“Taylor,” I whispered.
Brando’s hold on me grew tighter, his face a glass mask of contained fury. The tremor that rattled his bones worked its way through my flesh.
Another noise, this one almost matching the first one, echoed, but with more agony. My body involuntarily trembled at the sound of it. Rocco carried Rosaria, his shirt over her body, cradling her in his arms. The crowd parted, moved back, giving him room to carry her back to the villa. She reminded me of a rag doll in his arms, except for her hold around his neck.
One of the men went to touch her, offering to carry her, but Rocco’s low voice was nothing but menace. “Do not touch my wife,” he said in Italian.
I didn’t miss the look Romeo shot Brando. Brando nodded to himself, eyes almost glazed over with anger. Donato pulled himself free from the crowd, finding us standing off to the side. He strode with purpose, his eyes scanning the area to find Chiara before he came to us.
“Viola is talking now. She is going to be all right,” Donato said, noticing the eager look on my face. “We are moving her soon. Valentina is working on Davide.”
Brando didn’t even need to speak. Donato read the look on his face. “Viola tells us that this Taylor was crazed. The other man with him made quick work of Davide. Taylor was looking for Scarlett again. He wanted Viola to get Scarlett alone. Viola fought him and he knocked her unconscious. This is when he took Rosaria. The other was left untouched.”
“This is all my fault,” I whispered. “This is because of me.”
Brando, Romeo, and Donato all started speaking at once, some Italian, some English, the three of them attempting to get the same message across,none of this is your fault!
It was though. Taylor had been looking for me. He had been on the hunt for me ever since Ireland, or even before. I teased him with my dancing. As a consequence, the people I loved the most were being punished.
All of this. My fault. From Nemours to Ettore and everyone in between. The black seed that Nemours had planted grew a black heart, and from it, strangling dark veins throughout our lives.
“Scarlett.” Brando’s voice broke through my dark musing. “If you even think about leaving me, I will lose my fucking mind. I will take care of this, do you understand me?”
I couldn’t answer.
“Scarlett,” he said again, taking me by the arms. “I take care of you.”
I nodded.
He turned back to Romeo and Donato and had Donato call a few of the lingering men over. “I want them found,” Brando snapped in Italian. “Now.”
There was a bigger hierarchy here at play. Brando hadn’t been raised with Fausti ways, but they seemed to be deeply imbedded in him regardless. Part of the lineage demanded that, for the most part, Brando keep his hands clean. This was one area that Brando struggled with the most. Not having the freedom to act by his will alone. Most of the men in the family, the ones who were “heads” of their own cluster, had the freedom to make small decisions, but Lothario kept a tighter leash on Brando and his brothers—because he feared them getting a taste of power.
What happened next surprised me.
“I will go with the men,fratello.” The beast that hid in Romeo’s eyes stepped forward. “I will not allow them to get far. We have the other boys in his gang—all that are left are the two that attacked us tonight. These monsters will not see the light of another day. Game over.Sono già morti.”They are already dead.
Chapter Eighteen
Scarlett
Three days later, Brando’s phone rang. It was my father on the other line, telling him that local news from America was not good—Taylor and his football buddies were killed in a plane crash. No trace of them had been found in the wreckage.
Brando delivered this news to me with nothing more than a solid look on his face, a glass of whiskey in his hand, sitting in a plush chair in the corner of our room. The signet on his pinky finger glinted in the gold of the setting sun. His button-down dress shirt was rolled to the elbows, the ribbon he had gotten for me years ago visible; my name was across his left wrist, right over his pulse, the ending “t” of my name beginning the ribbon. On his other arm was the tattoo he had gotten in honor of the Coast Guard.
I said nothing for quite a while, watching as he gazed at the floor. He had been quiet lately, lost in his thoughts. Little wonder that he was—Violet, Rosaria, Collette, Davide, and what could’ve been.
The shift of pressure and command moved underneath my feet like tremors from an earthquake—Brando led the show while Rocco helped Rosaria recover. At night Brando would hold me until I had to tell him I couldn’t breathe. We didn’t speak of it, but we both knew. Taylor had been after me, and if it weren’t for Aeden, my fate would have been similar to Rosaria’s.
Perhaps I’d be dead.
I remembered those crazed eyes all too well, the rage behind them that couldn’t be controlled. I lifted my arm, studying it, half expecting the bruises to still stain my skin. The watch Brando had given me in England and two diamond bangles he had given me to match recently clinked and fell further up my arm.
Brando lifted the glass to his mouth, taking a drink. The leftover liquid on his lips glistened like honey. “Get him out of your mind, Ballerina Girl,” he said softly. “He’ll never hurt you, or anyone else, ever again. None of them will.” A sense of satisfaction oozed from his tone. I knew what he had done. He had ordered their murders. When the time came, he never admitted it to me, but I knew he was there. He had told me he had “business” to attend to. I didn’t ask beyond that because I knew what it meant.
I nodded, tucking in the memory and fear, and went to him. “Are you hungry,mio marito?”
“No,” he said, almost to himself. “Not unless you’re the one cooking it for me.”
