Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
SEVEN YEARS LATER.
ANNA
But I had killed him.
“This is the media room.” Magda threw the doors open and stepped aside to let me peep in.
When my gaze ran around the room, I bit back another shocked gasp.
Magda’s chest bulged with pride. I couldn’t even blame her.
The room was, simply put, magnificent. No doubt it must have graced the glossy pages of Architectural Digest. But that wasn’t the reason for my awe.
She closed the natural wood-stained double doors and walked further down the hallway. “Signor Martello is rarely home, and this floor doesn’t get much use.” She stopped and threw open another door. “But I always keep it spick and span in case he has any guests.”
A guest room. Large. Beautiful. Empty. As all the other rooms before.
When I didn’t step inside, she nudged not so gently, and I stumbled in.
She walked past me into the adjoining bathroom and threw open the door.
Another gasp from me. She beamed. The tiles were handmade, uneven, and made in a warm terracotta brown.
This entire house felt like someone had sucked it out of Marbella and boxed it inside the four walls of a New York townhouse.
We walked out and took another turn down the hallway. We were on the second floor. Magda had told me there were three floors, not counting the basement where the staff stayed. I had planned to remember the entire layout like a blueprint. I couldn’t even remember the direction of the front door.
Seven years ago, I had killed a man. I had planned it, but luck had played a major role. Almost as if fate had made me stumble into his path. The thing I had realized after the accidental killing and the mad panic had passed was that revenge was the one thing that had given me a purpose.
Three men had been there. I’d gotten rid of one.
Two more to go. I had warred over coming to New York for years.
It was easy enough not to do it in the beginning.
Waiting for Niccolò Martello to turn up in Marbella, checking the guest registry every day, and wasting time looking for him on the internet seemed better choices.
More importantly, Mamá needed the care, and Mara was too young for it.
The moment she turned eighteen… I knew she could visit her every day.
But logic had still kept me chained. After a Sangria-filled night, I’d decided otherwise. Easy peasy.
Magda stopped on the landing. She was tiny, probably not an inch over five feet.
With her gray hair neatly tied into a bun, she wore a pretty floral wrap-around dress.
Her friendly gaze melted into irritation as she caught my hands feeling up the wall.
I snatched them away. “Allora, I know, it’s nice but try not to make it dirty, sì? ”
Everything here felt like the home we had sold eleven years ago. From the natural oak wooden door to the arched doorways and lime-washed walls. It was all rattan furniture, soft wrought-iron accents, and earthy tones.
The momentary dark cloud slid away, and sunshine flooded the landing through the arched floor-to-ceiling window. My chest tightened when I noticed yet another bougainvillea potted plant in front of it. “It feels like home.”
“Then your home must be a grand one.”
“Not really.”
But it was to me.
“Of course. Otherwise, you won’t be cleaning houses.”
No, I would have been playing in concerts if they hadn’t killed Papá, and he would have watched me from the front row. Every single time.
I gave a slight shake of my head and looked away, swallowing the ache creeping up my throat. “I didn’t mean to be rude.” Something must have given me away because her tone had softened. “I’m not used to having help.”
We stared at each other, an uncomfortable silence brewing between us. I couldn’t handle the unease, so I changed the subject. “Did Signor Martello design it himself?”
“Goodness, no. The man’s too busy—” She cut herself off before finishing awkwardly, “doing other things.”
Offing innocent people?
She turned chatty to fill the silence. “His sister-in-law designed it for him. He waited for a long time to find the right person, and Signora Martello was perfect for the job. She paid a lot of attention to it, you know.”
“Is she Spanish?” I knew she wasn’t.
“Spanish?” She frowned. “No. She’s as Italian as you can get.”
She moved toward the stairs going down, and I lingered at the ones going up. She followed my gaze. “There’s no need for you to see that floor. It only has Signor Martello’s private quarters. I can clean that.”
Dios mío. I kept a blank face to hide the annoyance bursting at my seams. Just like she was going to clean his office herself and cook his meals. So how was I to kill the man if I couldn’t get close to him?
Aside from the Spanish Revival interior, there was something else about the house that made it eerie.
It was massive. If the owner killed me, which he most certainly would when he figured out who I was, no one would hear me scream.
Literally. The walls were too thick. Too many floors in between and too few people living in it.
Proof enough that allowing Sangria to make my final decision to come to New York was exactly that. A horrible alcohol-induced decision.
The basement was for the staff. The staff consisted of Magda and Isidora, a young girl they’d hired a few weeks earlier than me.
There was also a driver, but he wasn’t always around.
Signor Martello liked to be left alone. That was apparent enough from his non-existent social media profiles.
It was never the extroverts who killed people and left them behind with screaming teenagers.
It probably took Magda months to clean the entire house.
Joder, he could slit my throat and dump me in one of his guest rooms, and no one would find me until she cleaned it a month later.
Given all this, the last thing I should have done was sneak around the house in the dark.
As if in warning, my knee hit something, and a curse flew out of me instantly.
Giving up on walking around in the dark, I switched on the light of my phone to guide me.
I didn’t have the luxury of time. Even though Mara was eighteen and old enough to visit Mamá, my conscience was burdened with the thought that I wasn’t there for her.
I hated that I had given in to the bitterness of revenge.
That I wanted anyone who took my papá out of this world gone too.
If he couldn’t live, neither should they.
It didn’t even make me feel better with one man down.
It just gave me something to do. A task that got me out of bed every day.
When you lose someone, that was the hardest thing of all.
Waking up every day and reliving the emptiness before scraping the little courage you had to face another day.
Niccolò Martello was the reason I got out of bed.
That and the fact that I was here on a three-month tourist visa that would run out before I could blink.
The house was quiet, as all houses were when people slept.
But it didn’t stop the awareness from building.
I shouldn’t have even been there. Not in New York.
In his house. Definitely not going through his things in the dark.
I didn’t even know what I expected to find as I went through the rooms on the ground floor.
I could see that it was cleaned neatly, but not too neatly.
Like someone had cleaned it and disturbed it again on purpose.
I rearranged everything partly because it soothed me, but partly because I remembered Magda’s annoyed gaze on me.
Cushions I set up straight, plaids that I refolded neatly.
Going through room after room, I knew what I hadn’t found.
No hidden weapons or closet full of skeletons.
The last room on the ground floor was his office.
Agitation strummed in my veins as I stood on the threshold.
Magda’s words came back to me from a few hours ago.
I will clean Signor Martello’s office. She wasn’t there, and there wasn’t going to be a better opportunity.
But something held me back as if a tangible rope dangled across the doorway.
I didn’t know what I would find there, only that I wasn’t ready for it.
It was so much more than my search history of the odds of a child inheriting a parent's severe allergy. Leaving it for another day, I retreated and took the stairs to the top floor. I’d go through his bedroom first. It was easier to sneak into his office than an entire floor that I wasn’t allowed to be on.
It was strange to be in the personal space of a man I’d wondered about for a long time.
A massive bedroom with a walk-in dressing room to the left and a bathroom to the right.
Above me, exposed wooden beams creaked with history.
Underneath me, the natural floor planks gave way seamlessly to uneven tiles at the threshold of the bathroom.
When I walked through the archway, I found what was almost a replica of the bathroom my parents had.
Uneven hexagonal brown tiles on the floor, cream square tiles on the walls.
A huge walk-in shower stood toward the back with an opening on either side, but it was the vintage iron bath that won the prize.
Standing free in the room, it reminded me of so much that had gone by.
Of Sunday’s soaking in a bath while Papá had his long meetings, of falling asleep until Mamá drained out the cold water and woke me up.
I hankered for what I had, even if I knew I could never have it again.
I yearned for my happiness. My foundation. My parents as they once were.
In my subconscious, Papá’s voice was a whisper.
Mi solecita. He used to call me his sunshine.
I didn’t know why I suddenly remembered that, but I wanted more of those sweet memories.
A raging impulse took over. I craved it so badly it became a tangible ache that spiraled me into action.
Throwing the taps open, I filled the bath.
With the phone in one hand, I found towels in the first cupboard I opened.
I sniffed at his shower gel, liked it, and squeezed a few drops of it into the bath.
If he could take my parents from me, it wasn’t even a crime to take his shower gel.
But when I shed my clothes and sank into the bath, my burst of energy drained away.
I was empty again. Resting my head on the rim of the bath, I stared up at the ceiling. I loathed him.
His fragrance of teak and cedar hung like smoke in the room. It penetrated my skin and invaded my thoughts. What kind of man was he?
I imagined a man whom I’d never known. I only had a few pieces that clicked into my memory. Three men. Fragments of a conversation. A double-edged knife sticking out of Papá’s throat. Blood. So much blood.
I’d panicked after I’d poisoned the Don.
Picking up the few belongings we had, I’d taken Mamá and Mara for an impromptu vacation we couldn’t afford.
But two weeks later, Mamá’s medication had run out, and the phantom heat of Italian eyes beat on us.
I had dismissed it as paranoia. But Mamá spoke of a man visiting her.
A man who spoke Italian with her and warned her to be careful.
Was it her illness, or was she speaking the truth?
I didn’t know and couldn’t take the risk.
I had to return to Marbella. I’d expected black armor, guns, threats, and possibly death.
But everything remained unchanged. At the hotel, Vega spoke of a rumor.
A body wrapped in sheets being moved out, the top floor closed off, no more special orders of Tinto de Verano. I knew then that I’d killed him.
That had just been the beginning. It had catapulted something dark in me I’d never even known I needed to survive.
Finding information was the oxygen I needed, even if there weren’t many paths open to me.
One of the few was Papá’s best friend, Alfonso.
When I’d asked him about Boris Martello, his reaction had been severe.
He’s a dangerous man, Anna. Your Papá’s gone. Nothing will bring him back anymore.
No one understood what that felt like. To walk around for years without being grounded. Mara was too young and na?ve. Mamá was too lost. And men like Alfonso… he only wanted me to marry his son, Joel. But how could I settle down and start a family when I still yearned for the family I’d lost?
I inhaled slowly. Awareness flitted in with it. The water had lost its heat some time ago, but the sudden temperature drop in the room had nothing to do with it. It was quiet. I suddenly knew that if I opened my eyes, I wouldn’t be alone.
My body tingled with anxiety. My breath stalled. Even though my pulse rushed within my ears, I forced myself to remain still.
Eleven years had passed, and I’d imagined how we’d meet.
Maybe while I was cleaning the floor, like I did his father.
Maybe it would be while he ate a poisoned meal, and I’d watch the terror fill his eyes.
But in my wildest imagination, I’d never thought it would be while I was soaking in his bath, and wearing his scent. Stark-naked.
My fingers clenched around the rim of the bath. A painful lump formed in my throat that I desperately wanted to swallow. Even though I hadn’t switched on the lights, I knew a man like him, who could creep into a room unnoticed, would notice the slightest movement.
My mind raced for an escape route. But I was bared of everything. There was nothing I could use to overpower him.
My body coiled with tension. Because my senses were over-hyped, I picked up a noise.
Instantly, my eyes popped open. Two things fell into place.
One, ten feet across from me, the rattan chair held a figure shrouded in darkness.
Two, the noise was a phantom sound in my panic-crazed mind because he was as still as a statue.
He was a silhouette. In all black, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching me. A tripwire waiting for my misstep.
I’d be safe if I stayed inside the bath. But my nerves jittered inside me. I shot up, meaning to get out of the bath in one swift move. But my body hadn’t caught up, and I banged my ankle against the solid iron.
“?Joder!”
Fire spread all over my body. Tears burned at the back of my throat.
But crumbling wasn’t an option. Grabbing the phone on the floor, I dashed out of the room.
Half hopping and half running. With no clothes and dripping water all the way down the stairs.
There was only one thing I prayed for while running for my life.
Please don’t let him know who I am.