Before he could “request” something else of me, or begin to tell me things he hid deep down, I asked him a question of my own.
“Why did you leave Brando with Maggie Beautiful?”
He turned his face from mine, staring at dancing crimson roses swaying in the gentle wind. Their petals fluttered, open to the sun, the subtle scent drifting through the notes.
“A child,” he said, his voice almost lost. “I fell in love with her regardless of age. To me, she had an old soul. A woman I knew I had loved centuries before. To know her then was to know a goddess that was ageless. One look at her. She made me into a sinner, ah? It did not matter what happened to me after. My father told me I would burn. Too late. I caught fire the moment she looked at me. Fate attempts to disguise us as one life leads us into another, and when we could not be disguised any longer, Fate attempted to test us.”
He paused for a moment as the roses danced with another gust of wind in the darkness of his eyes.
“A child’s mind needs time to grow into the soul that exists. She was not ready for the life I brought to her—including my son. My son is a piece of me. A reminder.” He sighed. “This did not persuade her to be any calmer. The child in her longed to spite me. I had men watch them after I was sentenced. Ettore. He took an interest in Brando. My father agreed to leave my son in her care, but as punishment to me, for my sins, he forbade me to have her lovers killed. This, he said, would be a penance for what I had done.”
“You had—men killed?” I whispered.
What was it with these men? It seemed like a plague back then. The words—Let’s talk about this. You will not take lovers. End of story—were never even considered. Instead, they watched, and when it happened, reacted with such violence that it made my stomach shrink up at the mere thought.
“I killed one myself,” he said, as easily as if he was admitting to loving her. “Before I was sentenced, for putting a hand on her. Once I was free of the chains, there was another. I ripped his heart out for daring to steal mine.”
His—Aberto’s.
“She was so lonely,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Lonely.” He tasted the word, thought it over. “If I did not love her as I do, I would kill her, as she kills me slowly when the thoughts come of what she has doneto me.”
Jesus. He meant it too. He never bothered to hide from me. He had nothingtohide. At any given moment, if you asked him how he felt, he would be all too eager to give you a synopsis. A man with nothing to hide is as dangerous as a man who lies and cheats. A man who lies and cheats has fears and weak spots. A man who has left no cavity hidden fears nothing.
His son had these same veins running through his own body.
He turned from the roses, giving me his attention. “You do not think when my son thought you were in love with his brother, he did not entertain these same thoughts? I see the way the love you share lights the darkness—a love this true is rare, and it is wild, full of feral passion. My sons get this from their heritage. The passion. The intensity. With this love comes a sense of entitlement. The one who belongs to you is yours. She is yours alone to keep.”
“It wasn’t true,” I said. “I did nothing wrong. And Brando had no idea he even had brothers. At the time.”
“Whether it was true or not does not matter. He believed it.” He waved a hand. “Those same thoughts came to him. His face when he came to see me proved this. You did not see it then, ah? It took him time to come to you.”
He was right, damn him. That time stood out vividly. After Brando had begun to suspect something, all thanks to Luca showing him the picture Rocco had sent, I didn’t need to see his face directly—his intense rage had almost knocked me over despite the miles that had separated us. I’d felt it.
The roses in front of me could’ve been the same roses at our villa in Tuscany, where I’d suspected my husband wanted to bury me after thinking I would soon admit to the affair, which really wasn’t an affair at all but a serious misunderstanding.
Luca had orchestrated that situation for his own selfish desires—to have his sons together. Brando wouldn’t have acknowledged them, even if Luca would had told him about them, if it wasn’t for the way the situation had played out.
“Is this why you brought me here?” I asked.
Too late, I realized that I’d snapped, giving him a moment of satisfaction at my own discomfort in the turn in conversation. He’d dived into his own discomfort because of my question, and he had returned the favor.
Before he could answer, though, we both turned at the sound of footsteps.
Two men approached, one leading the other.
The leader had no qualms whatsoever. He marched to the tune of Luca’s orders. The other man had the Fausti look about him, though he wasn’t as handsome as Luca or his offspring, and he didn’t have the bold strength they all shared. Or the ability to look fear in the face and challenge it. Despite the weather, his face shone with sweat. Luca made him uneasy to the point of perspiration.
Luca nodded to the guard, sending him back in the direction that he came from. The other man greeted Luca after the guard disappeared, calling him cousin in Italian, and kissing each cheek while shaking his hand. Luca addressed him as Ercole.
Once the two men finished their greeting, Luca turned him toward me. He called me his daughter, gave my name, and the man and I shook hands.
Accepting the fact that I’d never be able to keep up with the many family members the Faustis had, it was no surprise that I wasn’t aware of this one. Besides, he seemed closer to Luca’s age, perhaps only a year or two younger.
What made me uncomfortable was that he was all too aware of me. The truth shone in his brown eyes like the sun through a dark leaf, revealing the truth, down to the vein.
It wasn’t clear who Ercole was more uncomfortable with—me or Luca.
