20. Renzo
W hat the fuck am I saying?
Two weeks ago, I could’ve promised Giulia the world. Back then, when I was still the spare brother, the useless one, I could’ve planned to fuck and marry whoever I wanted. Giulia still would’ve been a hard one to win over because we were enemies, but I wouldn’t have been confined to these new duties as the second in command of the Bernardi name.
I was acting like I still had any say in my future. In my life.
But the hell with these rules.
If I wanted Giulia, I’d convince Gio to get over his goddamn rivalry with the Acardis.
She favored me, not Isabella.
She was running to me with information, not her mother.
She was choosing me in everything she did, and that led me to believe that if I fought for her, if I told Gio that she would be my bride, I had to have a better outcome and more hope than her telling Isabella that she wouldn’t marry Nickolas.
As a man, I would have more power.
So it was with great impatience that I sped the rest of the way to the vacation villa where Cecilia was staying.
I wanted to see the damn woman in person and flat-out tell her that we would never be arranged to marry. Period. Full stop.
And the sooner I could personally deliver a hard rejection to Cecilia—and also show Giulia how committed I was becoming to her—the sooner we could start a plan for being together for real, for good.
I parked at the Romano property and immediately grew suspicious.
Giulia was as well, narrowing her eyes as she scanned the long drive empty of cars. “Where are all the guards?”
I shrugged. Of course, she’d noticed. This brilliant, beautiful woman was observant to a fault. She likely always had been because like all the women in our circle, she was dismissed to the background in our world. Unlike the others, though, she wanted to do something about her fate.
“Maybe Marcus decided not to have many guards here,” she guessed as she reached for the door handle.
“To better keep her hidden?” I joined her outside, holding her hand and making sure she stood behind me as we walked up the path.
“Yeah,” she replied, looking around and scoping out the area like I did.
Together, we approached the looming mansion. No one stirred. Nothing jumped out at us. The lack of activity and noise was disconcerting. Even if Cecilia was here to hide, some sort of staff should be present.
Giulia tightened her fingers on my hand. She caught herself from gasping too loudly, but she’d noticed it first.
“The door.”
It remained open. Slightly ajar, the front door was left unattended. Unlocked.
I moved to shield Giulia from the doorway, more on guard and suspicious of this unusual setting. Cecilia was still the only daughter Marcus Romano had. She would need to be guarded no matter what, in marriage or not.
Giulia and I were the exceptions. We’d both run out on our own to keep our goals secretive, but it wasn’t the norm. With the positions we held, it was expected to always have security with us. The same applied to Cecilia.
On edge, we entered together. I kept my gun up and trained, prepared to kill to defend myself and Giulia.
The first guard was dead, shot multiple times.
Shit. I hadn’t counted on coming here to find a massacre. We might have arrived too late. If Cecilia was dead, there went our chances to get an answer today.
“Over there,” Giulia whispered, showing me the other guard, also shot dead. He lay sprawled in the hallway to our left.
I nodded, paying attention to where we walked in the silent house.
Or not so silent.
A low groan came from ahead.
Giulia and I shared a look, and we hurried forward to find Cecilia.
She lay on the floor, a puddle of blood pooling around her.
Even though we were here together, I had a last-minute second thought about having Giulia reveal herself. Until we could know who was friend or foe, I didn’t want to complicate anything for Giulia being here. If Cecilia could attest that she saw me with her brother’s intended, she could spoil our surprise too soon.
I meant it. I wanted Giulia for good. But I had to plan to make that happen accordingly.
She didn’t protest when I pushed her hand and indicated for her to wait in the alcove near where Cecilia lay gasping and wincing.
I walked forward, keeping my gun out. Just in case.
The woman had been stabbed. A bloody knife lay to the side. Streaks of crimson crisscrossed in splatters. As I neared her, the more gruesome it all looked.
She’d been stabbed in the stomach, sliced over her neck. Cut on her arms, perhaps a payment for trying to defend herself.
“Cecilia.”
She whimpered, looking up and seeing me at last. Keeping her head raised seemed too difficult, and with the gash on her cheek, cut from her eye to her jaw, I knew the girl was bleeding out fast.
“I didn’t mean it.”
I went still. Frozen in place as I crouched to hear her as she cried, I ignored the sickening squelch of her tears mixing with her blood. Her tear ducts were torn with the position of the cuts. It was gross. Macabre. Hideous.
But I had a strong stomach.
“You didn’t mean it?” I asked.
She sobbed, crying softly. Slumping to the ground, she nodded with her head on the bloody floor. “I didn’t mean to have him killed.”
“You helped kill Luka?” I asked.
Now she shook her head the best she could with her neck so wounded. “No. But he took my glass.”
“What?” I felt dizzy with the adrenaline rush.
“Luka drank from my glass. I’d asked for it specifically to avoid alcohol. And he… he took it by accident and died.”
I scrambled to understand. “What are you saying?”
“I’m sorry, Renzo. I’m sorry that Luka died. That your brother is gone. Just because he drank from my glass.”
I clenched my teeth together, stunned speechless. “You’re certain?”
“Yes. I didn’t want any alcohol because of the baby. That’s why I kept track of what drinks I had. And he took mine by accident.”
Holy shit. A baby ?
“Cecilia…” I shook my head, struggling to keep up.
“I won’t make it, Renzo.” She squeezed her eyes shut tightly. “I don’t know why you’re here, but I want to tell someone how sorry I am. For all of it.”
“Whose baby?”
“Mine.” She lowered her hand to cover her stomach and cried harder when her fingers slipped over the bloody wound. “Ours.” Her stomach was flat. She wasn’t showing the swell of carrying a baby, but I took her word for it. Deathbed confessions always seemed too starkly sincere and accurate.
“Yours and Luka’s?” I asked.
“No. I had… I fell in love before I was arranged to marry him. And I had an affair.”
I rubbed my hand over my face, bewildered and at a loss for which question to ask next. So many questions pinged in my mind, and I couldn’t think fast enough. She was dying. She was eager to tell someone her truth, and I had to listen.
“I ran to hide.”
“Did your father know?”
She sobbed. “I just wanted to hide and have my baby, but I was so scared. I didn’t know who wanted me dead, but I should’ve realized…”
“Realized what?”
No words came. She struggled with labored breaths, and I grabbed her upper arm to shake her from passing out.
“Cecilia?” Giulia stepped closer. Her face was sober, full of concern and shock. She walked closer, perhaps planning to help.
The slender woman opened her eyes. With a vacant, trancelike stare, she seemed focused on Giulia. Yet not. The hazy, slurred tone of her drowsy speech suggested she was about to fade away completely.
“You.”
She glowered at Giulia with such delusional hatred, it was as though she accused Giulia in all her woes.
“Cecilia…” Giulia stayed back, shaking her head with a sorrowful expression.
“I wish…” Cecilia gasped, closing her eyes tight before wrenching them open with an even crazier glare. “I wish this baby I carried would have lived.” She opened and closed her mouth, struggling to breathe. “I wish my baby lived just to piss you off, you filthy bitch.”
“Cecilia.” I shook her arm too, trying to dislodge her frantic attention on Giulia to answer me. “Whose baby is it?”
She closed her eyes and kept them closed.
“Who killed Luka?” I shook her arm again.
Her chest ceased rising.
“Cecilia!” Again, I jerked on her arm. “Who stabbed you?”
“Renzo.”
I whipped around to see Giulia. She still stood behind me, on the lookout. Glancing around the room, her small pistol in hand, she remained cautious.
She’d taken her weapon out of her pocket to have my back, and knowing that she was smart and quick enough to know this might still be a dangerous scene, I snapped back to attention.
I wouldn’t be getting any other answers from this dead woman.
Cecilia Romano, and her bastard baby, lay dead on the floor. Bled out, lifeless, and never again able to shed any light or provide any clues on all this grisly drama that surrounded us.
“Fuck.” I stood and stared down at the woman I might have had to marry. No guilt filled me. She hadn’t been mine to protect. I hadn’t failed her.
The only remorse that could hit me was that of not getting here sooner. To see who’d attacked her and wanted to end her life and that of her unborn baby’s. To know who she’d had an affair with.
Anything. I felt thwarted, too late in learning anything that could help me.
If I hadn’t stalled, maybe we would’ve gotten here quicker. If I hadn’t stopped to kiss Giulia and proclaim my commitment to a future with her, if we hadn’t attracted the attention of the Greeks on the road…
All of it.
“Renzo, we should go,” she said.
I nodded, unable to look away from Cecilia and know that she couldn’t help.
I was so close to knowing what happened. I could feel it. The truth was at the tips of my fingers, and I’d lost it.
“Yeah.” I exhaled, looking over Cecilia’s body for any other clues. We couldn’t report this. Doing so would reveal that we were here, looking for answers. I should’ve felt bad to walk away, but that was all I could do. Giulia was right to be worried. I was grateful that she’d held on to common sense that we couldn’t linger. The killer could be near, or spying on us this minute.
That jolted me into action.
I couldn’t stand around here where Giulia could be in danger. We both had to get out of here, but more than that, I had to protect this woman I wanted to make mine.
“Come on.” I took her hand as I retreated. We both kept our eyes peeled and our ears open as we hurried back out the way we’d come.
Sooner or later, someone would come and find this scene. Giulia and I had left no trace of being here. I doubted the surveillance cameras could have caught us walking in. The killer had likely disabled them with swift cuts through the wires.
We weren’t the only ones to walk in here and leave just as quickly.
Another death had been added to the count.
On one hand, we were lucky not to run into them as they killed Cecilia. On the other hand, I hated that we were still in the dark.
“It’s got to be the same person who killed Luka,” Giulia said as we got into the car.
I sped away, nodding while we both checked our surroundings. “I agree.” When she didn’t speak up again, I glanced at her. “Why’d she say that at the end?”
She shook her head. “I… I have no clue.”
“She wanted her bastard baby to live to piss you off?”
Shrugging, she paused in looking around to make eye contact with me for a brief, startled moment. “I don’t know what that means. I never befriended her. I never knew her. And I certainly don’t know anything about her baby.”
Me neither. But I intended to find out. This child had to be tied to this mess.
“We will figure it out.”
This time, she took the initiative to grab my hand and hold it. “We will.”
We. I liked the sound of that. In the face of death, she stood with me. And at the risk of causing so much upheaval with the relationship we'd dared to forge, she didn’t seem eager to step back and let me figure this out on my own, either.