Chapter 22 DAN
DAN
Ilean against the Obelisco Sallustiano in front of the Church of Trinità dei Monti, at the top of the Spanish Steps.
The strawberry gum in my mouth calms me, but only a little as I wait for Magnus.
With my back against the structure, I scan the area.
He’s clever, arranging to meet in the open.
One of the busiest parts of Rome, full of tourists and cameras.
Too public to strangle him with my bare hands.
I need him out of the picture—and fast. Gathering data on his operations isn’t gonna cut it this time. He’s a loose end that needs tying up, his mere existence hanging over me and my family like a grey cloud blocking out the sun.
My spine prickles. There he is—threading through the crowd like oil in water, polluting everything in his path. That sunken face, dishevelled suit, and the ugly scar across his cheek that I want to mirror on the other side.
I push off the obelisk as he climbs the stairs, his eyes finding me through the sea of people. My shoulders are lighter knowing he’s here meeting me, allowing Rose to visit her mum with no threat from this man.
He holds out a hand for me to shake.
Acid rises in my throat as I stare at it, then my gaze flicks back to his and I secure my mask, a smile hiding the poison on my tongue, but for now I play nice and shake his hand.
“You wanted to meet me?” He stares as if waiting for me to hand him some intel, but I have nothing. The only purpose for this meeting was to know where he is and make sure he’s as far away from the hospital as possible.
“Yes. I wanted to touch base while I’m in Rome. Finding any leads on the target is proving difficult.” I scratch at the short bristles on my jaw as I assess his reaction.
“I suggest you try harder, Bianchi. That’s what I’m paying you for.” He spits the words as if frustrated.
“The brother hasn’t seen her in years. The mother can hardly speak without coughing up a lung. She’d sooner die than give anything away.”
He clicks his tongue. “Then maybe we need to get creative,” he says, lowering his voice. “Tell the old bat you’ll hurt the kid.”
Every muscle in my body locks. Fire floods my veins. “You’d use your own son as bait?” My son. The lad doted on this man, and why I cannot fathom.
He shrugs like it’s nothing, clicking his tongue, slow and deliberate. “It’s not personal, Bianchi. It’s just business. Rose is an asset that got misplaced. And I’m simply reclaiming what’s mine.”
“I’m not in the business of hurting kids. It’s not my style. Nor is hurting women.”
He sparks up a cigarette, the sulphur bite reaching me before the smoke does. “Relax. I wouldn’t hurt the kid. But she doesn’t know that.” He blows out a plume in my face. “Like I said. Get creative and the old bat might talk.”
I want to break his nose. Slam his head against the stone behind us and watch the scar split wide open. I want to pry his eyes from his sockets and cut out his tongue, break every finger that’s ever touched my girl and tarnished her soft petals. But I don’t.
For now, I swallow the bile on my tongue and clear my throat as I tighten my tie.
“I’ll see what I can do.” I tilt my head, studying him.
“Why would your wife feel the need to disappear?” I give him a hard stare, wondering what this bastard did to my woman that would make her want to change her name.
Magnus’s lips twitch. “Some women are so dramatic.”
The muscles in my jaw clench so tight, my molars grind. My fingers tense at my sides, aching to grab him by the collar and throw him down the steps. “You think she wants to play chase?”
He shrugs, too casual. “She likes to play games.”
I lean in, close enough for him to smell the anger on my breath. “Or maybe she tired of playing your punching bag.”
Magnus steps closer, lowering his voice. Click. “You’re acting like I’m the monster,” he says, tilting his head. “But didn’t you kill her father?”
“People get what they deserve.” I glare at him, but do my best to keep my cool.
His expression doesn’t shift, but there’s a flicker in his eyes—a crack in the mask. “You got something you want to say, Bianchi?” he asks, all teeth now.
“Just trying to get into the mind of the woman I’m tracing. It helps to understand the… psychology.”
“Don’t waste your time psychoanalysing her. She’s a manipulator. And when I find her, I’ll remind her exactly who she belongs to.”
She doesn’t belong to you. My fist curls, but I school my face.
We lock eyes. He tries to read me. I let him. Let him think I’m still his man. Let him believe the leash still fits.
He scoffs. “Just find her. Or I’ll find someone else who can.”
“And when I do?” My voice is smooth. Deceptively calm. “What happens then?”
He smiles, teeth stained with smoke. “Then we bring her home.”
Home.
My fists tighten. Her home is with me. With her son. With the life she built away from you. “You’ll get what you paid for,” I say, turning before I forget we’re surrounded by tourists and let my hands speak instead.
He wants her home. I’ll make sure I bring her home—right after I bury him.
Once out of his earshot, I pull out my phone and call Rose, needing her voice to soothe the tension from my body.
I take a left as the phone rings and inhale the fresh air of the Villa Borghese gardens, the scent of the stone pines and citrus fruits, a kiosk selling stone-baked pizzas and the sweet aroma of the gelato cart. I’m taken back almost fourteen years.
“Hello,” Rose answers after several rings.
“Where are you?”
“I’ve just arrived back at my hotel.” There’s a clatter in the background.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, just my case.”
My shoulders drop as a sigh leaves my lungs.
“You know, I thought you’d be tracking me. You seem to know everything else.”
I imagine her rolling her eyes with a sassy smirk on her lips. One I want to kiss off her face. I smile, just a little. “Careful, fiore mio. Keep talking like that and I’ll start to think you missed me.”
“If I missed you, it was probably like missing a toothache,” she fires back, but her voice is softer than her words.
I glance at the still lake and lean against the rail, lowering my voice. “Keep giving me attitude, and I’ll have to do something about it.”
“Well, you already gave me a hickey. You’ve made a right mess of my neck.”
A chuckle escapes. “I didn’t hear you complaining at the time.”
“You ambushed me.”
“You loved every second of it.”
There’s a pause, then her voice drops, a touch quieter. “You’re exhausting,” she says on an exhale, and I hear the bounce of a mattress and a creak of a bed.
I turn, taking in the beautiful view of the rose gardens. The gravel paths. The old stone bench where she used to sit with her head buried in that battered paperback. “I’m in the Villa Borghese.”
Silence stretches on the phone. “You reminiscing about what a lying piece of shit you were?”
“I never lied to you.”
“Right,” she bites back. “You just omitted the truth. That’s the same thing, Dan.”
I close my eyes, letting our memories wash over me like warm air. “I am fortune’s fool.”
“Don’t think you can quote Shakespeare and I’ll fawn over you like I did before.”
“How about if I quote us?” I run a hand over my face, reminiscing, as if it was just yesterday.
“You were always reading that damn book. You had no idea how poignant it was for us back then and even now. I can still picture you in your sundress, a smattering of freckles across your face where the sun had kissed your skin, and I wanted to kiss every single one.”
“D’Angelo, don’t.”
“Don’t what? Tell you how you were the most beautiful thing in that rose garden.”
“More lies. I was a chubby girl with no experience of men. I was an easy target for you to manipulate to your will.”
“You were a shy little thing, yes, and chubby, but that’s what made me fall for you even more. You had no idea how adorable you were.”
She exhales. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me forget how angry I am at you.”
“Too late. I can hear it in your voice—you’re thinking about the bench. About the rose. About that kiss under the trees.”
Another silence, a crackle of tension down the line.
“Get some rest, fiore mio. Think of gardens and stolen kisses.”
“I’ll think of running you over with the drinks trolley.”
A smile curves my lips as another pause of silence carries through the phone.
“Don’t go back there again.” Her voice wobbles and I’m not sure if she means the garden or the past, but it’s too late now. Our past is entwined with our future and even after all this time, even after everything we’ve been through—she remembers too.
“I have to go.” Her voice fades, but the ache she leaves behind doesn’t.
I hang up and pocket the phone, the promise of a past we can never quite shake still burning in my chest.
And now, it’s time to deal with the other mess I came here for.
Knock, knock.
Matteo cracks the hotel door wide enough for me to enter. “Did anyone follow you up here?” He clicks the door shut behind us and runs a hand through his short hair.
“No. I have Riccardo’s security guys keeping close tabs on everyone coming in or out of the hotel. I’m keeping a close eye on someone else right now.”
“Can we trust Riccardo’s men?” Matteo sits on the bed, his head dropping into his hands as if the weight of the world is bearing down on him.
“He may be a second cousin, but he’s still a Bianchi like us.
” I recline into the hotel chair at the old wooden desk.
“How have you been?” I know how he must feel.
It’s hard returning to the place you once fled.
The last time I was here, apart from recently, I was on a mission to avenge my mother.
Now my mission is to protect the woman whose family I was sent to destroy.
Matteo lets out a long sigh. “Truth? Not good.”
I lean back and scratch the short hairs on my jaw.
He scrubs a hand down his weary face. “I’m obsessed with bringing my father down.
I don’t know if he’s caught wind of this, or if he’s merely evil enough to want to hurt me for being disloyal.
But he’s put a hit out on my wife.” His voice wobbles, just for a second.
He blinks hard and clears his throat, but the fear lingers like a shadow across his face.
“Fuck.” My spine straightens as I hang on every word.
“I’ve been trying to infiltrate his business communications to put a stop to them. Particularly his drug and weapons business. However, the safety of my wife is paramount. It makes it difficult to focus on anything else.”
“I understand better than you think.” Resting my elbows on my knees, I rub the back of my neck as my head dips. “I’ve been under similar stress. Trying to keep Rose safe. She’s…it’s complicated.”
He lets out a half-hearted laugh. “If anyone can relate to complicated, I’m your man.”
“It’s a big mess. She’s married to a man from an Italian crime syndicate in London. He wasn’t a problem while he was incarcerated, but now he’s back on the scene, looking for her.”
Matteo shakes his head.
“It gets worse.” I swallow the bitterness on my tongue, bile rising in my throat whenever I think of my girl with him.
“He’s asked me to find her.” I clench my fist, wanting to tear the man’s skin from his bones and feed it to him in a dog bowl.
“I accepted because if I’m not the one looking, then he’d find someone else.
I need to stall him long enough while I can gather some dirt.
Matteo places a hand on my shoulder. “This life isn’t for the meek, cugino.”
“Isn’t that the damn truth?” I walk over to the phone on the nightstand and order room service, then open the fridge and pull out a beer. “Want one?”
Matteo’s brow wrinkles. He pulls his lip between his teeth before shaking his head. “I don’t do well with alcohol these days, my friend.”
I place the beer back in the fridge, sensing his struggle. “You’re right. We both need to keep a clear head.” I reach into my bag for my journal. “All right, let’s make a plan.”