Chapter 8 #2
I reached into my back pocket and took out the envelope Vince had given me. Inside was a thick stack of hundreds and a paper with an address on it. I handed the paper to Juliette.
She nodded. “This is my grandmother’s house. I’m excited to see it.”
“Yeah? Then maybe you shouldn’t have given me such a hard time about going.”
She stuck her tongue out.
I chuckled. “Mature.”
Juliette sighed and looked out the window. “I didn’t even know what my father really did for a living until I was twelve. Can you believe that?”
“How’d you find out?”
“Career day. We had to write a paper about someone we admired and tell about their job. My mom didn’t work, so I wrote it about my dad.”
My brows drew down. “What did you think he did?”
She rolled her eyes. “Garbage man. What else? I stood in front of the whole freaking class and told them how my father wore a suit to work every day, then changed into his uniform once he got there so he wouldn’t come home smelling bad.
That’s what he’d told me when I asked why he didn’t wear a uniform like the guys who picked up the garbage at our house.
At the end, we had to take questions from the class, and Danny Donnolly raised his hand and asked if I really didn’t know my father was in the mob. ”
“Shit.”
“I marched straight to the pizzeria after school that afternoon. That’s where my father went every day after he supposedly went to work.
My uncle Pietro owned it back then, and I had no idea Gino’s was a front either.
Apparently, when they kill your uncle and you become the head of a crime family, the job comes with a free pizza place.
” Juliette shook her head. “Anyway, I confronted my dad and told him what Danny Donnolly had said.”
“How’d that go?”
“He ruffled my hair and laughed. Then he said, ‘Little Danny got half the story right. I do take out trash. Just not the kind that goes in the can.’ All his cronies started laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. Meanwhile, everything I thought I knew about my family had just blown up in my face.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. That must’ve been tough.”
“Anything to do with my father is tough.” She caught my eye. “But I guess you know that by now.”
Family was complicated—you could bitch about them, curse their name, and drone on to anyone who would listen about how horrible they were.
But the moment someone from the outside did it, you bared your teeth.
So rather than share how I really felt about Vince Ginocassi, I nodded and kept my mouth shut.
Eventually Juliette went back to staring out the window. “Can I ask you something about the story you told me earlier?” she asked a little while later.
I shrugged. “You can ask.”
“How long do you have to work for my dad to pay him back?”
I was quiet for a long time before meeting Juliette’s eyes. “Forever.”
She frowned. “That’s what I was afraid of. Once you’re in, he swallows you whole. That’s why I had to move three-thousand miles away. Is there anything else he required of you, aside from working as a bodyguard?”
I met her eyes again. “Yeah. Not to lay a finger on you.”
***
The drive from Catania-Fontanarossa Airport to the Ortigia causeway was about an hour.
A few fishing boats bobbed close to the bridge, and up ahead the village looked different than the ones we’d passed on the way.
Terracotta roofs and pale stone buildings were stacked together tightly, and domed churches caught the end of the daylight.
When we reached the other side, I pressed the button on the rental car’s GPS, which hadn’t moved since we left the mainland. “I think this thing is frozen. It’s not giving me directions anymore. I’m going to pull over and see if I can get them on my phone.”
“It’s okay. I can get us there.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. My dad and I used to ride bikes down to this bridge all the time to fish.”
“I can’t picture your dad on a bike.”
Juliette smiled. “I can’t anymore either. A lot has changed since those days.”
Some of the streets in the village were so narrow, it was hard to believe they weren’t one way.
Juliette’s grandmother’s house was tucked at the end of a tiny lane, hidden behind a set of heavy wooden doors that opened to a stone courtyard with a fountain running in the middle.
I figured someone must maintain the place since everything was so neat and tidy.
We parked and got out, and the smell of the sea carried through the air.
I looked around. “It’s quiet.”
“That it definitely is.”
I unloaded our suitcases from the trunk, and it dawned on me that Vince hadn’t given me a key. “Do you have the keys?”
She shook her head and pointed to a flowerpot next to the door with a lemon tree in it. “It’s in there. You might have to dig around.”
I raised a brow. “Seriously?”
Juliette laughed. “That’s where my grandmother always kept it.
But my father also texted me before we took off.
He said the caretaker was coming today to air the house out, and she’d leave the key in the usual spot.
He also said she’d pick up some groceries for us, at least to carry us through the first day or two. ”
“Oh. All right, good.”
After digging in the dirt for a few minutes, I found the key and opened the door.
Inside, the ceilings arched high with dark wooden beams that were probably a hundred years older than I was.
All the windows were open, the breeze blowing around sheer curtains.
A long, heavy table sat in the center of the kitchen with mismatched chairs tucked in around it.
One wall held an oversized cabinet filled with dishes and glasses, and copper pans hung from hooks above the stove.
I walked around, making sure things were secure, then told Juliette to wait while I checked upstairs.
She laughed at me. “The tooth fairy can’t even find this place. Trust me, I lost a molar when I was ten and got stiffed.”
I was pretty sure she was right, but I’d much rather err on the side of caution. After I finished sweeping the three bedrooms upstairs, I came back down. Double doors leading to the backyard were open, and Juliette was looking out at a small in-ground pool.
“This is one of only a handful of pools on the island,” she said.
“I’m not sure why more people don’t have them.
Maybe because the properties are so small, and it’s unnecessary since the sea is within walking distance from wherever you are.
But my father had it put in when I was little.
I remember it was the talk of the town. Did you bring a bathing suit? ”
I shook my head.
Juliette shrugged. “We can pick one up in the village tomorrow.”
While the gesture was nice, the last thing I needed to do was frolic in a pool with Juliette in a bathing suit. My eyes dropped to her T-shirt, and I immediately noticed that her nipples had come out to enjoy the breeze. Yeah, definitely not having pool parties with this woman.
In fact, I needed a little distance right now. “I’m going to go unpack. Which room should I take?”
“Any of them.”
“All right. I’ll bring your suitcase up and leave it in the hall.”
“Thank you.”
There were two rooms on the second floor that overlooked the yard.
Both had French doors with balconies. I chose the smaller of the two and unpacked my stuff.
After, I lay down on the bed and attempted to unwind from the stress of the day—Vince showing up, traveling for fifteen hours…
being alone with Juliette in a place that looked like it was the setting of a romance movie.
But I couldn’t seem to relax. I’d noticed a few bottles of wine in the kitchen, so eventually I went back downstairs. The back doors were still open, and now Juliette was swimming in the pool. I scrubbed my hands over my face and grumbled to myself, “Why? Why does it have to have a fucking pool?”
Grabbing one of the bottles of wine, I went to the door. I was relieved that the only thing I could see was Juliette’s head. “Is it all right if I open this?”
“Sure.” She treaded water. “I’ll have some when I’m done swimming, too.”
Back inside, I swallowed the first glass like it was a shot.
The second, I decided to take back to my room, just to avoid being around when Juliette came out with a wet bathing suit clinging to her body.
But after only a few minutes upstairs, I wandered over to the French doors and glanced out at her in the pool.
Like a good little pervert, I stayed back far enough so she couldn’t see me.
Ten minutes went by. My second glass of wine was gone, but my eyes remained glued to the woman in the pool.
Juliette swam to the ladder and climbed out, water streaming down her gorgeous body.
Her red bikini was smoking hot, and her body was even better than I’d pictured at night when I went to bed.
Maybe it was my imagination, but she seemed to move in slow motion, every shift of her body exaggerated and deliberate.
She leaned her head back, shook water from her hair, and slowly strolled to the edge of the pool before turning her back to me.
Great. A thong, too.
I knew I should move, get the hell away from the door before I got caught.
But I just couldn’t. My gaze stayed solely on the curve of her ass.
I was too fixated to notice what her hands were doing until she’d tugged the tie at her neck loose and tossed her top on the ground.
Then her bottoms slid down, pooling at her feet.
For a moment, I thought I had to be hallucinating, that this couldn’t really be happening—until Juliette’s voice cut through the haze and snapped me out of it.
“If you’re going to stare,” she yelled without turning around. “You might as well have something worth staring at.”
Then she dove back into the pool naked.
Jesus freaking Christ. I was screwed. Doing the twenty years in prison might’ve been easier than keeping my promise to Vince.