I laugh. “Maybe next week.”
“All right,” Luigi says. “I’ll tell her to clear her schedule.”
I merely shake my head and keep walking.
We pass the guard, who glowers at me. I smile defiantly at him and his hand slides to his holster. I decide it’s best to look away. I’m worried someone here might recognize me, even though I’ve grown a long, thick beard now to hide my identity from them.
We continue toward where Luigi parked the minivan in the main driveway of the Amato estate. I notice there are more Amato associates on duty today than usual. Perhaps they’re receiving a VIP from another family shortly.
Motion draws my eye toward the chateau.
And then I see her.
2
Massimo
She’s the daughter of Giovanni Amato. My sworn enemy.
One of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever met. Even though she’s dressed demurely, in loose-fitting blue jeans and a pink turtleneck blouse, with her hair neatly pinned into a bun, she still has an incredible presence about her. Almost all the men around her, though they are her bodyguards, seem to be doing their best not to stare at her, their expressions wrinkled in concentration as they search for something—anything—to look at. When they see me and Luigi, their eyes latch on to us, seemingly relieved for something to glare at and distract them. Once again a part of me is worried I’ll be recognized, but I ignore it.
Angela…
I can’t break my own gaze from her, and watch as she enters a black SUV. She looks so innocent. So naive and pure. Untouched by all the dark things in this world. I want to possess everything about her. Mind. Body. Soul. I want to break her so that she never looks at another man again, and screams my name all night long.
I notice she seems sad—she keeps her eyes lowered as she enters the SUV. She never looks up, not anymore. All the times I’ve been here in my disguise, she’s never met my eyes, always staring at the ground.
Probably a good thing.
She’s the only one who would recognize me, even with a beard.
I kissed her once, the same night her father ordered my death. The one kiss that shook our world.
She’s so damn near, yet also so far. Distant. Untouchable.
I’m going to kill her father someday and make her mine. I swear I will.
But not today.
I stare, transfixed, even after the door shuts behind her, and all I can see is a small portion of her face through the window. She looks up then, but it’s not to meet my gaze. Instead, she’s staring upward. I follow her eyes, and see a passing jet. I return my attention to her, and wonder what she’s thinking. Perhaps she’s dreaming of escaping her life by flying away?
Luigi’s voice brings me back to reality. “Probably shouldn’t be looking at the daughter of one of the biggest mafia dons in Palermo like that in front of all her bodyguards.”
I blink, and when I realize the glowers of her guards have grown darker, I avert my gaze. I unconsciously scratch my beard, if only to confirm to myself that it’s still there, hiding my face.
Some of the men join her in the SUV, while the remainder stay behind and mostly disperse. As it drives away, I can’t help but feel she’s little better than Allegro, held in a stall all day and released only on formal occasions so that she can be pranced about in front of her father’s friends before he returns her to her gilded cage. I daydream of swooping in and stealing her with guns blazing, and shooting her father for what he did to me before I leave.
I still haven’t figured out how to stop the rest of the Amato family from hunting me down for the rest of my days for doing it. I’ll probably have to kill all her brothers, too. So be it.
I climb into the car to drive Luigi back home.
* * *
I takethe ferry back to the island of Ustica and return to the villa I share with my brothers and my sister. It’s hidden from the road behind a tall wooden fence that reaches a little over seven feet from the ground. I drive through the automatic gates, which lock behind me, sealing the place off.
My brothers, my sister and I worked for years to scrape together enough money to put a down payment on this place. We’re still paying off the mortgage. Even though it’s on Ustica, and not the mainland, it’s expensive as hell. Not surprising, considering the villa is a massive affair, with a four-thousand-square-foot mansion, a two-thousand-square-foot guest house, an inner courtyard with a fountain, and a vine-trellised path leading down to the beach, where the waves of the Tyrrhenian Sea lap against the sand. Rock formations on either side separate us from the neighboring lands, giving us a private beach. We have a speedboat there, anchored at a dock. Our little getaway boat, as we like to call it. We’re also in the process of building a stable—we soon plan to possess our own collection of well-cared for, if illegal, race horses.
I sigh as I exit my car and walk toward the main entrance. We thought we could run away from our checkered pasts in Palermo by buying this place. But we couldn’t. We only got in deeper: we have to work harder than ever. And since most of our clientele live in the city we were born in, we go back to the mainland almost daily.
