To add to matters, Charlotte had run back to her parents and told them that I’d be attending their annual Christmas thing with Scarlett.
One thing I had learned over the years about the women in Scarlett’s family was that whatever they wanted, they usually got. Including Scarlett. She wasn’t afraid of telling her family about us, but she had wanted to do it. Charlotte wanted to beat her to the punch.
Charlotte had been even more aggressive toward Scarlett lately. Elliott’s death had changed her focus, and Charlotte, wanting her to quit, had encouraged her to do just that. Now that Scarlett seemed to have found dance again, Charlotte nettled her sister, just as she had done all of her life out of jealousy.
There were times Elliott would complain to me about how Charlotte would get Scarlett into trouble for no reason. Pnina Poésy, wanting to keep Scarlett in line at all costs, believed Charlotte’s word. She’d send Scarlett to other countries to keep her central attention on the ballet.
During one of these times, I had been spending the night over at their place. Charlotte had slipped underneath my covers, naked, brazen and too eager.
Luca Fausti was enough of a shadow in my life that respect had been ingrained in me without him being next to me to teach it. It wasn’t out of respect to her that I didn’t take her that night; it was out of respect for my friend and his parents. Three hours of her body wasn’t worth a lifetime of what Elliott and I had shared as brothers. After I was done, I wouldn’t have touched her again. Charlotte might’ve been a thorn in his side, but the snitch was still his sister. It took some convincing to get her out of the room. Blunt, it took blunt force. The truth.
“You don’t interest me.”I don’t find you attractivewould have been even more blunt, but I didn’t need her screeching through the house. Her temper matched a geyser.
In response to this, she stole my sheets and huffed out—then told everyone that I wouldn’t date her because we were close, too much like brother and sister.Elliott would never allow it.
Whatever worked. She wasn’t worth the trouble.
“You can hear me, Fausti,” Mitch carried on, each of his hands holding a coffee, a bag of fried donuts stuck underneath each arm. “I don’t appreciate being ignored.”
“Then let the issue slide, Lewis.”
“No can do. Where’s your head, man? This can’t be right.” He swung around to the window, then back again to face me. “You’ve never fucking acted like this before. Rings, Fausti? You and her are night and day. She says ‘perhaps,’ for fuck’s sake! Then there’s her mother. She has you by the humungous Italian balls. What’s Queen Poésy going to do if you tell her that you’ve decided to marry her famous daughter?”
No, no one had me by the balls. I made my own decisions. Did I consult with her mother? I did. I wanted what was best for Scarlett. She had given up on life after Elliott, and after she turned eighteen, I couldn’t stand to keep my distance for another second. At eighteen, she was legal. Her mother had a say, but not as she had before.My terms.Did I give my word? I did. For Scarlett’s own good.
Dancing was not just something she did. It was in her.
I’m her blood and bone. She stole the rib right from my cage.
Most people never get to see a miracle move through their lives. If they watched Scarlett dance, they would.
Though she resented it at times, it was a part of her that she couldn’t deny. It was something she needed, just as much as it needed her. I wouldn’t allow her to regret a second of her prime.
“All right.” Mitch nodded. “I see this argument is getting me nowhere. How about Lucious Fausti? Does that nameringa bell?”
I gave him a hard look. He returned it.
“You haven’t been to see him since you started spending time with Scarlett. The last time you went to see him, he offered you women to marry, Fausti. A vending machine of exotic beauties connected to the rich and famous. The man wants to arrange your marriage.”
“I gave him the same answer. No.” I held my free hand up. “I take nothing from him. Therefore, he has no rights.”
“He has no rights?” He laughed, high pitched. Then he turned to two women checking out porcelain swans in the opposite window. He stuck a thumb at me. “Can you believe this guy? Luca Fausti has no rights.”
One woman shrugged, then smiled. She nudged her friend, and they both turned to look at us. Mitch returned the smile. I took a step toward the door. He blocked me.
“One minute, Fausti. That’s all I ask.”
I’d give him sixty seconds to waste his breath. No longer. I didn’t need Mitch Lewis to remind me of the truth. Who I was and where I came from. My grandfather was a stranger to me, all of them were, but there was no need to meet that fate head-on. Their blood ran true in my veins.
The verity of who I was and whom I belonged to was never far; the shadow stared me in the eye at every reflection.
All Lucious Leone Fausti, in looks, in blood, down to the marrow of bone.
The Faustifamigliawere royalty in Italy, the name well known all throughout Europe. Even in America the name was infamous, synonymous with the romantic notion of the Mafia.
Mafia was a simple term for what they stood for. For who they were.
Machiavelli. Medici. Italy’s Southern Octopus, the long-reaching Sicilian Mafia. Along those same lines but combined. The Faustis were one of the world’s largest and most complex criminal enterprises in history.
