Marcello
“You look like death,” his cousin told him cheerfully as he walked in. “Did you sleep?”
But those words, though...
Vico sat down sideways in the chair, legs over the arm, the way he’d sprawled in it as a boy. “I’ve decided, being the one who always ends up saying what’s awkward but true...”
“Everyone wants you to be careful.”
The coffee went bitter in Marcello’s mouth.
“I like her, I always do, and I think it’s safe to say that the whole family likes her.”
“You’re talking about my wife.”
Vico’s smile was pained. “I don’t like this any more than you do, but I have to say it, Marcello. She’s only been in this house for nine days, but...”
“What?”
“Do you know she has Curzio out on a mission?”
Instead of answering, he checked the security footage, and indeed...
Curzio was gone.
The man who was always meticulous in informing everyone about his every move...
He was gone, just like that.
Marcello turned to Vico, asking tightly, “You’re sure my wife has something to do with this?”
“You should ask her. I think she and Curzio are planning something.”
The advice was sensible enough, and yet...
Even though Vico had already left, Marcello remained in his study, unable to do just that.
Because if he did, and Vico’s words turned out to be true...
Someone knocked on his door.
“Marcello?”
She didn’t wait for him to ask her to come in like she usually did, and that...that only made things worse.
And when he saw how worried she looked, how fearful...
Why, dammit?
Why did this have to happen again?
This woman...was everything to him.
And yet...
“I...I need to tell you something about Vico.”
She had to say his cousin’s name of all things.
“Curzio...”
And now, she was just making things worse for herself.
“Enough.”
“But Marcello, you need to know—”
“I already know everything!”
“Y-You do?” She looked relieved. She even started to smile—
“And I want you out of sight. For good.”
—until she heard the rest of his words. He watched her smile fade, her body jerking as if he had struck her, but he told himself that he didn’t give a damn. Shouldn’t.
Because this was the last time...
The last time, dammit.
“M-Marcello, I d-don’t...Please just listen.” She was suddenly speaking in a rush, and that just made things worse. “I don’t know why you...” Didn’t she realize how guilty this made her seem? How all of these protests were just her digging a deeper grave for herself? “But it’s not...it’s not—”
“Get out.”
“Marcello, please—”
She rushed forward and placed a crushed sheaf of papers on his desk.
“It’s V-Vico, I’m t-telling you—”
“Will you just stop?”
The viciousness of his tone had her stumbling back, but he no longer cared.
“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?
” His own voice had gone unfamiliar. “To take a man who came to this house at nine years old. Who carried our daughter on his hip. Who stood at my father’s grave and held my mother up when her legs went.
” He leaned on the desk. “And put him in front of the family as a traitor. On your word.”
“Not on my word.” She was crying now, but she didn’t seem to know it. “On the evidence—”
“Your evidence! Against my flesh and blood—”
“And I’m your wife,” she choked out. “I’m Rica’s mother! D-Doesn’t that count for anything?”
It did.
It always did.
Because even now...
Even now, he loved her.
Even now, he still remembered the girl she was over a decade ago, the one who had cried in the stockroom because she believed he had someone else.
But because he also remembered the lessons his own father had taught him—
The lessons that his own father had to learn the hard way.
Trust the evidence, not your heart.
Trust your blood, not your heart.
Trust everything but your heart.
And that was why, even though his chest felt as if it was about to explode with pain—
Enough.
Marcello found himself doing the same thing he had done years ago. He slammed a mental door shut on all the things that his heart wanted to say and focused on what he knew to be right.
Vico had warned him.
And now, Chisa was saying it was Vico, his own cousin, who was somehow the enemy?
“I’ll have your things moved to the guesthouse.”
Chisa paled.
“You’ll stay on the property. For Rica’s sake, and only for that—she has been through enough this week without losing her mother as well.
” Every word came out of him flat, the way a man reads out terms. “You’ll have the whole of it to yourself.
The child can come to you whenever she wants, and you may come up to the house when I am not in it.
Maria will bring you anything you need.”
She was shaking her head as he said this.
“M-Marcello...”
“But you and I will not be in the same room again. Not at dinner. Not in that corridor. Not anywhere.” And this time he made himself say it to her face, the way he had promised twelve years ago over a plate of dessert, with her hands shaking round the spoon. “I never want to see your face again.”
“P-Please.”
“Now, get out.”
The words had her literally swaying on her feet. “M-Marcello—”
“I said get out, damn you!”