“W-what time is it?” I croaked. My throat was parched, and I couldn’t tell by the sun burning through the lace curtains what time it was. Only that I felt disoriented and not like myself. Sleeping too late made me feel overwhelmed, depressed almost. The sudden urge to cry hit me like a stinging whip.
Brando lifted his head and turned to look at me. “Tell me.”
I shook my head, shaking off the feeling. He was troubled. “Nothing. Just trying to wake up.”
He stared at me another moment longer. I could tell he didn’t buy it, but he didn’t press. Instead, he rose, placing my leg down gently on the bed, and then handed me a glass of cranberry juice.
“Thank you.” I took a sip. “What happened, Brando?”
“Svegliatevi prima. Andiamo a piedi, mia moglie.”Wake up first. Then let’s walk, my wife.
Damn. The meeting with Lothario.
I went to take another drink of juice, and that’s when I noticed it. A new ring was on my pinkie finger. It was simple gold with the initialFin the center, made of pavé diamonds.Curious, I slipped it off, examining the delicate thing.
There was an inscription on the inside.Per sempre.
Before I could open my mouth, I noticed a new addition to Brando’s hand. A large gold ring wrapped around his right mercury finger, the letterFinlayed with diamonds, just like mine, but surrounding it was greenish yellow gems—peridot, his gemstone. The ring looked fine on his finger, standing up to his masculine hands, as though it belonged there. Its presence only enhanced his sensual virility.
I slipped the ring back on my little finger before I traced a visible vein from his elbow to his finger, then to the ring. His forearms were laced with branches of swollen veins, standing out against his bronze skin.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“This was Marzio’s ring,” he said, just as softly. “We shared a birthday and the same ring size.”
“Your brothers have similar rings.” I had seen them wear them before, during special occasions, Sunday mass included. “Is it—symbolic? Like the tattoos?”
The Faustifamigliahad tattoos to brand them—rosaries set around the face of a lion, a sacred heart in the center of the beast’s mane. Brando had refused to get one, up until this point. I hoped that this conversation was not leading to that one.
If it was, I knew what it meant. He’d belong to them, in more ways than he already did.
“Yeah.” He sighed. “For our family, not the business.”
I sighed too, out of relief. His sounded heavy, though, torn between family obligations and what I couldn’t stand to see him become.
“The one on your finger was my grandmother’s. When Marzio gave her the ring, he told her that if he was the head of thefamiglia, she was the heart. The most vital part of him.”
That sounded like something Marzio would’ve said. I was touched. Her ring fit my finger, like her cross hung around my neck. “It’s beautiful,” I said. “Grazie, mio angelo.”
“Prego,il mio amore,” he said, kissing the ring. “Marzio left the rings to us. He added it to his will before—” He made a motion with his hand, not wanting to speak the truth. His grandfather had been accidentally shot by his own son. The bullet that killed Marzio had been meant for Brando. “He wrote a letter to each of his children and grandchildren—he wrote mine not long before he died. He said that he had been waiting to give the rings to a couple he knew would represent the love he and my grandmother shared. He felt confident leaving the rings to us.”
“How did that go over with Lothario and your uncles?”
“Outwardly, they seem pleased the rings found a home. They like you. I can’t say that I felt it did much to calm their worries though. Lothario is still suspicious of me. He thinks I might break the branch and go my own way. That’s why his wife is suspicious of you. She thinks you might persuade me to.”
“How do you know?”
“I can read other men.”
He didn’t say it, but I knew what his words implied—men like me. He thought like they did.
“And Bela?”
He snorted. “Plain enough to see. You can’t feel it?”
“Yes,” I said, staring at the ring. “It doesn’t matter though. You’ve made it clear that you don’t want in. I’ve made it clear thatI’magainst it.”
Standing, he stretched his muscular arms and went to stand in front of the glass doors leading out to the terrace.
