And now Lorenzo was dead.
Fuck.
“I’m not dragging you or anyone else into it,” Niccolo continued. “I can protect myself.” He’d spent the months of his engagement fantasising about his escape, and knew exactly where he was going.
“They’re blaming you for Lorenzo’s death.”
“Of course they are,” he said steadily. “Which will only put you in more danger if they think you’re hiding me. They’ll be watching your every move, and Gennaro’s – warn him. Warn Leonardo, too.” Leonardo was his cousin and the owner of The Bianchi hotel.
Dante’s response to this was lost amidst a loud crackle on the line. Moments later, the call disconnected.
Before Niccolo could call him back, a new voice message pinged; a message his car’s console informed him was from Rico Esposito.
Lorenzo’s youngest son.
Great.
Sighing – he might as well get the first death threat over with – he cleared his throat and commanded that the message be played.
Within seconds of Rico’s voice filling the car’s interior, Niccolo’s blood had run to ice.
By the end of the message, he was driving faster than he’d ever driven in his life.
It had been seven hours since Georgia Thomas had fled her flat, and she was still struggling to breathe. The terror hadn’t abated a jot. How could it when the people she was running from were the Espositos, the richest and most powerful family in Italy? Every creak of a floorboard had her half jumping out of her skin.
When she’d woken, she’d imagined the worst that would happen that day would be the final pieces of her broken heart disintegrating into dust.
Georgia never moped, but the ache she’d woken to in the pit of her chest had been so acute that it had taken everything she had not to fall into despair over what the day would bring.
Niccolo, marrying another woman.
If she could have drunk herself into a stupor to get through it, she would have done. Instead, she’d paced her flat watching the sun rise, wishing so badly that Callie was there, and then, as if their brains and hearts had connected by the old Twin Sense they used to joke about having, Callie had called.
It hadn’t been the same as having her unidentical twin there, but for the few minutes they’d spoken, the distance Georgia had built between them in the wake of Niccolo had disappeared.
She’d never intended to create that distance. In all their twenty-six years, they’d shared everything, were as close and as dependent on each other as two sisters could be, but then Niccolo had come along and for the first time in Georgia’s life, she’d fallen for someone, and it had felt so precious and special that she’d wanted to keep it private, even from Callie.
When Niccolo ended them, the distance with Callie had turned into a gulf. Georgia had shut down; been completelyunable to talk about it, and then when she’d discovered she was pregnant…
Maybe if Callie hadn’t always been so protective of her, often more of a mother than a sister, she’d have confided in her, but she’d been as frightened of how Callie would react as she was about how Niccolo would react. She’d been trying to protect her. Protect them both. Protect everyone.
She should have told her sister the truth instead of letting her fear turn her into a screaming Harpy. If she’d kept calm and been honest, Callie might have listened. Instead, she’d unwittingly flown to Italy and into very real danger. Georgia’s panic had found her messaging Niccolo for the first time since they’d broken up with the lie that her sister had turned into a psychopath and was on her way to destroy his wedding. In turn, he’d got his best friend Dante to kidnap Callie and hide her in his castle until the wedding was over.
She’d hated herself for the lies, but Callie’s safety was as precious to her as the safety of her unborn child.
The early morning call with Callie had meant everything to her. Over the thousands of miles separating them, the old closeness they’d forged in the womb had knitted back together.
Callie had forgiven her. Best of all, Callie was safe. A message received an hour after their call had read:
I’m with Dante. Will call you later. Keep strong. Love you.
Georgia’s efforts to keep her twin out of the whole mess might have backfired spectacularly, but the Espositos couldn’t touch her. Not now. Dante would keep Callie safe, just as he had for the past week.
In any case, it was Georgia they wanted to touch, and she closed her eyes as she recalled for the hundredth time the call she’d received a few hours after Callie’s message.
She’d seen the international Italian code and her stupid heart had stupidly leapt that it could be Niccolo, even though she’d known it was impossible. It wasn’t his number, and he was at that very moment in the process of marrying Siena.
She’d answered the call with a tentative, “Hello?”
