I really didn’t give a shit. It was Beni, and I loved him like a brother. Aristide too, even if he was still a little hesitant with me. I thought it had more to do with family politics with him, but we never touched on it.
It was those family politics that made the hackles stand up on my neck. Something was coming, and knowing Nazzareno, he didn’t want me to worry. But I knew it was only a matter of time before things moved in a direction that I didn’t think anyone but the members of this family could be prepared for.
I wasn’t even surewhatwe were preparing for.
Would Nazzareno and Renato have to draw pistols or something?
My heart started to beat faster at the thought, and my stomach felt like it had fallen into a pit.
It might have sounded a bit…archaic, but that sort of violence fit with this family.
I moved further in, peeking in every room, until I came to a spiral staircase. I wondered if it would take me to another library. My heels lightly tapped on the cherry wood, and I stopped on the top step. A long hallway stretched to the end of the building.
Quietly, I took it, noticing a few empty rooms.
Then I heard it.
Grunts.
Clangs of metal.
My feet stopped before my mind had caught up to what I was seeing.
At the end of the hall, there was a long room filled with exercise equipment and even a boxing ring. It had exposed brick walls, and it was hot like an attic that wasn’t insulated properly. The windows were tinted, and it gave it an old gym feel.
That wasn’t what had stopped me, though.
On the other side of the room, a bunch of old looking swords hung on the wall, and two men circled each other with them raised.
Nazzareno and Rocco.
Beni, Aristide, Brando, Dario, and Romeo stood around with their arms crossed, watching as they challenged each other with weapons I’d only heard about and seen in history books.
What.
The.
Actual.
Fuck.
All they needed were armor and a bunch of steeds and they could ride off into the sunset as medieval knights heading into battle.
My breath caught when I’d realized how simple I’d been when I thought of pistols. There’s no honor in that—or this family would think so. Luca had cut off his brother’s legs with a sword in Venice for challenging him.
Was this how Nazzareno and Renato were going to battle? With actual swords?
I wanted to interrupt, to accuse Nazzareno of lying to me, but he hadn’t been lying at all. He’d been dodging by telling me the other gym had equipment better suited to what he needed.
Swords.
Footsteps pounded on the wood, and I slipped into another room, this one dark because there were no windows, and hid behind the door, my back plastered to the wall.
These men never walked with cement in their boots. This guy was doing it on purpose. Maybe not to catch one of the guys swinging a sword off guard and get his head sliced off.
A vision of a severed head on the floor in Venice came back to me and I took a deep breath and slowly released it.
The clanging continued, until one of the men—Dario, maybe—said something in Italian. The clanging stopped, and the man who was pounding on the wood with his footsteps said something else.
