19. Lina #2
He collapses onto his elbows, his chest pressing hard against my bare breasts, his head burying in my neck as we both breathe in the quiet, warm scent of the wood stove.
I wake up alone in Gio's master bedroom, the heavy gray sheets smelling faintly of his expensive cedarwood cologne. I roll over, my eyes instantly catching the brilliant flash of the diamond on my left hand. A soft, dazed smile touches my lips.
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I'm engaged. I'm marrying Gio.
He left a note on the pillow: Had to meet Dante at the docks. Back by noon. I love you.
My heart does a ridiculous, violent flutter. I slide out of bed, pulling his oversized black t-shirt over my hips, and walk into the kitchen. I make a cup of tea, but as I wrap my hands around the hot ceramic, a strange, lingering prickle of unease touches the back of my neck.
Gio has been so tense lately. Even when he was holding me last night, there was a shadow in his eyes, a heavy, suffocating weight that felt like a wall between us.
I set my tea on the counter as I walk slowly back into the bedroom, my feet silent on the hardwood. I drop to my knees beside the mattress, my hand searching through the dark space underneath until my fingers hit the rough cardboard of my mother's sealed box and I pull it out.
I look at the frayed, yellowed flaps. I’ve spent twenty-three years hiding in the quiet corners of this town, terrified of what my mother ran from. But I am marrying a mafia don now. I am stepping into the line of fire. If I am going to be on Gio's arm, I cannot be blind. I cannot be a pawn.
I need to know the truth.
I lift the flaps, digging past the cheap necklaces, past the silver locket, straight to the very bottom of the box. My fingers touch the heavy, dark velvet-wrapped package.
My heart starts to hammer a wild, frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I pull the bundle out. I unroll the velvet, my hands shaking so badly the fabric slips from my fingers. Inside is a thick, official-looking document with a gold seal, and a smaller, cream-colored envelope.
I pick up the document first. It is a birth certificate.
I read the lines, the words blurring before my eyes.
Name of Child: Lina Salvatore.
Father: Kia Salvatore.
Mother: Maria Salvatore.
My breath is knocked clean out of my lungs. Salvatore. Not Rossi.
I stare at the gold seal, my mind spinning in a dizzying, terrifying loop. Salvatore. That’s the New York family Gio is trying to merge with. That’s the don he’s negotiating with in Boston.
"No," I whisper, my voice cracking in the quiet room. "This is a mistake. This is a sick joke."
My hands scramble for the cream-colored envelope. I tear it open, pulling out a folded piece of heavy paper. It is written in my mother's frantic, looping handwriting, the same looping script that labeled the top of the box.
Lina, the letter begins, the ink slightly faded but clear.
If you are reading this, it means the past has found you, and I am no longer there to hide you in the dark. I am so sorry, my sweet girl. I am so sorry I had to erase your name to keep you breathing.
Just after you turned five, your father, Don Salvatore, signed a contract. He betrothed you to the prince of the Ferrante family, Giovanni Ferrante, to merge our houses. They traded your life like a piece of cargo.
I refused to let them have you, so I gathered you and ran. I have lived in their world long enough to know it has nothing but blood and death to offer. Your real father is a monster, Lina. And the boy they promised you to is a wolf.
If you ever hear the name Giovanni Ferrante... run. He is not your savior. He is the prince who holds the contract.
The letter slips from my fingers, fluttering onto the hardwood floor.
The room goes completely silent. The air in my lungs turns to solid ice.
Giovanni Ferrante.
Gio.
The pieces of the puzzle instantly slam together in my brain with the force of a detonating bomb.
The wobbly shelf. The neighbor who moved in next door under a false name. The "merger" he had to close in Boston. The "high-stakes transaction" that required a fake girlfriend. The way his men looked at me, like they already knew me, like I belonged to them.
They knew.
They knew exactly who I was from day one.
The proposal. The slow dance. The kisses.
Every single touch was a lie.
A loud, broken gasp escapes my lips, the tears finally spilling over my eyelashes, hot and burning. My chest feels like it is caving in, a raw, suffocating agony ripping through my ribs. I look down at the diamond ring on my finger.
The band feels like a shackle.
"You monster," I sob, my hand flying to my mouth to muffle the sound. "You absolute monster."
I trusted him. I trusted my mother, who spent ten years erasing my existence so she could keep me "free." But she lied too. Betrayed by the dead and the living at once.
The panic rises, wild and frantic.
Get out. You have to get out.
I yank the diamond ring off my finger, throwing it violently onto the floorboards. It clatters against the wood, rolling into the shadows. I scramble to my feet, my knees shaking so badly I almost collapse. I grab my yellow cardigan, my canvas bag, and slide my mother's box under my arm. And I run.
I fling the apartment door open and sprint down the building's narrow stairs, my breath coming in terrified gasps. I burst through the front doors into the freezing autumn rain.
The wind hits my face like needles, but I don't feel the chill. I run down the wet cobblestones, my boots splashing through the muddy puddles as I sprint toward the harbor, heading straight into the gray, swallowing fog.
All my life has been a lie.