17. Giulia
A fter Renzo left, I let the idea of running away sink in fully.
Could I do it?
All I’d ever known was this Mafia life. I was born and raised under the expectations of being a pawn to be married off. I grew up without having any goals for myself because there never would have been a point to carving out my own purpose. Everything was dictated, and until Mother told me that I would be expected to become Nickolas’s wife, I’d done my best to tolerate this existence. To just get through it, day by day. Being a support system for my younger sisters filled a hole in my heart. For them, I could smile and be the dutiful elder daughter I was expected to be.
But as I lay in bed that night, I came to the honest conclusion that I could not do this.
I couldn’t marry that man, not under any circumstances or self-sacrifices.
I wasn’t sure if it was because I knew what and who I wanted. Renzo. I yearned for him even though he was off-limits as my Family’s enemy. And I missed his touch, even though he was rough and took liberties that shouldn’t have been his to begin with.
Knowing how much I wanted Renzo turned me off from being able to surrender to Nickolas.
But I wasn’t sure what other options I could follow.
If I ran, how would I bring my sisters along? I would never abandon them. I couldn’t.
And how could I plan to stay away and hidden? I had wealth. I was sure Uncle Dario would help me access it somehow. My uncle had always seemed to care about my well-being more than Father had. I knew Mother didn’t care about me at all. She couldn’t if she was considering marrying me off to Nickolas Romano, of all people.
She was the one I wasn’t sure how to escape. If I ran, she’d track me down. If I tried to leave this confining life, she’d hunt me and do everything she could to get me right back where she wanted me.
But Cecilia did it.
I stuck with that thought. Cecilia was out there hiding somewhere. If I had to guess, she simply wanted peace and privacy to get over the trauma of Luka being killed at their wedding. That was a horrendous event to recover from. I doubted she cared about him. Like me, she was just another daughter to be brokered like an item. She couldn’t have loved him, but she did have a gentle, skittish demeanor.
I recalled the screams she let out at finding her husband slumping over, dead. While violence and death were staples of this Mafia life, she likely had been sheltered from witnessing it up close and personal like that.
If a newlywed wanted to break away and rest in privacy for a while, I supposed she had an excuse.
But if she was trying to run, if she was trying to shed this identity of a Mafia wife…
How’d she pull it off?
Maybe she could give me pointers.
The next morning, I woke with that same current of determination that I’d fallen asleep to. If Cecilia could run and hide, then I damn well could try to as well. If she could take off after Luka’s wedding and do so without her father knowing where she was, that was saying something. Marcus Romano was wealthier than my Family, and if someone could deceive him, that meant she was really lying low.
After I tended to my sisters, checking that they were fine with their tutors, I felt better about checking that task off my to-do list. With our chaotic and unstable family structure, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t slacking in being present in their lives. They were too young, still innocent, and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as I could.
Because no one ever did that for me.
I was nine years older than Marianna, but that gap of siblings wasn’t intended. Mother tried constantly to get pregnant after she had me, but it just wasn’t feasible. When she grew convinced that her difficult labor with me had rendered her infertile, she held a grudge against me, sometimes never even seeing me and letting the team of nannies make sure I was alive and well. Then when she miscarried a couple of times, she blamed Father for her inability to give him a baby. She never, ever let herself believe it was her fault. It was mine. Or his. Science was a finicky thing. Fertility and conception weren’t to be faulted to any one person, but she’d warped us all to never mention the chance that she was the reason they didn’t have more children sooner.
What made it infinitely worse was that all her pregnancies, both viable and not, were all daughters. Men ruled this world, and Mother only worsened her attitude and treatment of us when she failed to not only get pregnant and confirm that she carried a son, but also in her inability to never give Father an heir.
And if I become Nickolas’s wife, I’ll be expected to give him a son.
I placed my hand over my stomach, fighting back the worry that Renzo could have knocked me up the other night. He hadn’t used protection. It hadn’t even crossed my mind, so mad, scared, and aroused all at once.
If I were carrying Renzo’s son, a Bernardi heir…
No. Just don’t even think about it.
I would definitely have to run far and fast if he’d impregnated me. Yet, the idea of having Renzo’s child didn’t sicken me. It didn’t bother me. If I allowed myself to really think about it, I felt… triumphant. Happy. My so-called enemy was the sort of hard man who’d take care of his own, and now that I’d had a few glimpses of the softie he could be beneath the hard surface, I felt even closer to the risk of falling in love with him.
Francis met me in the solarium like I’d requested last night. Before I went to bed, I sought out the loyal guard and asked him to look into Cecilia’s whereabouts. He had connections. I had no doubt all these guards did. Just like the Mafia lords and ladies maintained their circle of acquaintances, I was sure the soldiers, capos, and guards did, even across enemy lines.
I considered asking Uncle Dario, but then I worried that would somehow implicate him. This “investigation” that Renzo and I had teamed up on was a secret, private partnership, and asking Francis for help was a safer option than asking Uncle Dario.
The less chance I took of someone being suspicious about my looking for Cecilia, the better.
“Did you find anything?” I asked once I closed the doors behind me. Francis had beaten me to the solarium. He stood near the back windows, gazing out at the horticultural sculptures out back. Always alert, always watching. In a little way, I knew I’d miss him once I left. He was a familiar source of security, or he was supposed to represent it.
“I did.” He faced me, checking that we were alone. “But if I may…?”
I waved my hand, gesturing for him to go ahead. “You know you can always speak your mind with me, Francis.”
His lips almost lifted in a smile. “Yes.”
“I’m not my mother,” I reminded him snarkily.
“Indeed, you are not.” He cleared his throat. “If I may be so bold to ask, why do you want to know where Miss Romano is?”
I licked my lips. I couldn’t tell him that Renzo and I were trying to be sleuths together. That was my secret.
“She is my peer.”
He arched his brows. “And potential sister-in-law?”
I clamped my lips shut.
“Miss Giulia,” he began carefully.
“I don’t want to discuss my future.”
He sighed and nodded. “Should you ever need my help, though?—”
I huffed. “Help?” I raised my brows. “I wouldn’t need help dealing with my fiancé.” I would need assistance getting away from him.
“If you should attempt an alternative solution for your future…”
Now it was my turn to fail at hiding a smile.
“Then please know that I have your best interests in mind. Politics will never change. But I’ve seen you grow from a sweet child into a generous and kind woman. You have my allegiance.”
I broke all protocol to hug him. It was a risk, but after the tumultuous ups and downs, I couldn’t help it.
“Thank you.”
He patted my back before we parted. “Now. Miss Romano.”
I nodded. It was back to business. “Have you learned anything?”
“Yes. She is residing at the villa up along the coast. One of her family’s vacation properties.”
“Residing? Or hiding?” There had to be a difference. If Renzo was correct in saying that Marcus didn’t know where his daughter was, her choice of a location made no sense. It wouldn’t be that hard for him to find her there. Or any number of employees could tell Marcus where she was.
Unless Marcus is trying to act like he doesn’t know where she is…
“I cannot tell. My sources only confirmed that she’s been there since Luka Bernardi’s death.”
“Your source?”
He nodded. “A member of the Romano security detail.” Then he handed over a small slip of paper with an address on it.
“Thank you, Francis.”
Now that I knew where to find her, I’d go and get some damn answers. I couldn’t be sure what Cecilia could tell me that would help me figure out who my truest enemies were, but it was a start.
“Should I arrange for transportation?”
I grinned, appreciating how well this man truly knew me and understood that I wasn’t just another docile, ignorant woman. I really appreciated that he was loyal to me, not my mother, and would keep the secret of anything I was planning to do.
“No, thank you.” I’ll figure it out. I would ask Renzo to come with me. It only seemed right since we were both mutually curious and working on this together.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
He’d already done so much. But now that he was here, another question struck me.
“What started the rivalry between the Acardi and Bernardi names?”
He furrowed his brow, seeming stunned by that question. It was out of the blue like that, but I felt confident that he’d have a guess. He was older than Father had been. Francis came on as a guard when my grandfather ruled.
“I’m not certain,” he admitted. “But I think it had something to do with Arianna.”
I blinked. “Arianna?” Renzo’s mother?
He nodded. “Arianna Bernardi.”
Biting my lip, I dreaded the worst. “Did… my father sleep with her?”
He immediately shook his head. “No. No, no. I don’t think so. Arianna was quite besotted with Giovanni. From what I observed, she was very much a woman in love with only her husband.”
Then… I winced. “Did Mother sleep with Giovanni?” Affairs were the first thing to come to mind with rivalries. Infidelity and honor. Those were the primary reasons Families engaged in rivalries.
“I don’t know,” Francis admitted slowly, rubbing his jaw. “But if I can be honest, your mother has always been too calculating.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I quipped.
“She’s too calculating in everything she does, and if there were one person to suspect of causing trouble between the Families, I would think of her.”
Francis received a summons on his ear piece, and that ended our secret chat. I thanked him again, and as soon as I left the solarium, I went to my room and called Renzo.
“Hello?” he answered, likely suspicious of the unidentified number.
“Can you talk?” I asked.
“Call me back in a few minutes.”
I wasn’t worried about his reply. He was likely near someone who could overhear. Or he had to deactivate the tracking on his phone. I gave it five minutes and called again.
“How did you get my number?” he said for a greeting.
“I have my ways.” I’d found it in my father’s office after the funeral. “I know where she is.”
“You do?” He huffed a laugh. “You work quickly.”
A smile lifted my lips. He lifted my spirits.
“Considering you shouldn’t be ‘working’ at all, especially not like this.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, not sorry. You should know by now that I’m not a pushover like the other women in our lives.”
“Where is she?”
“I’ll show you.”
He grunted. “What?”
“I want to speak with her.”
“To bond with your future sister-in-law?”
I grimaced. Not happening.
“Are you coming?”
“Giulia. Listen to yourself. You can’t just go and act like a soldier or operative. You?—”
“Do not give me the illusion that you actually are just like every other man in my life.”
He growled. “Let me handle this.”
“No. Are you coming with me, or not?”
“That’s what partners do, isn’t it?”
I bit my lip, smiling again. Partners. I wished we could be paired for life.
“I shouldn’t be partnering with you at all,” he admitted. Just that simple admission cheered me. I heard every note of longing in his words. He knew better than to seek my company, but he was just as beholden to me as I was to him.
“But there’s no way in hell I’ll sit back and let you wander off like this without me.”
It wasn’t I love you , but it proved that he cared.