Chapter 4
Intrusion
THE MAESTRO | Past
The sun is blinding, but it is nothing next to the heat crawling under my skin. My hands already smell like gun oil and the metallic tang of a life I took last night.
My Father’s lessons are simple.
Power is taken. Weakness is purged. Love is a leak in the boat.
And yet, here I am, leaning against a sun-bleached stone wall in the market, watching the greatest leak in my existence argue with a grocer over the price of a bag of sweets.
Selene is a whirlwind of limbs and sun-kissed hair. She’s eighteen, of age by the laws of men, but to me, she is still the girl who kissed my bruises and promised to stand in front of monsters.
And a hot topic in the council since the Viscontis have ties with the Vitales.
Vane Davenport, one of the council’s snakes, often brings her up, as if to see how I’d react. When I give him nothing, he mentions making her his daughter-in-law.
Fortunately, by the law of Cosa Nostra, no son or daughter of the Founding Families can marry outside the circle.
My Selene is off-limits unless her excuse of a Father tries to buy a seat. Her aunt is married to Ricci, the old fucker and Cosa Nostra’s current maestro, but that doesn’t count.
Even if her Father does, it’d be too late. A part of me wants him to, so that I can make her mine, but it’ll shift their focus onto her. Once they realize I have a weakness, they’ll do anything to harm me.
Because I am the heir to the throne. I have a plan.
“Three Euros!” she chirps, slamming her small palm on the wooden counter. “Three Euros off, Signor Rossi, or I tell your wife you’ve been sneaking grappa behind the flour sacks again!”
The old man relents, grumbling under his breath as he tosses a handful of extra sweets into her basket just to get her to leave.
Something pulls at the corner of my mouth. A smile. A fucking smile. I catch it and kill it, scoffing as I push off the wall. I’ve killed three men this month for looking at me wrong, and here I am, turning into a goddamn poet because a girl in a sundress bullied a grocer.
“You’re a menace,” I mutter as she skips toward me, the sweets bag cradled in her arms like a trophy.
“I bargained!” she beams, her eyes sparking with a light that shouldn’t exist in a town owned by the Vitale shadow. “Three Euros, Zag! I’m going to buy us gelato with the leftover.”
I look at the sweets. Rossi would never have dropped the price for anyone else; he gave it to her for a steal because no one can say no to her. Because she carries the sun in her pockets and hands it out.
“He overcharged you on the saffron to make up for it,” I lie, just to see her nose crinkle.
“He did not!”
She reaches out, her fingers snagging the belt loop of my jeans, pulling me into her orbit. “Don’t be a grump. You’re always so… dark. Like a thunderstorm waiting to happen.”
I am the thunderstorm, Dolcezza.
Something darkens in me as I track a group of boys staring at the way her dress clings to her hips. I slide my arm around her waist. One of the boys catches my gaze, sees the cold, dead vacuum there, and looks away.
I’m a psychopath in training. My Father tells me I have “the gift” of detachment. The one that will help me become the Don. But when Selene leans her head against my shoulder, the ice in my veins thaws so fast it hurts.
“Let’s go to the wall,” she whispers.
We walk to the edge of the cliffs overlooking the sea. The wind whips her hair into my face… jasmine and heat. She drops the groceries and turns to me, her expression losing its playfulness.
It’s that look. The one that sees right through the armor to the bruised boy underneath.
“You’re shaking,” she murmurs, taking my hands. My knuckles are raw from the heavy bag I spent four hours hitting this morning, trying to beat the image of my Father’s belt out of my head.
“I’m fine.”
“Liar.” She doesn’t flinch; instead, she lifts my hand and kisses the scarred skin of my knuckles. A clumsy, soft ghost of a kiss. “There. Better?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” I say, my voice like gravel.
“It does. It always does.” She stands on her tiptoes, her breath warm against my ear. “Promise me, Zagreus. Forever. Even if I forget who I am, even if the world turns upside down. Promise you’ll find me and look for me to tell me what hurt you.”
I look at her, and the obsession that has been rooting in my marrow since I was nine years old finally blooms. It’s a terrifying, possessive thing.
I don’t just want to be her friend. I want to be her air.
I want to build a cage of gold and silk and keep her where the blood of my world can never touch her.
“You won’t forget,” I say, my grip on her waist tightening until she gasps. “I won’t let you. You’re mine, Selene. I’ll make you my wife. I’ll burn this whole fucking country down before I let anyone take you.”
She doesn’t look scared. She just laughs, a sound that makes the darkness in my chest feel like a shameful secret. She pulls away, spinning toward the edge of the cliff where the limestone drops off into a churning, turquoise abyss.
“Look at that, Zag,” she says, pointing a slim finger toward the highest point of the jagged rocks, where the spray of the Mediterranean hits the stone.
“I want a house right there. White stone, tall windows, and a balcony that hangs over the edge so I can hear the sea screaming at night. Will you make it for me? A house on the cliff?”
I roll my eyes, leaning back against a rusted railing. “It’s a geological nightmare, Selene. The foundation would erode in a decade.”
“Oh, shut up with your ‘foundation’ and your ‘geology’!”
She sticks her tongue out at me, her hair whipping around her face like a golden halo. “You’re a Vitale. I thought you lot could do anything. Are you telling me you’re too weak to build me a house on a rock?”
“I’m telling you you’re a brat,” I mutter, though my heart is thudding against my ribs. “You could ask for a house on the goddamn moon and I’d probably find a way to get the oxygen up there just to stop your pouting.”
“The moon is too quiet,” she giggles, stepping closer, her eyes dancing with mischief. “Besides, there’s no gelato on the moon. And no Signor Rossi to bully.”
“God forbid,” I scoff. “The universe would be far too peaceful without you extorting grocers.”
She makes a mock-offended gasp, lunging forward to swat at my chest, but I’m faster.
I’ve been trained to catch bullets; catching a sunbeam is easy.
I grab her by the waist, my large hands nearly meeting around her middle, and lift her off her feet.
She squeals, a sound of pure joy that I want to bottle up and drink.
I set her down on the high stone railing of the cliff-walk. Her legs dangle over the edge, her sundress fluttering, and for a second, the height makes my blood go cold. I step between her knees, anchoring her there with the weight of my body, my hands gripping the stone on either side of her hips.
“Zagreus!” she breathes, her face flushed, her hands coming up to rest on my shoulders.
The bickering dies. The wind howls around us, but between us, there is a suffocating heat.
I lean in, burying my face in the crook of her neck.
The scent of jasmine is so strong here, mixed with the salt of the sea.
I let my lips graze the sensitive skin just below her ear, her pulse jumping like a frantic animal.
“You want a house on this cliff?” I whisper against her skin, my voice dropping into a low, predatory growl that would make any other person tremble.
But Selene just arches her neck, giving me more room.
“I’ll give you the cliff. I’ll give you the sea.
I’ll give you every fucking star you can see from that balcony.
But you have to realize something, Dolcezza. ”
I pull back just enough to look into her wide, dark eyes.
“If I build it, you’re never leaving it. I’ll be the walls, and I’ll be the roof, and I’ll be the floor beneath your feet. You’ll be mine until the sea swallows the rock.”
A deep, rosy blush creeps up from her chest to her cheeks, her eyes softening into something so tender it makes me want to drop to my knees.
“Promise me,” she whispers, her voice a fragile thread. “Forever, Zagreus.”
“Forever,” I vow, and I seal the lie and the truth with a kiss that tastes like the end of the world.
I don’t tell her that my Father is already looking for a bride for me. I don’t tell her that I’ve already cleaned my gun for the night. I’ll have to use it on him. I just hold her, my soft girl, and wonder if she knows that by staying with a monster, she’s destined to be devoured.
I don’t care. I’ll be the monster she needs. I’ll stand in front of everyone else, just as she promised to do for me.