Chapter Twenty-Eight Guinevere
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Guinevere
The entire family had moved to Stacci’s house down the road from the main villa to sleep what was left of the night.
It was an enormous house built for their ever-expanding family, with enough rooms for the adult couples to each have one and for the kids, frightened out of their minds, to share one, where we’d laid mattresses down so they could all cuddle together.
Only Zacheo had refused to leave my side, clinging to me so tightly his little nails had left crescent-moon shapes in my thighs.
I’d told Carlotta and Emiliano that it was fine if he slept with me and took him up the stairs to the small bedroom at the back of the house, where he had immediately curled into me, tucked up like a bug in a rug, and fallen asleep.
He was twitching beside me, nightmares plaguing his slumber, but he eased when I smoothed a hand down his freshly washed hair. It soothed me too.
When I had first seen Leo at the edge of the fiery tree line, my only thought had been of revenge.
I was going to tackle him to the ground and beat his head in for what he had possibly done to my sister and had attempted to do to Raffa.
But when I overheard his conversation with a soldato about Zacheo lost somewhere in the grove, I felt my soul cleave in two.
Did I go after Leo and appease the fury wrapped around my heart like an iron vise, or did I go after sweet Zacheo, who had taken such a shine to me the last month he had been my constant shadow at the villa?
In the end, of course, it was not even a question.
I followed Aio’s barking entreaty farther along the trees before I dived into the curling black smoke.
Until the day I died, I would remember the feel of the scorched soot in my lungs, the heat pressing into every side of my body like ghostly hands threatening to drag me into the depths of hell.
I called for Zacheo until my voice ripped up my throat; I’d headed to the copse of trees that we had played in many times before, where there was a trunk that looked like a throne.
We liked to play make-believe there and had even erected a little fairy house in one of the trees.
It was disorienting with the smoke, and I was completely lost until one of my croaky cries was met with the sweetest voice I thought I had ever heard.
“Vera?”
He had hidden against the lip of a well just beyond where we played, wet from the bucket of water he’d thrown over his head to cool himself.
“Che ragazzo sveglio che sei,” I’d praised him as I collected his steaming body in my arms, tucking his face into the gathered fabric of my dress so he might breathe through it.
Clever boy.
The weight and warmth of him curled under my arm kept the residual panic at bay even though I was too agitated to find sleep myself.
I could not believe Leo had done something like this.
The more I thought about it, the more I remembered the aching despair on his face when he had talked about the foreigner he had fallen in love with.
The sincerity and protectiveness he’d exhibited when he told me I was basically a coward for giving Raffa up just because I did not like the nature of the truth I had begged him to reveal.
How could someone who had been born and raised in the warmth of the Romano family end up this way?
I knew Aldo Romano was not like Angela, Carlotta, Stacci, and Delfina.
I knew he had been a tyrant who ignored his daughters, manipulated his son, and loved his wife but expected her to warm his bed, raise his children, and look the other way from his transgressions, but he had raised Raffa as much as Leo.
How could they have ended up so different?
Even more, how could sweet, charming, and shrewd Gemma have fallen in love with such a psychopath?
She had been drawn to bad boys in the past, but there was a difference between her pot-smoking older college boyfriend and a murdering mafioso. Even the Albanian gangster would have been better than this.
Could Leo have killed her? Someone who was made of sunshine and wickedness and such fun her smile alone could make you laugh?
Could he have been looking me in the eye all this time knowing he had killed her and somehow covered it up?
Raffa might have told me I always wanted to believe the best of people. That I had a tendency, as I had with him, to romanticize the villain.
But as the dark hours passed into the pale tendrils of dawn, I became more and more convinced that I was missing something.
The pattern did not fit.
I needed to know why.
It had to be more than rivalry and the desire to be capo dei capi over Raffa. I had read once that the biggest motives for murder were greed and love.
Didn’t Leo already have enough money and power as COO to the Romano Group and underboss to Raffa’s criminal syndicate?
The bedroom door creaked open.
I was up, gun in hand and trained on the dark mouth of the doorframe in less than a heartbeat, one hand on Zacheo’s shoulder.
“It’s just me,” Carlotta said softly in Italian. “I am sorry to scare you. I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted to check on him.”
My aching muscles softened. “Of course. Why don’t you come sleep here with him? It will bring you both comfort, and I have given up on sleep myself anyway.”
She hesitated, but I could tell she wanted to hold her son. “Are you sure?”
In answer, I got out of bed and walked toward her, kissing her on the cheek as I made to move into the hall.
Her hand caught mine before I could.
Those eyes, almost as pale a brown as Raffa’s, glowed in the low light. “Thank you, Guinevere. I cannot thank you enough. Not just for saving Zacheo, but also for bringing joy to Raffa. He has sacrificed everything for this family. I am happy he has someone willing to sacrifice for him too.”
I squeezed her hand but could not find a way to fit words to the emotions tangling up my throat.
She smiled, released me, and hurried across the wooden floor to the bed.
I closed the door on them and headed down the hall to the stairs.
The lower level was dark, but I caught sight of a sentry near the front door, and Martina sat in the kitchen, staring into a glass of amber liquor.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked without looking up.
“No.”
“I can’t stop thinking about Leo,” she admitted, turning haunted eyes to me as I sat across from her.
“I am going back through everything we have ever done together. When you first arrived, I had heard a rumor that the Pietra clan was being blackmailed by the Venetian into helping his cause. I told Raffa I had to speak to him about it, but Leo told me it was idle gossip. That the Pietra family had nothing more to lose they could be blackmailed with.”
“He knew who I was the whole time I’ve been here,” I agreed. “Donatella told me he dated Gemma when she was living in Albania before she died.” My fingers found the warm metal of the cross around my neck. “He gave this to the man on the bell tower to try to convince me to go away with him.”
“So he could use you against Raffa,” Martina concluded with a heavy sigh before downing the rest of the booze. “Merda. Even if the boys find him, we will have to completely overhaul all our systems. Who knows how much he has infiltrated and redirected for his own gain.”
“I can help with that,” I offered, invigorated by the idea of doing something. I knew I would have done more harm than good, slowing them down, but it physically pained me to stay behind while Raffa, Renzo, Carm, and Ludo hunted down Leo. “You know I’m good at finding patterns and discrepancies.”
“True. I’m sure Raffa will want your help.”
“I could start now,” I suggested. Now that the thought was planted, I could not ignore it. My knee jumped restlessly under the table. “Maybe I could find something to help the guys hunt him down now.”
Martina’s mouth flexed into a thin line. “It’s four in the morning, Vera. You can take a look tomorrow.”
“It’s four in the morning, but there’s no time to waste, right?” I pushed. “C’mon, Tina. I have everything I need at the office in the main house. Walk me over?”
“Ah, what the hell,” she said with a heavy exhale. “I wasn’t going to sleep for shit anyway.”
“That’s the spirit,” I agreed, jumping out of my chair, landing hard on the blistered soles of my feet, the pain bright even through the soft slippers and gauze Stacci had helped me wrap them in. Running through a burning olive grove in bare feet had not been one of my smartest decisions.
Martina nodded to the two men standing guard at the rear entrance of the house as we passed by them and started along the path to the main house. The way was lit with twinkling lights that mimicked the stars overhead.
“I could spend my whole life here happily,” I said, staying close to Martina, who had her gun drawn even though we were surrounded by soldiers on the property. “And I intend to.”
A little smile flickered at the end of her mouth. “I am glad for you and Raffa both. For myself too. I do not like many people, and when I find a decent one, I like to keep them.”
I laughed a little even though it hurt my throat. “Thanks.”
“If Raffa and I can make it work, I don’t see why you and Renzo can’t too,” I added, knocking my shoulder into her.
Martina rolled her eyes at me, but she was quiet for the rest of the walk, and I had to wonder if she was really considering my words. Life was too unpredictable to waste a moment of it on indecision when what you wanted was within your grasp.
The villa looked like a broken, empty shell when we arrived.
The windows and doors were all wide open to clear the space of lingering smoke, and the entire back side was smudged with soot.
It was cold enough in early November that I pulled on a coat at the entrance, a large black barn coat that smelled of Raffa.