Chapter 16
RENZO
I feel them before I hear them.
Heavy footsteps through the house. Purposeful. Controlled. The kind of walk only men raised in the shadow of a don ever master.
The kind of walk that rumbles: brace yourself.
We’re on the private terrace that surrounds the master bedroom overlooking the gardens. She allowed me to fuck the fury out of her all night long so we’re both in a slightly more improved mood this morning.
She stiffens where I placed her on my lap, because separate chairs was too much fucking distance. She refused my desire to feed her, which annoyed the hell out of me, but whatever. So the spoon is halfway to her mouth, ricotta trembling on the edge, when she hears too.
Her eyes widen, translucent green murk turning to glass, as the air shifts.
The temperature drops ten degrees.
Then… a knock.
It’s not frantic or polite. Just… inevitable. From men who know doors will be open to them by choice or by force. I know this because I’m one of those men.
I push back from the breakfast table. ‘Stay behind me.’
Before she can ask why, the door swings open.
And the room goes to hell.
Cesare enters first, in a black shirt rolled at the forearms, shoulders locked with the kind of tension that could snap rebar. His eyes sweep the room, calculate every exit, then land on me – and go volcanic.
Rafa barrels in second, no patience for assessment. He looks at me, at Giada, back at me, and his entire face twists.
‘What the fuck have you done?’
Behind him, Maddie and Sofiya slip in through the doorway, a quiet tornado and a deadly promise, two forces that I’m pissed to admit hugely complement the men they’ve chosen for their husbands.
Sofiya’s eyes are already tracking threats; Maddie’s face cracks right down the middle when she sees Giada. Her hands fly to her mouth. ‘Oh God. Oh God Oh God Oh God.’
It’s Giada who breaks first.
Her eyes turn to massive saucers and she goes still.
Too still. As though her mind is a glass pane fogged by breath, just beginning to clear.
Her lips part and her pupils constrict.
Something inside her flickers – recognition, terror, longing – before pain streaks across her expression like lightning.
She sways.
I’m at her side instantly, my arm around her waist, pulling her against me.
‘No,’ she whispers. ‘No, no, this… I don’t – I can’t—’
‘Giada,’ Maddie chokes, stepping forward, hand outstretched, voice cracking at the sight of her sister alive and broken in someone else’s arms.
‘Stop,’ Giada gasps, stumbling backward into my chest. ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t – please – don’t…’
Maddie’s face collapses. Sofiya steps in smoothly, hand on Maddie’s arm.
‘Space,’ she murmurs. ‘She’s drowning, Maddelena. Don’t push her under.’
Rafa snorts. ‘No shit she’s drowning. Renzo dragged her ass from a fucking convent and hid her from us—’
Renzo.
Convent.
Hid.
Giada flinches at every word.
‘He what?’ Maddie breathes.
‘Enough,’ Cesare snaps, stepping forward. ‘Renzo. A word. Now. Alone.’
‘No,’ I say flatly.
‘Renzo—’
‘Not until she’s safe.’
Rafa scoffs. ‘Safe? From what – us?’
‘From all of you,’ I bite out. ‘Touch her wrong and I light this place up with all your fucking asses in it.’
The silence hits like a falling cathedral.
Maddie wipes her face, eyes burning. ‘Giada… picciridda… please. Look at me.’
Giada looks, but it’s the hollow gaze of someone staring through smoke into a burning house. Her whole body trembles against mine.
‘She doesn’t remember you,’ I say quietly, shifting her behind me when she curls in on herself. ‘She remembers pieces. Some faces. Enough to hurt but not enough to make sense.’
‘And whose fault is that?’ Rafa snarls.
Sofiya’s voice slices through the air. ‘Rafa. Not now.’
He rounds on her. ‘Not now? She stood over our mother’s body, Sofiya!’
Giada pales. Her knees buckle.
Maddie lets out a sob.
Sofiya physically steps between them and Giada. ‘Shut up, Rafa.’
‘You shut up—’
‘I’m not watching you traumatise her,’ Sofiya hisses, deadly quiet.
Then she places a hand on his hard cheek, her face softening a fraction.
‘Stop monopolising all our sorrow. We all know what losing someone you love does to you. And you might not want to hear it, but Giada’s lost someone too.
She’s lost her family for six fucking years. ’
Giada gasps, her brain tracking everything, but her gaze remains on Rafa, dwelling on the most harrowing. ‘I didn’t – I don’t – did I?’ Her breath catches like a wire.
Then she clutches her head, squeezing her temples as if the pressure might keep her skull from splitting.
And then she looks at me.
Only me.
As if I’m the only fixed point in a spinning universe.
‘Renzo… I don’t understand any of this. Are they telling the truth? Are we enemies? Is this – are you—’
She can’t finish.
I cup her face with both hands. ‘I’ve got you. I’ve got you.’
She presses her forehead to mine. ‘Please don’t let them hurt me.’
Maddie breaks – completely – and sobs into her hands.
Cesare’s jaw tics as he sweeps one shoulder around his wife, dragging her into his body and murmuring in her hair. After a minute, Maddie nods. Her hiccups linger but she quits weeping. He looks at Sofiya, then at Rafa… and knows I’m right.
He lifts a palm. ‘Everyone, stand the fuck down.’
Rafa bristles. ‘The fuck for?’
‘Because screaming isn’t going to change what happened six years ago,’ Cesare growls. ‘And because we all need answers. Giada too.’
‘No.’ Giada shakes her head violently. ‘No, no, I’m not – I’m not ready—’
Cesare steps forward, voice low and heavy with authority. ‘Let’s start with proper introductions. I’m Cesare Salvatore.’ He holds out his hand.
Giada stares at it like it’s a cobra poised to strike. But then she sucks in a breath and slides hers into his.
My brother holds on far longer than I’d like, but she’s in his clutches. To react now will be to swing the pendulum in ways I don’t like. So I force myself to remain still.
‘I’m Benedetta.’
Maddie and Sofiya exchange looks as Giada shakes her head. ‘That was the name I was given by the Madre Superiora. But…’ Her eyes flick to mine. ‘Renzo told me my true name. So… I guess I’m Giada.’
Cesare nods.
He’s still holding her fucking hand. A growl builds in the room, directly from my chest.
He glares over at me a sec before a shade of wry understanding flickers over him, and he drops her hand.
‘It’s difficult. But you deserve the truth.
We all do. So we’re all going to go downstairs, sit the fuck down like civilised people.
And then Maddelena is going to tell you her version of what happened that night. ’
I shake my head. ‘No.’
‘Yes. Giada must hear it.’
‘No,’ I snap. ‘Not yet.’
Cesare meets my gaze without blinking. ‘It’s going to happen, frate. Now.’
Maddie wipes her face, trembling. Cesare takes her hands and leads her out through the living room attached to the bedroom.
Sofiya grips the front of Rafa’s shirt and drags him out too. It’s only then that I see my twin. He’s been leaning against the wall all this time, observing proceedings without saying a word.
‘Were you planning on stepping in any time or were you just content being a tick on the wall?’
He steps forward, his eyes on Giada. My woman. That I wish to God people would stop staring the fuck at. ‘Good to see you again, Giada.’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m… sorry, I don’t remember—’
‘I know,’ he says, and since his voice is calm and gentle I forgive him for staring at my girl. ‘Still good to see you.’
She summons the smallest smile before his eyes flick to me. ‘I’d say it’s good to see you too but I don’t know, twin. What with you being a fucking dumbass and all, pretending you’re in a fucking coma the last time I visited you in hospital?’
I’m a senior capo of a huge and prestigious mafia family. Which means I learned to perfect a poker face before my fifth birthday. So I know as sure as fuck that I don’t twitch. But my twin reads me like a book all the same.
‘Yeah, I knew. Every time I said something to piss you off or to amuse you, your pinkie twitched like a nervous little schmuk. You should see someone about that.’
‘Renzo! Right fucking now!’
Giada flinches at Cesare’s bellow. Asshole. We all turn towards the door. I take her hand in mine and we trudge downstairs.
They’re waiting in the biggest salon.
Maddie steps forward the second we enter, her face wreathed in love and worry and a million questions. ‘Would you sit down, next to me?’ she asks softly.
Giada trembles harder but she nods.
‘Maddie?’ Cesare prompts, bristling with impatience. I slant him a chill the fuck out look, which he of course ignores.
‘I’ll try,’ Maddie whispers. ‘Giada… we went to church that night. Nonno insisted we go to confession. Probably a ploy, knowing him. You and Mama finished first. I was still in the booth when I heard shouting and the… gunshots.’
Giada’s lips move silently.
A prayer?
A plea?
A memory clawing up her throat?
‘I came out,’ Maddie continues, voice shaking, ‘and I found you standing over her. Over Isabella. She… she had lilies with her.’ She looks over at Cesare. He nods, encouraging. ‘I found out she brought them for Father Calogero. They were scattered everywhere, picciridda. Everywhere.’
Giada sways again. ‘I smell them… all the time,’ she whispers.
I wince at the harrowing pain in her voice.
‘You were screaming,’ Maddie whispers. ‘On your knees next to her body and… and you were covered in her blood. The gun—’
‘Enough.’ I step forward, shielding Giada from the impact of the words, even though they’ve already landed.
But Rafa isn’t done.
‘Let her fucking finish. Or let me. The gun was in her hand,’ he growls, stepping forward, murder boiling up his spine.
‘Our mother died with Giada Mancinelli kneeling beside her with the gun that shot her in her hand. The ballistics were a match so there’s no fucking ambiguity about that. And you—’
He moves.
Fast.
Giada gasps.