“That’s a complicated answer with many moving parts.”
She studied me, then spoke. “Nazzareno is engaged to Elettra Buratti. My family has been friends with hers for years. I know her. In the beginning, she will be fine with your body warming his bed at night, but as the years pass, she will get sick of a cold bed. But what shall she do? She will know that her husband will not allow another man to get past her sheets, even if he has deep feelings for another woman. If she does allow another man to go deeper than her physical needs…” Her eyes narrowed. “He will kill him. He will rip out his heart and leave something symbolic in its place.”
“Like a photograph?”
“Depends on the man.” She waved a hand. “Poetic justice is to each his own.”
“What happens to the heart?” Detective Joe never told me that. If they ever found out where Tigran’s heart went.
She smiled, and it was chilling. “Again, depends on the situation, but in the one I described before, to his bride, of course. If his wife yearns to see the truth in another man’s heart—her husband will serve it to her on a silver platter.”
I almost whimpered. Rosaria had been given Tigran’s heart. I steadied my voice when I said, “Got it.”
“Do you, you poor thing?” She ticked her mouth. “You have no idea what you are setting yourself up for. You willnotbe the wife. You willneverbe the wife. This is the woman he makes vows to. This is the woman who can manipulate him into separating from his soul for a few precious moments to take a life in her honor. You will always be the woman he hides in the darkness.
“After a while…you will start to becomehisghost. You will disappear in the villa he sets you in. You will disappear in his main life, until night falls, and he can somewhat still make out the shape of you following him around, pining for a love you will never receive.” She tapped her top tooth for a second. “This conversation does not go past this room. If it does, it will not be a missing heart you will have to fear, but any meal you sit down to eat. I will make the poisonsosweet. That is…if Elettra does not do it first.”
She turned back to the mirror, and I was dismissed.
THIRTY-FOUR
NAZZARENO
One of myplanes waited for us at the private airport after the opera. I did not change into my uniform this time. Ava was still in her gown. I kept her hand in mine as one of my pilots greeted me as we made it up the stairs. I acknowledged the welcome and we boarded.
Beni tapped his hat to us as we took our seats. The stewardesses rushed around, preparing for the flight, especially since they knew I would be taking it as a passenger. Something I had never done.
The takeoff was smooth enough.
Ava gazed out of the window as we climbed, reaching altitude. She did not protest when I unlocked her seat belt and positioned her on my lap.
“I should change,” she whispered, attempting to leave me.
“No,” I said. “Not yet.”
She nodded and rested her head on my shoulder, closing her eyes.
I expected her to demand answers to what had happened between Renato and me backstage.
Instead of air flowing through my nostrils when the scene came back to me, it felt like fire.
He was going to challenge me for her if she was not handed over to him in two days’ time.
He had gone toZioLuca and told him he had set his eyes on her first, I had intervened, and fate might be confused as to which one of us she should choose since I did. A few witnesses had stepped up and said they had witnessed her interest in him at Venice. Renato recounted me being there, watching the scene unfold, since I had been watching her. He claimed Ava had agreed to go with him that night, but family business (the fight between my father andZioLuca) had taken priority over everything else, and she had been lost to him.
Until someone had told him about the journalist from New York who was with me in Naples at the pizzeria.
ZioLuca forgave the accusation of me intervening, since he was the one who had ordered it after the event. I had not purposely set out to confuse fate. It was just a twist of it.
My uncle was right. I had never been out to confuse fate. Because fate knows what is right and what is wrong, even if sometimes our paths to right are filled with challenges.
What they did not know was that after the blood had been cleaned from my father’s legs, and I had been free to fly again, I would have searched the world over for her. I had wanted to set the cloak with my insignia back around her shoulders, my own hands fastening it.
It was symbolic.
A claim.
I would be the only man to take care of her.
