa and out the massive glass doors.
The sight of them hit me like a wave, taking my thoughts out from under me.
Elena sat at the round wood table in the seat I usually took facing the citrus grove. She hadn’t curled her hair, the strands loose and wavy beneath a green, white, and red kerchief she was using to hold back the mass of it as she bent to cut rounds out of a zucchini. The strap of her white linen dress had slipped off one shoulder, the skin browning in the Napoli sun. She hadn’t noticed me yet, fixed on her task, but her mouth held wide by a genuine grin as Tore told her a story I recognized about my time spent in the villa as a boy.
He was leaned back in his chair with a glass of red wine held in one hand, the other telling his tale in tandem with his voice as it moved through the air in that quintessentially Italian manner. His face was creased with the depth of his smile, his aura utterly relaxed.
I couldn’t breathe for the beauty of the scene. My two favourite humans, the only two who loved me enough to fight for me, smiling together at the dining table, the rolling green mountains at their back, the soft strains of Andrea Bocelli playing in the background.
This was what I’d wanted since my mother died.
Exactly this.
A family.
A home.
Sensing me, both of them stopped almost simultaneously and swiveled their heads to look at me. My throat closed up as twin smiles broke open their faces.
“Dante,” Elena sung happily, more care-free than I’d ever seen her.
She opened her arms for me instantly.
“Figlio,” Tore greeted in that low rumble, tipping his chin at me.
“I’ll do anything to protect this,” I swore in a muted whisper to Frankie beside me before I strode across the red flagstones to Elena’s side.
When I bent to her, she offered her mouth without hesitation, my conservative girl blooming so fucking beautifully after only a few days of my love and validation.
My heart pounded slow and hard in my chest, each pulse heavy with awe and fear. I’d never had so much to lose and never been so unwilling to lose any of it.
“I missed you this morning,” she whispered in my ear after accepting my kiss. The words made her blush, but she powered through. “I ached for you.”
I kissed the top of her kerchiefed head and then coaxed her to get out of her chair so I could take her place then bring her down into my lap. She allowed me to manoeuvre her and settled naturally in my lap. Something on the table caught my eye, fresh cuts in the wood beside the muted tone of my carved initials ‘EDD.’ I leaned forward, taking her with me, to peer at the table and then swallowed thickly at what had been newly cut into the wood.
EDDS + ECL.
Edward Dante Davenport Salvatore had been joined by Elena Caprice Lombardi.
Emotion threatened to strangulate me.
When I looked up, my gaze snared on Tore’s golden eyes, his expression suffused with tender happiness. He liked this for me. Elena for me.
My heart burned.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Elena said, showing me the knife in her hand, her lips curled on one side in a little smile. “I didn’t like the look of it alone.”
“No,” I agreed gruffly. “This is better.”
“I have to talk to you,” I told her, leaning in to press a kiss to the hickey still purpling a spot on her neck. “Will you go for a walk in the grove with me?”
She frowned slightly, running a hand in the back of my hair in a way that made me want to fucking purr. She didn’t realize it, because she thought she was cold, but the way she offered me comfort was automatic and beautiful.
“Of course.” She stood, dropped the knife, and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Tore, I’ll finish the chopping for the ziti when we get back.”
“No ti preoccupare,” he said, no worries.
We shared a look over her shoulder as I stood and took her hand to usher her away from the house. His face smoothed out and turned to stone, his eyes alive with fire.
He knew what had happened to Marco.
He was just the best actor I’d ever known and had unwittingly passed that trait on to his son, Sebastian, who didn’t even know that was where he got the talent from.
So many fucking secrets.
“What’s happened?” Lena asked me, her eyes sharp on the side of my face as we padded across the slopping lawn to the rows of lemons trees.
Their scent was thick in warm air, sweet and tangy enough to make my mouth water.
“Dante?” she asked, tugging on my hand so that I would look at her.
She was so beautiful there among the yellow fruit, her classically beautiful features made striking by her remarkable red hair and pale gold skin, by the heavy-lidded eyes that made her gaze unbelievably sultry. For a brief irrational moment, I just wanted to lay her down under the Sfusato Amalfitano lemons and fuck her into the dirt. I wanted to bury my sorrow and fear in her sweet body and forget about the weight of so many worlds on my shoulders.
“Marco was shot,” I told her instead, ripping off the band as I took her face in my hands. “He’s in the hospital, but it doesn’t look good.”
“No,” she breathed, the word an expulsion of air from a popped balloon.
I nodded. “The di Carlos got him outside one of our pizzerias. The same one I first met Marco at years ago. We have a mole in the outfit and this fucking reeks of his work.”
“A mole?” Her eyes were wide, dark and textured as wet concrete.
“Mason Matlock told me a few months ago, but I haven’t been able to discover who it is,” I admitted.
“Mason Matlock has been missing for months…He’s presumed dead,” she said slowly, that keen mind working.
I shrugged. “We didn’t kill him. We gave him back to his family when we were done with him.”
“…But at that point, he would be more of a liability than he was worth,” she surmised. When I didn’t say anything, she cursed softly. “This world of yours is savage.”
“This world of ours, lottatrice mia. I wouldn’t love you so much as I do if you weren’t capable of withstanding the savagery.”
I watched as my words starched her spine and made her eyes flash. It was only the truth, but it reminded me how little praise she’d received in her life.
“Marco will be okay,” she declared as if she had some say in the matter.
It made me smile despite myself. “If anyone could conjure that out of the universe by sheer will power, it would be you.”
“I hate that we can’t be there for them,” she murmured, her eyes sheened with wet even though I knew she wouldn’t let herself cry.
“Bambi was there. Apparently, she and Marco have been having an affair for a while. She wasn’t hurt, but it’s a mess with his wife.”