27. Giulia
I ran until I reached the road, amazed that I was able to flee on my bare feet for that long. The further I sprinted from the Bernardi mansion, the more determined I was to get away for good.
I’d go home and set up safer locations for my sisters. Marianna would help. Beatrice and Lucia enjoyed visiting a distant cousin, and I was sure that I could ask them to help keep them away from my mother, away from this place.
I didn’t need all this wealth and pomp and fuss that came with being the daughter of an elite Mafia Family. My younger sisters didn’t care for this lifestyle, either.
Regardless, I couldn’t trust my mother with my life and future. I couldn’t trust her with my sisters’, either.
But I knew I wasn’t alone. I'd trusted Uncle Dario, and he was now gone. Francis would be an ally. And Renzo would always have my heart and faith.
I’ll run, and when it’s safe, I’ll ask him to come to me. To start over a new life outside the Mafia, if he can choose to do that.
Now that he was Giovanni’s second in line, I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to give it up. It sounded like he wasn’t enjoying the change from being the spare to the next leader, the prince, but I understood that duty was defined differently for the men in our world.
First, get to safety. Then, plan for the future.
I flagged down a ride once I reached a busier road, and I was grateful for memorizing the number of my account to pay for the transportation.
The driver seemed suspicious of my bloody clothes, and even though I tucked Uncle Dario’s knife under the nightgown, I felt his stare on it. Over and over, he glanced in the rearview mirror like I’d attack him.
“Do you want to go to… uh, the hospital or something, Miss?”
I shook my head.
When we neared the home, he swallowed and grew more nervous. “Um. I— Can I just, like, stop out here?” He eyed the gates and grimaced, knowing that this was a Mafia residence.
“That’s fine. Thanks.” I didn’t wait for him to blather on nervously, and I exited the car.
The guard at the gatehouse raised his brows, and he hastened to unlock the entrance. I waved at him, which likely seemed even weirder, but I let him know that I was at least capable of acknowledging him. As if that would make me look less suspicious.
I’d been gone for almost two days. Returning like this didn’t look good. I didn’t care. With a deep determination to avoid my mother and get my sisters out of here, I held my head high and hurried inside.
“Giulia.”
I slowed slightly as one of the butlers approached. He offered me a folded note, and he had the common sense to really keep his expression neutral. Not a single reaction showed on his face, and when he didn’t bat an eyelid at my disheveled appearance, I exhaled in relief.
Taking the paper, I raised my brows at him. I’d dealt with the staff since Father died, and it was a hard habit to break. “Is my mother in?”
He shook his head. “No. She left for a meeting earlier and hasn’t returned yet.”
Meetings. I bet she’d gone to speak with the Romanos about my wedding to Nickolas. A ceremony that wouldn’t happen.
“Thank you. Please arrange for a driver for my sisters.”
He nodded and backed away.
I unfolded the paper as I hurried upstairs to find my sisters and order them to pack quickly. With what Uncle Dario said, it was clear that we couldn’t stay here. Not without any trust to be held.
Giulia,
I will await your call for security. As soon as you relocate your sisters, contact me and I will come.
Francis
I sighed, calmer with this reassurance. Uncle Dario really had done all that he could. He’d thought ahead and seen to all these plans for us, and I fought back a swift wave of tears that burned my eyes.
I would miss him. Even though he’d tried to remain aloof, he’d always been there in the background, helping out and remaining independent of my mother’s influence.
I didn’t have my cell phone anymore. It was with Renzo at that vacation villa, unless he’d been taken farther from me. I knew he’d be looking for me, but I wasn’t sure what Giovanni might have told him to keep him away from me.
I couldn’t worry about that. With a backup burner phone that I kept in my closet, a just in case device, I added Renzo to the contact list. I would reach out to him. I wanted to plan a reunion, but first things first.
After texting the distant cousins about housing my sisters, I went to Marianna’s room to order her to pack.
She already was. Beatrice and Lucia helped her stow things in her suitcases.
“You know?” I asked.
They ran to me, hugging me and worsening the tenderness of the aches where I’d been dropped to the floor.
“Before Uncle Dario headed out earlier, he said you would escort us to a, uh…” Marianna cringed.
“A ‘vacation’.” Beatrice used air quotes, but as she stepped back out of our group hug, she noticed the redness around my wrists. She gasped. “What happened?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t had time to think about what I’d tell her. Now wasn’t the moment to explain, either.
“Are we going on a vacation?” Marianna asked. “Or…?”
“Just pack up and be ready to go.”
“Does this have something to do with Father’s death?” Lucia asked.
“Or how… weird Mother’s been acting?” Beatrice asked.
I sighed, wishing I could drop to the floor and just avoid the stress of all these questions. Marianna was perceptive to notice how exhausted and worn down I looked.
“Both, I imagine.” She ushered the younger two back into the room. “Regardless, we will listen to Giulia and follow her lead. She’ll always know what to do.”
Really? Do I? Will I? Her stout confidence in me fueled me to stand up straighter. After a firm nod, I drew in a deep breath and shoved away my moment of weakness. I was stronger than this. Sooner or later, I would succumb to the mental roller coaster. Seeing Cecilia dying. Making love with Renzo. Being kidnapped. Uncle Dario dying. The relief of running away. All of it. I was bottling it up, functioning because I had to, and I couldn’t let up on that tight rein yet.
Only once we were somewhere safe, far from here, could I let myself feel again.
Back in my room, I stashed more clothes into my largest suitcase. We had to leave before Mother came back to the house, and without knowing where she was having her meeting or how long she would be out of our way, I had to hurry. And hurry. Faster and faster. Clothing fell and got tangled in the zipper of my case. Stuffing my most practical shoes into another bag was a clumsier attempt at packing. My rush knocked my purse to the floor, and I winced. It hardly mattered whether we took lots of items. Just enough to get by for a while until we could be settled somewhere else.
Now that I was acting on the plan to leave, to run away, it felt so surreal. Like this was someone else stuffing my things into cases in a rush. The moment to act on my future, to choose my path myself… I struggled to believe that it was finally here. That I was now poised to strike out for a different life.
I wanted one with Renzo, but there was no way to make that happen.
“And where do you think you’re going?” Mother asked as she slipped into my room.
I sucked in a breath and held it. She’d surprised me. I’d counted on her being gone for longer, and that was my first mistake. Still, I wasn’t here dawdling. I wasn’t idling around. Without glancing at her, I continued to stash my things in my suitcase.
“I’d like to travel with my sisters. Before I’m a married woman.”
She huffed, leisurely entering my room. Her pace was slow but measured, and feeling her stare on me made me nervous. She sounded too cool. Too calm and collected, like she had ultimate confidence that she held all the power in here.
“Oh. I see. You get out of town with that man and think you can just take off wherever, hmm?”
I clenched my teeth, refusing to make eye contact. If I looked at her, she’d see the barely veiled anger I kept within me at the sound of her voice. Antagonizing her wasn’t what I wanted to do. Uncle Dario didn’t have any proof to offer me when he claimed that my mother had killed Renzo’s mother. But I didn’t need it. I’d grown up knowing how strategic and cruel she could be.
“I am not a married woman yet,” I reminded her, “and I would like to enjoy spending time with my sisters while I can.” This seemed like the easiest deflection. The safest way to shut her down.
“You are not going anywhere.” She slammed the suitcase shut and shoved my shoulder until I staggered back. I’d set Uncle Dario’s knife on the vanity in the bathroom when I changed.
Dammit. I was defenseless, and the crazy look in her eyes scared me.
“You are not going to run off like this.” She bared her teeth as she lifted her finger at me. The digit shook, trembling with the force of her anger.
“You will not run off, impregnated by Renzo Bernardi.”
My jaw dropped open.
“I know you’ve been fucking him, running off like that with your lover.”
“But I’m not preg?—”
“Shut up!” she screamed as she lifted a gun out of her pocket and aimed it at my face. “Shut up, you little whore!”
“I…” I shook my head. I couldn’t prove I wasn’t pregnant in the same sense that she could guess that I was. We hadn’t used protection, but still, this was an insane accusation to leap to.
“I’ll be damned if my daughter gets a Bernardi when I never could.”
Because you wanted Giovanni. You killed his wife because he chose his arranged bride over you.
“You’re not going to fucking leave and foil my plans. You will stay here.” She jabbed the gun at me. “You will abort any Bernardi baby you have.” Another thrust of her gun. “And you will marry Nickolas Romano so I can get closer to his father.”
Jesus. She was twisted. Hearing her plans for me pushed me over the edge. “Oh. You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”
“I do. I always fucking do.”
I still couldn’t antagonize her, but I couldn’t dart to safety.
Stall her. Wait her out. I needed more time to react, to think, and to resolve this predicament. My own mother wanted to shoot me, but I supposed in light of all the violence and death she’d caused before, this was nothing.
“You’d really shoot me.” I said it as a statement rather than as a question.
Her upper lip curled. “That’s up to you. If you make a move to leave, I will.”
“Because what’s one more death, right?” I bit the inside of my cheek, wondering if I could get her to let me walk back to the balcony. The doors were open. If I leaned over the railing, could I get away like that, with the risk of broken bones?
She sneered. “One more death?”
“Yes. What’s one more death on your hands? You killed Luka, didn’t you?”
“It was supposed to be Cecilia! I intended for her to drink that sparkling water.” Her neck strained as she clenched her teeth. Wild-eyed and furious, she glowered at me as I walked back toward the balcony.
“That fucking bitch was supposed to die, and do you know why?” She growled, breathing hard as she confessed. “Because she was carrying your father’s son. His son!” The last part was a scream. Goosebumps broke out on my skin at her shout. That was how eerie she sounded.
“She was carrying his son ,” she fumed. “An heir, Giulia. That Romano bitch was carrying the son, the heir. The heir I could never give him.”
It was her one job. With all the fertility issues, the miscarriages, and then, only having daughters. She’d failed epically in giving Father a son.
“All I could do was try to manage my daughters’ marriages to the best of my advantage.”
You wanted me to marry Nickolas so you could sneak into the Family too. To have Marcus’s power since Father was dead now.
“But Cecilia thwarted it all. She screwed it all up. Once she gave birth to the bastard baby, the son your father put in her, she’d already be Luka’s wife. That bastard baby would be passed as a Bernardi, and I will be fucking goddamned if Giovanni Bernardi ever got his hands on the Acardi wealth and power!”
I paced my steps backward, angling for the smooth surface of the balcony. Any second now, she could snap. She could be triggered to shoot, and at this close of a range, I’d be dead.
“I wanted to kill Cecilia.” Mother explained like I was dull. “But Luka drank the poison by accident. I had it all planned. She was only drinking the sparkling water. I slipped it in from the waitstaff area, but that idiot Bernardi had to drink it instead.” She shook her head as her eyelid twitched. “Then at his funeral, your father tried to leave. He’d asked where Cecilia was. He wanted to go to her, to be with her now that I’d accidentally gotten her husband killed.”
I narrowed my eyes, connecting the pieces of the puzzle.
“Did you…?”
She grinned evilly. “I killed Rocco. I had to when he was trying his hardest to fuck me over and start a new family elsewhere with his mistress. Then I drugged myself to throw off any suspicions.”
“You killed Father.” I tried to steady my breath through the adrenaline rush of fight or flight.
“I did.”
“But you were drugged too.”
She scoffed. “To make it believable. And if you dare to cross me, Giulia, if you even think about interfering with my plans, you’ll join that short list of kills.”
“That’s all I ever was, huh? Just something to move around and dispose of for your benefit.”
Nodding slowly, she brought her other hand up to the gun and held it firmly. “Yes. Until the very end.”