“Ava!”
The three of us looked in the direction of the voice. A young girl with a fierce look on her face barreled toward us. She flung herself in Ava’s arms, and Ava picked her up, spinning her around.
“Min!” Ava held her tighter. “You’ve grown so much. I barely recognize you!”
“Don’t be sil, Ava.” Min rolled her eyes. “It has not been that long!”
“It feels like it,” Ava muttered into her hair.
Min looked up at me. She tilted her head. “Who is this?”
“This,” Ava nodded to me, “is Nazzareno Fausti. Nazzareno, this is Minnie, my baby sister.”
“I am no baby, Ava!”
“Of course not.” I knelt some and took her hand, kissing it. “Pleasure to meet you, Minnie.”
She backed up a pace, giggling. “I like you, Nazzareno.” She looked up at Ava. “Do you like him like Luci likes Lilo?” She had an exaggerated way of sounding out her vowels, especially the letterO.
The three of us looked at Ava.
“Way to put a girl on the spot, Min.”
“Ava?”
A woman appeared from somewhere deeper in the villa. She had stopped, like she had seen an apparition and was too afraid to come close in case it would disappear.
The love in her eyes was apparent.
She must be Ava’s sister, Lucila, and they were opposites. Lucila was tall and thin with long brunette hair, bangs framing her face, and her eyes did not hide her love. The dots on her nose were the only connections to Ava, it seemed.
Ava nodded and barely got out, “Luci.”
It seemed at the same time, the two women collided, grabbing on to each other.
My eyes were on them, but two other sets of eyes were on me.
One set from the floor. The little girl, Minnie. She smiled up at me, and it transformed the serious set of her face.
The other eyes were darker and seemed to hold serious questions about my place in Ava’s life. Lucila’s husband. Tigran’s nephew. Brio Valentino.
“We have never done this before!” Minnie ran to her sisters and wrapped her arms around their waists. They each set an arm around her and pulled her close.
Brio laughed, but it was the internal kind that only makes a man’s chest make a “huh” noise.
I was looking at him when his eyes turned toward mine this time.
It’s easy to learn a lot about a person when the eyes truly watch and the mouth is silent.
This type of display was new for the sisters.
I could speculate as to why. Distance. Different personalities. But I would wait to form a solid answer after I was around them longer. I could tell right away that Luci was the maternal figure, and Ava was the lost child who was always getting into trouble.
Brio seemed to be the center of it all. A rock. A man the sisters could depend on.
I held my hand out to him. He looked at it before he took it.
“My uncle was a good man.” He seemed to stand taller. “He didn’t deserve—” his eye flicked to Minnie for a second. “The fate he was dealt.”
