Chapter Thirty-Three
LUCIA
Marco doesn’t tell me not to go.
That almost makes it worse.
He stands behind his desk, reading the security report Armando prepared on Matteo’s estate. A property map lies open beneath it, marked with the house, gates, shoreline, and two docks.
Gio sits on the edge of the desk, unusually quiet.
“He wants to show me my mother’s things,” I say.
Marco turns a page.
“I heard you.”
“I want to see them.”
“I heard that too.”
I fold my arms.
“You could at least look at me while you disapprove.”
He sets down the report.
“I don’t disapprove.”
“You’ve read the same page three times.”
Gio glances at the papers.
“He has.”
Marco ignores him.
“I think Moretti has made his intentions clear. He wants you away from us.”
“He’s my father.”
“That doesn’t make him safe.”
“Neither does being my husband.”
The words come out more sharply than I intend.
Marco’s expression doesn’t change, but Gio looks away.
I regret them immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not wrong,” Marco says.
That makes me feel worse.
I cross the office and stop in front of him.
“I need to do this.”
“I know.”
“I spent most of my life believing Alexei Romanov was my father. Then I spent nearly six years hearing that every member of my family was dead. Now there’s someone who knew my mother. He has her letters and photographs.”
Marco reaches for my hand.
His thumb moves across my knuckles.
“What time are you expected?”
“Lunch.”
“Dario and Bruno will take you.”
“I already asked them.”
Something that might be approval passes through his eyes.
“And you’ll call at five,” Gio says.
“I told Dario we would leave by four thirty.”
“Call anyway.”
I look at him.
He attempts a smile.
“For my delicate nerves, Lucy.”
“I’ll call.”
Marco releases my hand and picks up the report again.
“Armando will monitor the route. Dario stays with you inside the house.”
“I doubt Matteo will like that.”
“He doesn’t have to.”
“And if he refuses?”
“Then you don’t go inside.”
The words sound like an order.
Marco hears it too.
His jaw tightens.
“I mean that if you decide to enter without Dario, we can’t guarantee your security.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
I consider the report in his hands.
“You really hate this.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re letting me go.”
His gaze lifts to mine.
“You don’t need my permission.”
The answer matters.
“All right,” I say. “Dario stays with me.”
Gio follows me into the hall.
“Lucy.”
I turn.
He puts his hands in his pockets.
It’s such a deliberately harmless posture that I almost smile.
“What?”
“If you want to leave, you leave.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t stay because Moretti is upset. You don’t stay because he brings out another box of photographs.”
“Okay.”
His mouth tightens.
I step closer and kiss his cheek.
“I’ll be home for dinner.”
“You’d better be. Angela is making lasagna.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It is,” he says. “I’m hungry.”
Matteo’s estate sits outside Providence, on a secluded stretch of shoreline in Barrington.
The drive from Belmont takes a little over an hour. Dario spends most of it watching the mirrors while I watch the city give way to smaller towns, old trees, and occasional glimpses of Narragansett Bay.
The gates open before our SUV comes to a full stop.
A long drive curves toward a gray stone house overlooking the water. Mature trees shade the front lawn, and clipped hedges form precise borders along the gravel. Beyond the house, the land slopes toward a private dock, where a white boat rocks gently against its lines.
From this distance, it looks peaceful.
It doesn’t look like a prison.
Neither did Marco’s house.
The thought makes me uncomfortable.
Dario notices.
“You all right?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t convincing.”
“I’m going inside anyway.”
“I figured.”
He gets out first.
Bruno remains with the vehicle while Dario walks beside me to the entrance. He keeps half a step behind me, close enough to reach me without appearing to guide where I go.
Matteo is waiting on the steps.
He looks less formal than he did at our other meetings. No tie. No jacket. The sleeves of his white shirt are folded to his forearms.
For an instant, I see Marco.
The comparison vanishes when Matteo smiles.
“Lucia.”
He comes down the steps and kisses both my cheeks.
“I’m glad you came.”
“Thank you for inviting me.”
His attention moves to Dario.
“My security,” I say before either man can speak. “He stays with me.”
Matteo’s smile fades slightly.
“You’re safe here.”
“I’m sure you believe that.”
Something flickers in his eyes.
Then he inclines his head.
“Of course.”
He gestures toward the house.
“Come inside.”
The foyer rises two stories, with pale stone floors and a staircase that divides halfway to the second level. Tall windows face the drive, but the heavy glass softens the view of the world outside.
There are two men near the entrance.
Another stands at the mouth of the hall.
They wear suits instead of uniforms, but I recognize guards when I see them.
Matteo notices me counting.
“The house has always been well protected.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
He leads us through rooms that appear designed for people who never put their feet on the furniture.
The dining-room table could seat twenty. The windows overlook gardens arranged into precise shapes. Oil paintings hang beneath discreet pools of light, their frames free of dust.
Nothing is out of place.
Nothing looks lived in.
Lunch has been set on a terrace overlooking the bay. Sunlight flashes across the water, and a bell chimes softly against the mast of a boat near the dock. The air smells of salt, cut grass, and warm stone.
Matteo has remembered that I like sparkling water with lemon.
There are tomatoes dressed with basil, grilled fish, warm bread, and a bowl of strawberries.
“You remembered,” I say.
“You mentioned it at your birthday lunch.”
I did.
Once.
Dario takes up a position near the terrace doors. From there, he can see me, the hall beyond the glass, and part of the path leading around the house.
Matteo looks at him but doesn’t object.
For the first half hour, we talk about harmless things.
The estate.
The weather.
A bookstore in Providence Matteo thinks I might like.
Then he begins telling me about my mother.
“She hated tomatoes when we met,” he says.
I glance at the plate between us.
“My mother?”
“She claimed they had the texture of spoiled fruit.”
“That sounds dramatic.”
“Maria was dramatic.”
He smiles, but grief moves beneath it.
“She changed her mind one summer. The gardener grew a yellow variety, and she decided they were entirely different.”
“Were they?”
“No.”
I laugh.
Matteo looks at me.
The intensity of his expression makes the laughter fade.
“What?”
“You sound like her.”
The ache in his voice is real.
I look down at my plate.
“I don’t remember her laugh.”
“You were young.”
“I remember other things. Her perfume. The way she brushed my hair. But I can’t remember the sound of her voice.”
“I can show you something.”
He rises.
The photographs are in a sitting room upstairs.
There are dozens of them arranged on a table near the windows.
My mother standing at the end of the dock with her shoes in one hand.
My mother sitting on the hood of a car, her dark hair blowing across her face.
My mother asleep in a chair with an open book against her chest.
She looks younger than I remember.
Freer.
I pick up a photograph of her laughing at someone outside the frame. The bay stretches behind her, bright enough to make her squint.
“Who took this?”
“I did.”
My thumb brushes the edge.
“She was twenty-two,” Matteo says.
“Almost my age.”
“Almost.”
He opens a wooden box on the table.
Inside are letters tied with a faded blue ribbon.
My mother’s handwriting crosses the top envelope.
Matteo
My breath catches.
“How many?”
“Nineteen.”
“You kept all of them?”
“Every one.”
I lift the bundle carefully.
The paper is soft with age, the fold lines nearly worn through. The first letter is dated almost two years before I was born. My mother writes about this house, the water, and a storm that left them without power.
There is nothing about Alexei.
Nothing about me.
I move through the dates until I reach the final letter.
It is shorter than the others:
Matteo—
I can’t come to Barrington next week. Please don’t ask me to explain. I need time to think, and I need you to trust that I have a reason.
I’m sorry.
Maria
“That was the last one?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“She never wrote again?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“I came to Boston.”
His attention shifts toward the windows.
“I went to find her at the Rossi office. It was the night before she married Romanov.”
“Enzo heard you arguing.”
“I asked her to come away with me. She refused.”
“Did she tell you why?”
“Only that she had made promises she couldn’t break.”
“And after the wedding?”
“I called. I sent letters. Alexei’s people returned them. Maria refused every message I sent through mutual friends.”
He looks at the letters.
“I thought she had chosen him.”
The final letter was written approximately seven months before I was born.
My mother must have known she was pregnant.
Maybe not for certain.
Enough to disappear.
Enough to hide me from my father.
“Why didn’t she tell you?”
“I’ve asked myself that every day since I learned about you.”
There is anger beneath his grief now.
Not toward me.
Toward a woman who isn’t here to explain herself.
“Maybe she was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of your father. Of Alexei. Of what either family might do if they learned the truth.”
“I could have protected both of you.”
The certainty in his voice makes my stomach tighten.
“You don’t know that.”
“I know what I would have done.”
“So did she.”
He looks at me.
I place the letter back in the box.
Whatever reason my mother had, she believed secrecy was safer than telling either man the truth.
Matteo reaches beneath the letters and removes a small velvet case.
Inside is a gold necklace with a round sapphire pendant.
I recognize it.
My mother wears it in several of the photographs.
“I gave this to her the first summer we were together.”
“She left it here?”
“The last time she visited Barrington.”
“You kept it.”
“I kept everything.”