And then he’s releasing me, unceremonious. He steps back, leaving a swell of cold where he stood. “Go,” he says icily. “And don’t ever set foot in here again, unless you wish to anger me. Unless you wish to be punished.”
Shaking, I rush past him, racing for the light at the end of the hall. My whole body is ignited, every bone burning. I don’t know what’s happening to me. When I came here, I was so sure of my decision, of saving my father, of who I was.
But when Santo Amata is near, I lose sight of whoIam. I become a girl I’ve never been before.
A girl I don’t know, and who terrifies me—almost as much as he does.
Chapter 6
Santo
“Iheard you were up in the hills, Amata.” Gio sounds almost bored on the other end of the phone. “Who were you meeting with this time, hm? Foreigners? Upstarts? Drug dealers?”
“Arms, actually.” I drop the magazine from a pistol, reload, take aim. This chamber, on the ground floor and surrounded with open stone windows, was once a true armory of old. It held swords and axes and bows, and later, cannons and rifles. “I thought it might interest you.”
“Why? I have arms dealers. People I have relationships with. People I trust.” Gio chuckles. He’s all the way in Sicily, certainly holed up in his massive seaside estate with one of his many mistresses. But he was a close friend of Vittorio’s to the end, so he has my loyalty more than almost anyone else. “Look, Santo. Word is you twisted an American arm and ended up with an American mail-order bride.”
I bristle, casting the pistol down and crossing to one of the many windows. From here, the rolling green hills flanking the castle are visible. In one of the gazebos, I spot her. She’s painting, it seems, wearing a thick dress and boots, her hair loose in the mild wind. One of the few days we haven’t seen frost, and Dani seems to be making the most of it.
“It’s not so simple as that,” I say coarsely to Gio. “My family is gone. I need to begin a new one.”
“So why not buy an access point to resources, power, money?” Gio chuckles. “You’re a cold son of a bitch, Santo. I always liked that about you.”
I grip the window casement. Yes, I am cold. And hard. Soulless, some might say. I’ve made myself this way, to survive in a world of danger and betrayal. But when Gio says this, all I think is that I am not my brother. Nothing like him. That I’m not capable of filling the shoes he left behind—much less avenging him.
“I need information on Gregorio Romano.” I drum my fingers on the stone, watching as Dani in the field lifts her face to the blue sky, to the sun, and smiles. “He’s been gathering the wolves.”
“He’s got better backing than you, Santo. Don’t fuck with him.”
“He’s fucking with me. I won’t give him the chance to turn anyone else against the Amatas.” Resolve hardens inside of me, cold and hard. “We’re not done yet. I may be the last of us now, but not for long, not forever.”
“All of the families that started turning on yours in the nineties, Santo,” he says, a hint of uncharacteristic solemnity in his voice. “All of the families, the syndicates that turned on yours last year—you really think you can win them back?”
“I don’t need to win them back,” I say. The wind over the fields chills considerably as a cloud blows over the sun. “I don’t want to win them back. I want to make them pay. And that—that I can certainly do.”
Gio is quiet a while. Then he sighs. “So. Gregorio Romano.”
I smile.
* * *
I look up in surprise as Dani sweeps into the dining room. She’s wearing a soft white gown, another selection of Sabine’s, I think, which hugs her bodice and flows freely around her long legs. Her hair is pinned back, and oddly, I’m struck by the desire to let it loose.
“Good evening,” I say coolly, as the servants direct her into a seat and promptly begin serving her. “I don’t believe I summoned you.”
She blinks in surprise, red flowing over her cheeks. “I’m sorry, sir. I thought—” She quickly stands, abashed, and I gesture for her to sit back down. “I thought, once you returned, we’d…”
“Take our meals together? What, like husband and wife?” I mean it as a jest, but my voice emerges lower than I intended, and her flush deepens. I feel a pang of something, guilt or softness, and gesture. “Come. Sit. It is your table as well, after all.”
She sits again, lips pressed together. It strikes me that she really is afraid of me, and can I blame her? She should be. I am, after all, a dangerous man. It won’t do to think of her as anything but an object, albeit a fine one, that needs care and tending. Yet something in me shifts as she sips her wine bashfully, as she cuts silently into her meal.
“Tell me, Dani,” I say, leaning back and dismissing the servants with a wave of my hand. The emptiness in the room, apart from the two of us, feels large and profound. “About yourself.”
“About myself?” Her eyes widen. “Oh. That’s hardly…”
She trails off, says nothing for a few moments. But I am used to silence. And so I wait, drinking my wine.
“There’s not much to tell, I suppose.” She averts her eyes, twisting a loose thread on the edge of her linen napkin. “I graduated from art school. I don’t…” She looks at me, as though searching for permission to continue, and I nod. “My father kept me separate from his world. As separate as I could be, I mean. He always endeavored to protect me.”
