26. Renzo
B y the time I reached the city limits, I felt like a tense bomb waiting to explode. Frustration welled within me. Speeding as fast as I could, I tried to stay in control and not let this urgency overwhelm me.
I was impatient to get home and figure out where Giovanni could have had Giulia taken and held. I didn’t waste my time calling him. Demanding for him to tell me anything would be a waste of time.
He’d made up his mind. He was determined to stick to his old grudges with Isabella and the Acardi name regardless of how faultless Giulia was in whatever had pissed him off in the past.
It wasn’t her fault she was an Acardi. Nor was it mine that I happened to be born as a Bernardi. Whatever made him so judgmental and biased had nothing to do with anything Giulia or I did in the present.
Dean called me as I neared the main Bernardi estate where Gio lived, where Luka used to live, and I answered, hoping he would have information for me.
“What is it?” I asked after I greeted him curtly. I didn’t need to worry about hurting his feelings by being gruff. He was just as taciturn.
“You need to come to the house,” he said. A shuffling sound on his end confused me. Almost like he was covering up his phone and hurrying somewhere.
Is he trying to hide? Trying to sneak around?
“I have information, but it’s better if you come here and see… what I found.”
I agreed and hung up as I sped up even faster. If any cop dared to pull me over, he’d regret it. Nothing could keep me from getting information that would lead me back to Giulia. Nothing.
I braked so hard that rubber peeled and screeched on the drive. Parking haphazardly, I grabbed my phone and ran inside. No guards stopped me. No one called out to me.
I sprinted inside, seeking out Dean. He’d instructed me to come here, but he hadn’t told me where to go.
Calling out for him didn’t seem wise. Since I’d punched Gio, I felt like I’d made myself something of an enemy. I was his son. I was still the second in command, taking over after Luka, but hitting Giovanni was a grievance I would have to answer for. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ordered guards to watch me, to protect himself.
Of course, we’d argue and come to blows, but with my choice to side with wanting Giulia instead of simply nodding and going along with his orders to give up on her, I’d drawn an irrefutable line in the sand between us.
“Renzo.”
I spun, finding Dean jogging toward me through the huge foyer space.
He wasn’t out of breath, but he moved with an implied need to hurry. “This way,” he said with a nod toward another hallway.
I trusted this man, and I didn’t protest when he guided me through the house. Asking him what was going on wouldn’t make a difference now. Without a word, I hustled with him toward the back of the mansion.
He took me down the stairs, and I dreaded the reason he might want me near the cells where we normally locked up traitors and prisoners. It was preferred to move and keep our enemies and foes further from our main and largest home, but the old underground layers that resembled an archaic dungeon had been built many generations ago for a good reason.
“I came back here earlier and saw several soldiers rushing out,” he said, speaking softly and quietly as we slowed in the area of specific cells.
“When I came inside to see why the men might have been running out the entrance that’s only accessible through here, I found this.” He pointed at the floor inside one cell, and I sucked in a breath at the sight of darkness on the cement.
Blood.
Someone had been severely wounded in here. My first thought was Giulia. If she was the one who’d been injured and bleeding out in here…
“Over there.” Dean wasn’t imploring me to look at the large puddles of still-drying blood, but at a small item near the back wall.
I approached it, narrowing my eyes and wondering what he was concerned about.
As I crouched lower, my breath got stuck in my lungs again.
Slowly, I reached out and picked up the tiny diamond stud.
Giulia’s earring. The other half of the pair resided in my pocket. It had come out in the bed at the vacation villa she’d been taken from.
She was here.
I looked back again, chilled by the idea that she could’ve been the person to lose all that blood over there.
“She…”
“I have not seen any sign of her anywhere on the premises,” Dean said as I picked up the earring and paired it with the other one from my pocket.
“As soon as I arrived, I searched for her through all the cells.” He cleared his throat, gesturing for me to follow him out of the empty room.
His report of not finding Giulia anywhere else here should’ve comforted me, but until I saw her and knew she was alive and well, I wouldn’t lose this grip of fear.
We moved so hastily through the holding cells and the corridor that connected them. In our hurry, I knocked against a rudimentary table. Cigars were still smoldering. Numerous bottles of booze still held alcohol. And with a double-take, I spotted the remnant of a line of white powder.
Guards had been in here recently. If Giulia had been brought here, she’d been moved quickly.
“What else?” I asked him, following him out toward another storage area that was likely once a cellar for wine before a newer one was built.
“Him.” Dean pointed at the floor, showing me a thick streak of blood that had dripped out of a cupboard area. “I noticed this when I ran through, and upon further inspection…” He pushed the small door open and revealed a body.
It wasn’t Giulia. Knowing she hadn’t been killed and shoved into this closet space was a relief. But she would be upset to see that her uncle had been treated with such disrespect.
Dario lay slumped in the small space, slanted against the wall like he was a sack of bones to dispose of later.
“Fuck.” I raked my hand through my hair, stunned and horrified at the escalation of deaths here.
I’d just seen Cecilia dying. It hadn’t been a full day since I’d spotted that woman bleeding out.
Dario seemed to have received a different, more immediate ending. Tucked away here on my family’s property, he had to have been killed by a Bernardi soldier. There was no other explanation for why he’d be dead and stashed away here.
But… I couldn’t connect the dots and assume that this meant whoever killed Dario was the same as whoever had ended the lives of all the others. Cecilia had been stabbed, not shot like it looked like Dario had been. And not poisoned either, like Rocco and Luka.
“Giulia…” I couldn’t think past the utter confusion and worry eating away at me. Dread built within me, and I breathed through the panic taking over.
“She’s not here, from what I can see,” Dean said, seeming to realize that I needed the direct reassurance. “I think she was here, if that earring is hers. But she must have escaped.”
“Have you—” I swallowed hard. “Have you heard from the others? The other guards and men?”
He shook his head.
“You haven’t heard of any orders from Giovanni?”
Dean often worked alone, almost like an independent and free agent as my right-hand man. He wasn’t tied to the stricter duties of patrol men and capos because he was expected to follow all my orders directly.
“No. I haven’t heard from your father directly. I haven’t been able to get any answers from the crew he orders the most, nor anyone in his personal security detail.” He tipped his head to lead me upstairs as he retrieved his phone.
Finding Dario like this wasn’t the end of it. He’d need to be removed. Buried. Dealt with. But none of that mattered as much as finding Giulia did.
“I came here right after getting word about those reports.” He furrowed his brow, checking his phone then frowning as we climbed the stairs back up to the main level of the mansion. “If I can get reception…”
I stayed at his side, looking over at his phone as he refreshed the tabs. “You received information?”
He nodded, bringing me toward the windows at the back of the lounge area. No one interrupted us. Guests hadn’t been staying here lately, and with whatever commotion had made the guards rush out that exit near the dungeon access, it seemed that all the forces were held up elsewhere.
I waited tense, agonizing seconds for Dean’s phone to refresh, and once it did, I realized that he was uploading a copy of a document. A medical document.
“The hacker was able to get a copy of the paternity tests sent in for Cecilia Romano. They were ordered and paid for by Marcus Romano,” Dean said, almost like needing to reiterate the facts that he already knew. As if I needed a summary.
“Paternity tests?”
I whirled back, facing Giovanni as he approached. For once, he was alone. No Bernardi guards came with him into the home. But he didn’t come close with any clear indication that he wanted to shout at me again.
Shock and confusion showed on his face. Lines tugged on his features, and with a gaping open mouth and wide eyes, he seemed absolutely stunned.
“For Cecilia Romano?” he asked, as though speech was difficult. “You doubt she was Marcus’s daughter?”
I shook my head. “Paternity tests for her child.”
He furrowed his brow. “She was pregnant with Luka’s child?”
Dean exhaled, still swiping on the screen to get it to upload. Since being down below in the cells, it had gotten locked with no reception. “No,” he answered.
It was on the tip of my tongue to demand to know where Giulia was. I couldn’t hold it in, no matter how caught off guard he was about hearing of Cecilia being pregnant.
“Where is Giulia?” I demanded. I wouldn’t waste time asking whether he knew. He had to.
“She ran.”
Fuck! While I was glad she’d run from whatever fate waited for her in the cell, that she’d run to safety, I feared this meant I would never see her again. Now, more than ever, she would make good on her desire to run away for good, like she’d hinted at when she was informed of the possibility that she might be Nickolas’s wife one day.
“Why—”
Giovanni held his hand up, frowning deeper. “Cecilia was pregnant? When she was married to Luka? Before then?”
Dean nodded, holding up his phone higher. “Yes.”
I turned, skimming the lines quickly. The results were in. And on the line identifying the father of her baby was a name I hadn’t counted on seeing.
“Whose is it?” Giovanni asked, crowding in close to see. He sounded too stunned, stuck in disbelief, to catch up.
“Rocco Acardi,” I read of the test on Dean’s phone.
“Acardi!” Giovanni bellowed. He fisted his hands and glared at me.
Giulia’s father. He was the one Cecilia had fallen in love with while engaged to my brother. He was the one who’d knocked her up before she married Luka.
I thought back to the impassioned, furious words Cecilia spat at her deathbed. When she lashed and snarled at Giulia that she would be pissed if the unborn son she’d carried from her affair with Rocco would have lived.
Because it would be a son? To take over the Family instead of anything Giulia would achieve through marriage?
It made no sense. I wouldn’t have much time to think about it, though.
Giovanni swore and stepped up to me.
“Go.” He licked his lips and shook his head, seeming more frightened and alarmed. “Go, Renzo. You must kill her.”
I reared back, studying him. “Kill who?”
“Isabella.” He nodded and grabbed my hand. “You must.”
He no longer was shouting at me, no longer acting like he was upset with me. Now, he stared at me like I was his last hope.
“She’s unhinged. She’s crazy.” He shook his head, muttering more curses that I couldn’t keep up with. “She’s… She’s got to be stopped before she kills someone else!”
“What?” I asked as Dean looked between us, seeming as lost as I felt.
“She’s…” He groaned and ran his hand through his hair. “Isabella Acardi. She must be stopped. She’s gone too far. First, my wife. Then my son?”
I narrowed my eyes. My heart raced faster and faster the more he ranted these strings of nonsense. Or was it nonsense? If he was speaking the truth and he truly believed Giulia’s mother had killed Luka…
“Explain,” I ordered. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He gripped my forearm again, as if a physical touch would emphasize it. “She is crazy. The last time a man chose another woman over her, she killed her.”
“Who?” Although I had a sinking feeling who he was talking about.
Him. And my mother.
“I didn’t stay with her. We were fooling around before I was arranged to marry your mother. And she didn’t like it. Isabella was furious that I stuck with marrying your mother, and she became deranged when I loved her. She killed her, Renzo.”
Rage swept through me. “Isabella Acardi killed my mother?” Arianna Bernardi didn’t live long. I’d only had her in my life for four years, and I only had photos and videos to know her by with the few memories I’d formed before she died—supposedly, in a car accident.
“I never had proof,” Gio admitted, shaking his head and lowering his gaze. “I could never prove it, not completely, but over the years, she gave me hints.”
“She taunted you,” Dean said, his glare full of fury. “For years, the security team dealt with her teasing messages and suggestions that she’d seen to Arianna’s death.”
Gio nodded, frowning.
“And you let her live ?” I demanded.
“I felt that the best payback was to let her live with the fact that I still would not choose her with Arianna out of the way. That I’d rather be content forever with the memory of my wife, my love, than ever bothering with Isabella at all.”
“You truly believe that Giulia’s mother killed my mother?”
Gio sighed. “I do.”
Dean nodded, added his input silently.
“And you suspect she’s also killed Luka?” I asked, unable to believe this twist. “Why?”
“Because she wants to attack me. Us. Our name. In any way she can.” Again, he gripped my arm, now holding both.
I wasn’t sure if he held on to anchor himself or if he needed to emphasize his wishes stronger.
“You must end her, Renzo. You must.”
I must. Because if Giulia ran out of here and had any plan to run home, where her calculating, murderous mother might be waiting for her, I couldn’t risk losing her to the psychopath too.
“Go!” Gio ordered, releasing me with a shove.
Dean nodded at me, running with me as I rushed out of the house to hurry to the Acardi residence.
If she was safe somewhere else, I’d do what I'd set out to do so long ago. Since Luka’s wedding reception.
I’d avenge my brother’s death, and afterward, I would run away with my woman.
I didn’t want to be tasked with cleaning up the messy remainders of my father screwing up with that woman.
I wanted to count on my future with the daughter of my enemy.
Because I wasn’t sure if there was anywhere on this earth that could get us far enough away from this twisted, sordid drama spanning multiple generations. And neither Giulia nor I needed that kind of an obstacle to our love.