Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
NORA
The gates are a wall of iron and stone. Fifteen feet high, the Sartori family crest worked into the metal. A guard’s face appears at the window, hand on his gun. He doesn’t smile. The driver punches a code and the wall splits open, silent.
"Home sweet fortress." Pietro's voice carries dark humor as the gates swing shut behind us with mechanical silence.
The private drive curves through mature oaks and maples, their branches forming a canopy overhead. Through gaps in the trees, I catch glimpses of manicured grounds that stretch toward Lake Michigan.
The scale of it hits me gradually—this isn't just a house. It's an estate. A kingdom.
My childhood home in Boston sprawled across eight acres of Brookline real estate, all brick and ivy and Protestant restraint. This is something else entirely.
The house appears through the trees, a declaration carved from cream-colored stone and ambition.
It makes my father’s mansion look like a groundskeeper's cottage. A fountain dominates the circular drive, a monument, roaring lions spitting water with a force that feels like a warning. It’s beautiful, and it's meant to intimidate. It’s working.
"It's..." Words fail me.
"Excessive?" Pietro shifts beside me, his thigh brushing mine. "Giuseppe never did anything halfway."
Giuseppe Sartori was Pietro’s father. My uncle has informed me of basic things around the family.
The SUV stops at the front steps. Twelve wide stone stairs flanked by more lions, these frozen mid-roar. Pietro exits first, scanning the entrance before offering me his hand.
His fingers close around mine, warm despite the November cold seeping through my clothes.
The front doors stand fifteen feet tall, solid walnut with brass fixtures that gleam like gold. They open before we reach them, revealing a woman in her fifties with silver-streaked hair pulled into a neat bun.
"Pietro." Her voice carries a soft Italian accent, maternal worry threading through the single word. Her eyes land on me, taking in the blood on my blouse, the bruises darkening my throat. "Dio mio, what happened?"
"Giulia, this is Nora Kelly. She'll be staying with us." Pietro's hand finds my lower back, pressing gently. "Nora, Giulia runs the household. She's family."
Giulia's expression softens, though concern still creases her brow. She reaches out, her fingers hovering near my throat without touching.
"Those bruises..." She turns to Pietro, switching to rapid Italian that sounds like scolding.
He responds in the same language, his tone patient but firm. I catch enough to understand. Attack, Irish, safe now.
"Come." Giulia takes my arm with gentle insistence. "You need ice for your throat, and clean clothes. Pietro, show her to the guest room. I'll bring what she needs."
The foyer steals what little breath I have left. A two-story atrium with a sweeping double staircase, crystal chandelier that must weigh a thousand pounds, marble floors that reflect light like water. The space could swallow my entire apartment three times over.
Pietro guides me up the right staircase. The hallway stretches in both directions, doors spaced at intervals that suggest massive rooms behind each one.
"My suite is at the end." He indicates the eastern wing. "You'll be here." He opens a door three rooms down from his.
The guest room is larger than most people's master suites. Soft blue walls, a four-poster bed with crisp white linens, windows overlooking gardens that must be stunning in spring. An en-suite bathroom visible through an open door.
"It's beautiful." The words come out rough, my throat protesting.
Pietro's jaw tightens at the sound. "There's a lock on the door. Security patrols the grounds. No one gets in without going through multiple checkpoints."
"You think they'll come here?"
"I think someone sent those men to hurt me. I think that it’s not enough for them hitting my operations. I also think that he called you clever for a reason. Someone has mentioned you. But I’ll figure things out. Until then, you're not leaving."
The declaration should make me bristle. Instead, relief washes through me.
Giulia appears in the doorway with an armful of clothing and a bag of ice wrapped in a kitchen towel.
"These are Vittoria's, but you're close to the same size." She sets the clothes on the bed. Jeans, a soft gray sweater, undergarments still in their packaging. "Pietro, give us privacy."
He looks ready to argue, then thinks better of it. "I'll be in my study. Dinner's at seven."
When he's gone, Giulia presses the ice against my throat with practiced gentleness. "Sit. Let me look at you properly."
I sink onto the bed's edge, the mattress embracing me like a cloud. Everything here feels expensive, substantial, permanent. So different from my cramped studio with its mattress on the floor and hot plate kitchen.
"You're not his usual type." Giulia's observation carries no judgment, just curiosity.
"I'm his secretary. It's not—we're not—"
"A man like Pietro doesn't bring his secretary home for protection unless she means something." Her fingers tilt my chin, examining the bruising. "These men who attacked you, did Pietro hurt them?"
I nod carefully.
"Hmm." She doesn't press, but intelligence gleams in her eyes. "A gun to the head... and you are not broken. Good."
"I didn't have much choice."
"There's always a choice. You chose to fight." She adjusts the ice pack. "Pietro... he carries too much. He needs a foundation, not another stone to carry."
The words hang between us, weighted with meaning I'm not ready to examine. She pats my shoulder and stands.
"Rest. Change. I'll have food sent up if you're hungry. Dinner is informal tonight—just family."
Just family. As if that's not terrifying in its own way.
When she leaves, I strip off my ruined blouse, ball it up and stuff it in the bathroom trash, then turn on the shower, letting steam fill the marble space.
The water pressure is perfect, the temperature consistent. Such small luxuries that I'd taken for granted growing up, now sharp reminders of everything I've lost. I work shampoo through my hair, watching pink-tinged water swirl down the drain.
I dress in Vittoria's clothes, the only sister in this family, the sweater soft as butter against my skin.
The jeans fit well enough, though I have more curves than Pietro's sister.
In the mirror, I look younger, vulnerable.
The bruises on my throat have darkened to purple-black, a necklace of violence I can't hide.
A knock interrupts my assessment.
"Come in."
Pietro enters, changed into dark jeans and a black sweater that makes his eyes look darker. "Liam retrieved your things." He sets a duffel bag near the closet. "Everything from your apartment that looked important."
My hands itch to check for the go-bag, the photos, but I force myself to wait.
"Thank you."
He crosses to where I stand by the mirror, his reflection joining mine. We look like a couple. The thought sends heat through my chest followed by cold reality.
We're not a couple.
We're a mafia Don and his secretary who's lying about everything.
"Does it hurt?" His fingers hover near my throat, not quite touching.
"Only when I swallow."
"I should have been faster."
"You saved my life." And he did.
"They never should have gotten that close." His hand drops. "I've doubled security at all our properties. They won't get another chance."
But they will. That’s something I’m sure of. These men never stop until they get what they want.
Even if I don’t really know what that is.
"Come on." Pietro turns toward the door. "I'll show you around before dinner."
The house unfolds like a museum. He shows me the study, a conservatory filled with plants and light. We pass a living room where the silk couches look like they've never been sat on.
Not a book is out of place, not a pillow un-fluffed. The air is still, heavy with the smell of lemon polish and something else… absence.
"This was Riccardo's favorite room." Pietro pauses in the doorway of a home theater. "He'd drag us all in here for movie nights when we were kids."
Past tense. Everything here seems to exist in past tense. Riccardo Sartori was the first son in the family.
A Russian killed him two months ago. Bruno Sartori, the second one, got shot too and he is still in a coma. That leads us to Pietro, third child and current Don.
The kitchen breaks the pattern. Warm and alive, it hums with activity. Giulia stands at a massive stove, stirring something that makes my stomach growl. Two younger women prep vegetables at the island, chattering in Italian until they spot Pietro.
"Don't stop on my account." He snags an olive from a bowl, popping it in his mouth.
Giulia swats at him with a wooden spoon. "Out. Dinner will be ready when it's ready."
His shoulders relax.
"The dining room's through here." He leads me through a butler's pantry into a space that could host a state dinner. The table seats twenty easily, though only seven places are set tonight.
"That's where Giuseppe, my father, sat." Pietro indicates the head. "No one's taken it since he died. Riccardo sat there"—he points to the opposite end—"and now that chair stays empty too."
Two ghosts at the family table. The weight of their absence presses against the room.
Footsteps on the floor announce arrivals. Lorenzo enters first, looking like he stepped from an Italian fashion magazine despite it being a casual dinner. I know each of them from photos I’ve found a Saturday afternoon where I was bored and searched them all on the internet.
"You must be Nora. I’m Lorenzo." His smile carries genuine warmth. "Welcome to the chaos."
Before I can respond, a young woman bounds in—Vittoria,the only sister, all dark hair and curious eyes.
"Oh my God, what happened to your neck?" She reaches toward my bruises, catches herself. "Sorry, that was rude. I'm Vittoria. You're the secretary who finally lasted more than a week."
"Barely." The word scrapes out.