I looked away from him. “I don’t deserve this pedestal,” I whispered as he dressed me.
“No,” he said. “You do not.”
My eyes found his.
“You deserve so much more. You deserve to reach heaven, angel.”
He took me by the hand before I could lose it again, and we met my sisters and Lilo in the kitchen. They walked with us to where Nazzareno had parked the bike. We stopped in front of another villa, only two doors down from theirs.
Nazzareno nodded to it. “Roots,” he said.
“We thought you might like to be close,” Luci said.
“You bought this place for me?”
Luci squeezed my hand. “We all did.”
I looked at Nazzareno.
“I have already gutted what needed to go. The rest…you can decide if you want to preserve the original or have it completely redone.”
“When did you do this?” I whispered.
He nodded toward Lilo and Lucila’s villa. “While you were asleep.”
I felt like I’d fallen asleep and woken up in a different century. Everything had changed. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I felt it.
My life was never going to be the same.
I wasn’t afraid of having this place and committing to it.
My soul ached for it— a soft place to land and rest for a while.
We all said our goodbyes, and I promised I’d meet them in Naples, Florida after my business in Italy was done. As I walked away, it was the first time I’d ever felt an invisible string between my family and me. It was stretching, and unlike before, it was going to pull me back whether I wanted it to or not.
We idled by Nazzareno’s bike.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Surprise,” he said.
We didn’t go far. We went to a hotel in Naples, and then Nazzareno took me out to lunch.
“Tell me about this surprise,” I said. “I need just a little hint.”
He grinned. “The first one…I would not call it special, but informative.”
“Informative?”
“Sì.The fates were kind. Rosaria Caffi will be at Teatro di San Carlo here in Napoli. The opera is Don Giovanni.”
“I don’t understand.”
He looked at me seriously. “You wanted answers about Tigran’s death. She will give them to you.”
“What?”
“Are you not seeking them anymore?”
