The Thief (Venice Mafia #1)

1. Lucia

1

LUCIA

I am very drunk, and everything is hazy.

It’s a dark night—cloudy, moonless, and foggy. I’ve been wandering for hours, not paying attention to where I’m going, and I’ve ended up in a neighborhood I don’t recognize. Venice is a safe city, but this section of town is far from the tourist core. The boats in the harbor here aren’t pleasure yachts; they’re working fishing vessels. Big, windowless warehouses dot the docks, and this late at night, there are more rats around than people.

A week ago, I was a college student in Chicago, and the most important thing on my mind was how I was going to get my senior thesis done on time. But while I was researching Venetian painters in the library, my mom was undergoing chemotherapy. While I was blowing off steam at a neighborhood pub after a day of hard work, the doctors told her the treatment wasn’t working and she had only weeks to live.

I didn’t know that my mother was dying because my parents kept her illness a secret from me. I didn’t know she’d gone into hospice either.

I never got a chance to say goodbye.

I take a healthy swig from the vodka bottle I’m clutching onto like a lifeline.

Three days ago, I got a phone call that shattered me. My parents’ lawyer informed me that my mother had succumbed to the cancer ravaging her body. My father, unable to contemplate life without his wife, put a bullet through his brain. One day, I was wondering if I could convince my art history professor to grant me an extension for my final paper, and the next, I was flying back home to bury my parents.

A hint of movement jerks me back to the present. Something rustles to my right. Before I have a chance to react, three large, threatening bodies coalesce from the fog and surround me. One of the men pulls out a knife and holds it to my throat.

“Don’t move, signorina, and don’t make a noise,” he growls. “I have no desire to hurt you. Give me your purse.”

I’m being robbed.

Numbly, I hold out my bright green bag. I bought it from a street vendor who’d set up shop opposite the Dolce and Gabbana store. Mama and I did a bunch of tourist things before I left for college: we visited St. Mark’s Basilica, listened to musicians at the piazza, rode a gondola, and ate at a restaurant a stone’s throw from the Ponte di Rialto. The vendor insisted that the bag was actually Prada, not a fake, and my mother laughed at him. “We’re not tourists,” she said and haggled with him for the next fifteen minutes.

I should have realized she was sick. She’d lost a lot of weight this year. The last few times we talked, she wouldn’t get on camera. “Something’s wrong with it,” she said. “I haven’t had time to get it fixed.”

I didn’t want to get roped into doing tech support over the phone, so I hadn’t probed. If I had, I would have suspected that something was badly wrong.

One of the men snatches the imitation Prada bag from my hand while another shines a flashlight in my face. “Your necklace, too.”

Things are moving too fast for me to process, but those words penetrate my drunken stupor. The necklace I’m wearing, a filigreed ruby pendant dangling on a gold chain, belonged to my mother. My father gave it to her as a wedding present, and she never took it off. The thought of losing it so soon after losing them is more than I can bear.

“No.”

“Don’t be stupid,” the man with the knife snaps, pressing the cold blade closer to my throat. “It’s not worth your life. Take off the goddamn necklace and hand it to me before you get hurt.”

“Someone’s coming,” Flashlight Guy says suddenly. He looks around nervously. “We’re not authorized. . . We need to get out of here before we get caught.” He makes a lunge from my necklace. The gold chain digs into my neck, and I yelp in pain.

“Stop,” a voice says, slicing the moisture-laden air like a whip. A tall, lean man glides out of the shadows, his face obscured by the brim of his hat.

He’s said one word. Just one, but the reaction is electrifying. The man holding my purse takes one look at the newcomer’s face and makes a run for it. “Fuck,” the guy who made a grab for my chain swears. The man holding a knife to my throat takes a step back and holds up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice trembling. “I didn’t mean to. . . I didn’t know?—”

“You didn’t know I was here.” My rescuer’s voice is ice. “But I’m always watching. You should remember that.” He takes another step forward. “Leave.”

The remaining two criminals flee.

The mysterious man turns in my direction. He studies me for what seems like an age, his gaze lingering on the side of my neck. “They hurt you.”

They did? I reach up and touch my neck, and my skin stings where the chain cut me. The pendant is safe, though, and that’s all that counts. “It’s just a cut. It’ll heal.”

He moves closer, his breath warming my face, and he touches the cut with a feather-light touch. “You’re bleeding.” There’s a dangerous note in his voice that sends a shiver down my spine. “Who did this to you? Which one of them?”

Goosebumps break out on my skin. Once again, everything is moving with bewildering speed, events rushing past me like the leaves in a windstorm. The vodka has scrambled my thoughts, and this man isn’t helping. His voice and touch aren’t supposed to permeate my numbness, but they are, and I don’t know how to react.

“The guy holding the flashlight.”

“Marco.” My hero’s voice promises death. His eyes settle on me again. “You’re cold.” He pulls off his jacket and drapes it around my shoulders, and warmth descends over me like a blanket. “This isn’t a good part of town to wander around in this late at night, signorina.” He glances at the bottle I’m clinging to. “Especially when you’re as inebriated as you are.”

My gratitude evaporates in a rush. Who is he to judge me? What the hell does he know about what I’ve been through? He can have his stupid jacket back.

“Thank you for your help,” I say frostily, taking it off and holding it out to him. My parents have taught me to be polite, and annoyed as I am, the good manners they drilled into me won’t allow me to tell him to fuck off. “I’ll be going now.”

“You’re welcome.” He ignores the jacket. I hold it out for another long second, then shrug and let it fall to the ground before walking away.

He mutters something under his breath as he picks it up and then falls in step with me.

“What are you doing?” I demand.

“Escorting you home,” he says, as if it were obvious. “This is a bad neighborhood, and I would hate for you to get hurt again.”

Home is filled with memories I’m trying to obliterate with a bottle of vodka. “I don’t want to go home,” I mutter sullenly. “And I don’t care if I get hurt.”

He gives me a sidelong glance. “What’s the matter? Your boyfriend broke up with you, and you’ve decided that alcohol is the only way to cope?”

Boyfriend. He thinks I’ve fallen apart because of a failed relationship? “I buried my parents today,” I say flatly. “Both of them. And yes, this bottle is the only way I can cope.”

“Ah.” There’s a long pause. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have leaped to conclusions.”

I didn’t expect him to apologize, and I don’t know how to react. I take another deep drink of my vodka and, out of some strange impulse, offer the bottle to him.

I expect him to turn it down. I’m even prepared for him to do something dramatic, like fling it into the canal. But shockingly, he does neither. He pries the bottle gently from my fingers. His lips wrap around the mouth, the way mine did a second earlier, and he drinks. Then he hands it back to me, his fingers brushing mine.

Heat blossoms in my chest. A distant part of my brain registers it, but I’m so numbed by grief that it feels like it’s happening to someone else.

We walk in the darkness, taking turns drinking from the steadily emptying bottle, neither breaking the silence. I wouldn’t have sought out company, but I’m grateful he’s there. I don’t want to be alone tonight.

“I’m not sad,” I finally blurt out.

“About. . .?”

“That they died.” It’s not exactly a lie. Sad is too simple a word to describe the emotions churning through me. “I’m angry. Furious. My mother hid her illness from me, and when she died, my father went and shot himself.”

He doesn’t say anything, but he squeezes my hand, a silent gesture of support.. Somewhere along the way, he’s draped his coat around me again and, caught up as I’ve been in my own misery, I hadn’t even noticed.

“It wasn’t just my parents who lied,” I continue bitterly. “They all did. Even my best friend didn’t tell me.” I pour some more booze down my throat. “Did everyone think they were protecting me? Because I don’t feel protected. I feel abandoned, and I hate them for that.”

Once again, he stays silent, but this time, it prickles at me. “What are you thinking? Are you going to give me the same advice the priest did? Are you going to tell me that I shouldn’t feel betrayed and that I should forgive them?”

“I would never presume to tell you how to feel.”

I’m not looking where I’m going, and I stumble over a coil of rope. I’m about to fall, but his arms are around me before I do. His touch feels solid and reassuring, a portal into a fantasy world where I’m not suddenly alone. A world in which there’s someone who cares for me. Someone who will catch me before I fall.

Then he yanks me to his chest. My breasts smash into the hardness of his torso, and another wave of heat surges through me. This time, I’m very aware of him, of his scent and his nearness, of the steel in his muscles and the strength in his arms. I want. . .

He pulls away.

If it weren’t for the numbness in my heart, his rejection might hurt. Tonight though, it’s just another hit in a series of hits, and I’m too bruised to care. “You’re avoiding my question.” I still can’t see his face and maybe that’s what loosens my tongue. Or maybe it’s the vodka. “You don’t have any advice for me?” I keep stabbing at the open, bleeding wound. “If you were me, if your parents abandoned you the way mine did, what would you do? What would you be feeling right now?”

“I didn’t know my parents,” he says without inflection. “I was left outside a church as a baby.”

Oh. Oh. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t need your pity,” he says stiffly. The easy, relaxed set of his shoulders is gone, replaced by tension. This is clearly not a welcome topic, and it’s obvious he’d much rather talk about my problems than his own.

Fair enough. “Give me advice, then. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to move forward from this.”

“Did your parents love you?”

A lump forms in my throat, and I nod wordlessly.

“Then start there,” he says quietly, lacing his fingers in mine. “Don’t let yourself forget their love. I can’t pretend to understand your parents’ decision, but what I know is that we don’t make our best decisions under pressure. When we are hurt, when we are in pain, we don’t think. Instead, we hide, and we lash out.” His grip on my hand tightens. “Maybe they thought they were protecting you, or maybe they didn’t want your last memories of them to be filled with pain.”

I make a scoffing sound. “You’re a lot kinder than I’m willing to be.”

He continues as if I haven’t interrupted. “As for how to move forward, you just do. You put one foot in front of the other. Until one day, you realize that you’re able to think about them without pain. In time, the anger and the grief will fade, cara mia, and you’ll be left with the good memories.”

We’ve been steadily walking toward civilization. The Ca’Pesaro looms before me, casting ornate shadows into the canal. I lift the bottle to my mouth, find it empty, and fling it into the water.

My rescuer tracks the movement. “Where are you staying tonight?”

I cannot go to my parents’ apartment. I just cannot. I cannot be in the place where they died. I can’t run into our neighbors, and I can’t cope with their sympathy and concern.

“I don’t know.” I reach for my phone and realize it’s in the bag the thieves took. “My purse is gone.” It feels like the last straw. I take a deep breath and fight the urge to burst into tears. “I have no money.”

He puts his hand on the small of my back, a comforting gesture that tells me I’m not alone. “Come with me, signorina. Let’s get you settled for the night. I’ll track down your purse in the morning.”

He takes me to a hotel. We walk into the brightly lit lobby, and after the darkness outside, it takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust. I turn to him to finally see what he looks like, but the vodka has gone to my head, and I’m having trouble focusing. The room swims in front of me, and I see double and triple of everything. I get the sense of a firm jaw and full lips, but that’s it.

“I need a room for the night,” he says to the clerk behind the counter.

The clerk takes a look at his face and jumps to attention. “Si, Signor.” There’s respect in his voice but also a trace of fear? Or am I imagining it? I can’t tell.

Checking in takes less than a minute, then my rescuer steers me to an elevator and presses the button for the top floor. It starts to move, and I slump against him, my bones turning to liquid. “You smell nice.” It seems important to share that with him. “Like the ocean.” I sniff him again, breathing deep and letting his scent settle into me. “And something else. Pine, maybe? I like it.”

He doesn’t respond, but his grip on me tightens slightly. I like that too.

We reach the room, and he opens the door for me, gesturing for me to go in first. He follows me inside, heading to the bathroom. I collapse on the bed, my head spinning. I hear water running before he returns with a glass, motioning me to sit up. “Drink this,” he orders. “It’ll help with the hangover.”

“I don’t get hangovers.”

“You will tomorrow,” he says with a short laugh. He makes me drink the entire glass before getting me another and placing it on the bedside table.

Then he cups my cheek with his callused hand and looks deep into my eyes. “Go to sleep,” he says gently. “Things will look less bleak in the morning.”

He turns away, and it’s only when he’s almost at the door that I realize that he’s leaving. I don’t want him to go. “Stop!” I cry out.

He freezes in place.

My heart is racing in my chest. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.” I grip the bedspread with my fingers and take a deep, shaky breath. “Please?”

He hesitates for a long moment and slowly turns around. “Okay.” He turns off the light, and the room plunges into comforting darkness. A minute later, the mattress sags with his weight as he gets into bed with me.

I snuggle closer and kiss his cheek. “Thank you,” I whisper. My eyes close, but before sleep tugs me under, I want one more thing. “I don’t know your name.”

“Antonio.”

“Antonio,” I repeat, trying out the name on my tongue. “I’m Lucia.”

He brushes a strand of hair away from my face. “A lovely name for a lovely woman.” The words should feel like an empty compliment, but the weight in his voice makes it feel real. “I’m right here. Sleep well, Lucia.”

* * *

When I wake up the next morning, I’m alone. There’s no sign that anyone was ever with me, and I’m still wearing the clothes I fell asleep in. If I wasn’t in a strange hotel room, I’d be convinced I imagined the events of last night.

I get out of bed, wincing in pain. Antonio was right: my head feels like it’s going to explode. This is what I get for drinking an entire bottle of vodka in one evening.

I make my way to the bathroom and splash some water on my face. The skin around my neck is abraded and raw from where the thief tried to yank at my chain. I finger the precious pendant absently, a complicated cocktail of emotions churning through me. Antonio’s words from last night ring in my head. In time, the anger and grief will fade, and you will be left with the good memories.

There’s a knock at the door. I open it, and a staff member wheels in a cart of food. “Breakfast, signorina.”

I’m starving, but I have no money to pay for my meal. I’m about to tell the waiter I didn’t order anything when he adds, “Also, this was left for you at the front desk.”

This is my bag. The green imitation Prada bag my mother bought for me before I left for college.

And when I look inside, I find the contents untouched. My passport, my phone, my money—they’re all there.

Antonio to the rescue once again.

Tucked in a front pocket is a thick cream-colored card.

A phone number is printed on the front and there’s a handwritten note on the back. Just two words.

Call me.

I stare at it for a very long time.

Last night, Antonio took care of me. He stayed with me, listened to me, and made sure I was safe. When everything around me was crumbling, when I desperately needed someone to cling to, he was there.

But safety is a myth. I’ve learned this week that your world can shatter in the blink of an eye. The people you love and trust can and will betray you. They will hide their illnesses from you and die. They will shoot their brains out and leave you bereft.

I can’t afford to lean on anyone.

I reach for the back of my neck, unclasp my mother’s necklace, and tuck it into my purse, along with the card Antonio left me. Taking a deep breath, I turn to the hotel employee. “Could you arrange for some transportation for me in an hour?”

“Certainly, signorina. Where to?”

“The airport.”

I need to fly away from here; there’s nothing left for me in Venice. Not anymore.