Chapter Four – Cassian
Lorenzo and I step through the doorway as they reach the building. I see her for the first time.
She’s thinner than I expected. Her frame wrapped in black fabric too large for her body, hanging from her like shadows. She moves cautiously, eyes scanning the unfamiliar estate like it might vanish if she blinks.
Tall, but not threatening. Graceful, with a kind of quiet tension beneath her posture—not the rigidity of pride, but of someone who’s learned to survive on instinct alone. Long chestnut hair falls in waves around her face, strands pulled by the wind, framing skin that still carries the smudges of grief.
And then her eyes meet mine.
Green. Unmistakably Fontanesi. Fiercely expressive, even as they mask the turmoil underneath. They search me, unsure whether to fear me or bow. And yet—they don’t flinch.
The girl from Giovanna’s stories stands in front of me.
She has Giovanna’s mouth.
Not the softness—no, the shape. The way it rests just before she speaks. But hers is more guarded. Hardened at the edges. The echo of someone who once believed in comfort and had it stripped away.
Giovanna used to talk about her endlessly. Letters filled with Elaria’s stubbornness, her wit, the things she would do if only she were allowed back home to see her again.
I never met her.
Not until now.
But the resemblance cuts sharper than I expect.
Still, this is no reunion. This is business.
She is the last Fontanesi. A fractured name trailing the scent of power and ruin.
And her presence here—on Rivetti ground—is an invitation to war.
She doesn’t know it, but she’s already at the center.
And I? I let her in.
Because I was curious. Because Giovanna would’ve wanted it. Because no one else should hold what’s left of that name.
But mostly because I need to know what kind of woman rises from the wreckage of a house like hers.
I watch her eyes flick upward to me again. Something unsettles in them. My gaze trails briefly over her collarbone. There—just above the scarf, a faint curve of pigment. A crescent birthmark.
Giovanna’s “moon.”
She was right. It does look like a mark the world tried to erase and failed.
Lorenzo stands beside me, posture squared, gaze tracking her like a threat.
She doesn’t recognize me. But something in her—some deeper, buried instinct—registers the silence. I see it in the stiffening of her spine. The catch in her breath.
I wonder, briefly, if she knows her father died feeding us information. That for years he handed over maps, names, safehouses. Until the ledger filled too deep and the scale tipped the wrong way.
I doubt she does. But she will.
Eventually.
And when she does, I want to be the one she looks at.
Even if it burns.
Lorenzo steps forward.
“You’ll be safe here,” he tells the girl. “Come with me. We’ve prepared a room.”
She doesn’t move at first. Her eyes dart briefly to Allegra, searching for something—confirmation, assurance, an anchor.
Allegra answers with a single nod.
The girl shifts. Her lips part but no words come. She simply lowers her chin, exhales through her nose, and follows.
Each of her steps is cautious, her limbs still heavy with grief, but she walks.
Lorenzo leads her toward the west wing, keeping a respectful distance ahead. Her hands brush against the scarf tied at her throat as if to steady herself.
Allegra stays behind.
So do I.
The door closes after them with a soft click.
She turns to me.
“Thank you for accepting her,” she says, voice quiet but unflinching.
I don't answer. Instead, I walk past her, hands in my pockets. She follows without being asked. Her boots crunch softly on the gravel path.
“I would’ve gotten her out of Australia myself if I could,” she murmurs, just behind my shoulder. “But as it stands, I can’t even get her out of Melbourne. There are eyes everywhere.”
I stop beneath the arbor where the ivy curls like smoke over the beams. The birds are louder here. They don’t know how many bodies are buried beneath this soil.
I turn to face her.
One brow lifts—It’s a question.
What’s in this for you?
Allegra draws a breath, holds it a moment before answering.
“She is all we have left of Giovanna,” Allegra says, voice tightening. “I couldn’t let her die.”
There’s a flicker in her face when she says it—just beneath the surface. I look away, eyes tracing the line of the hedge before glancing up at the cloud-thick sky.
I nod once.
Her shoulders ease.
“I promise I’ll take her off your hands when it’s safe,” she adds. “I just need her here temporarily.”
She pauses.
“Only you can protect her.”
She doesn’t know.
She has no idea what that girl means. Not yet. Not what binds us.
I lift two fingers in a flick toward the house and then my mouth.
Have a meal before you go.
She reads it perfectly.
“Thanks,” she mutters. Her mouth tugs upward for the first time all morning. Barely a smile—but there’s something warmer beneath it.
We keep walking. The rosemary brushes our sides as we pass. The birds sing above a garden that’s held too many secrets.
And one more has just arrived.
****
The wind stirs the ivy that coils around the balcony's balustrade. Below, Allegra’s car pulls away. Its headlights vanishing into the narrow lane that cuts through the trees. I remain still, elbows resting on the cold stone, watching the last trace of tail lights disappear beyond the archway. Behind me, the door opens.
Lorenzo.
He stops just behind me, doesn’t speak at first. Then:
“The girl refuses to eat. The maid is fetching her new clothes to change into.”
My gaze lingers on the spot where Allegra’s car vanished. A muscle ticks in my jaw.
Lorenzo clears his throat, louder this time. “Is this a good idea? Your uncle will be furious.”
I turn my head slightly. Just enough to meet his eyes.
He reads the message. He always has.
It’s your job to stop him from finding out.
He exhales through his nose and nods once, like someone accepting a debt.
“Allegra says they’re searching high and low for the people Don Fontanesi traded information with. I have to get rid of the ledgers.”
Of course. The ledgers. My study houses three.
I tilt my chin toward the east wing—my study. Lorenzo follows the gesture instantly.
“I’ll stop by after dinner,” he says. His voice lowers. “Burn or bury?”
I don’t answer.
He knows what to do.
They all do. Every one of them who’s stayed. He and Allegra.
Allegra De Santis is many things. A woman who moves between families the way others change their coats. She worked under Il Silenzio Nero—a clandestine network buried deep beneath Syndicate politics. Hired by the old families to make sure alliances held. That secrets stayed hidden. That no one stepped out of line.
But she didn’t just serve them.
She served us.
She brokered the first exchange between the Rivettis and the Fontanesis in over forty years. The courier of risks no one else was willing to take.
It was Allegra who brought Giovanna to me.
Giovanna and I kept our love quiet. Not out of shame. Out of necessity. Our families had agreed to the union reluctantly—more out of exhaustion than support. But the others—the foreign families, the old bloodlines clinging to crumbling power—they would’ve seen it as a threat. An alliance like ours meant legacy. Meant unbreakable blood. Meant war.
So we hid it.
And when Giovanna was killed, I thought whatever loyalty Allegra held had died with her.
But she saved Elaria. Even when I didn’t ask her to.
I glance again at Lorenzo, still waiting by the doorway. I raise a finger, pointing toward the study. He nods, silent.
There’s a bulk in his shoulders now. Something turning over beneath his ribs.
“It’s only a matter of time before she finds out you were her sister’s man,” he says. His voice isn’t sharp, but it cuts.
I look at him.
My face doesn’t change. Not even a flicker.
But he sees the silence behind my eyes.
He always does.
Lorenzo sighs and shifts his coat. “I’ll see you later,” he mutters, and turns down the hallway.
His footsteps echo once before fading.
I lean both hands on the balcony ledge, palms pressed to stone. The wind drags the scent of rosemary and rain up from the garden.
What will I do when she finds out?
Giovanna had written her a letter before she came to me. Only a letter. She left the estate like she was going away for the season—Florence, maybe. Said she’d married a man chosen by the family. Said it would all make sense in time.
“She’s too young to understand,” she told me once, curled beside me in bed, breathing softly against my throat. “I’ll explain everything to her when she’s older.”
But that never happened.
How would she react if she knew the truth?