I had no doubt—myhusband was going to try to track me down. Maybe he would, but he would have to kill me to bring me back. No matter how many times I tried to talk myself into going back to Rome and giving him what he wanted, I just couldn’t do it.
How does a wife, fromthiscentury, not fight against her husband doing something that was foolish enough to get him killed?
On my way to the airport that morning, when I’d brought up the swords, Scarlett had nodded. “It’s an honor thing for them. Having an amazing aim is a good thing to have, but guns are mostly point and shoot, most of the time. But lifting a sword and being good with it…it’s not something most men do anymore.
“A sword, to the Fausti family, is both romantic and ruthless, especially in this context. It still represents honor to them. This is why my father-in-law has Lusitano horses. They’re known as war horses. It all connects to their medieval roots. Their behavior goes even further back when he picks you up and flings you over his shoulder when you refuse to move, like a caveman.” She turned her face toward Brando’s.
He grunted. “Fucking right.”
I thanked them when we arrived at the airport, having slight anxiety attacks every time I looked over my shoulder, just waiting for a hand to reach out and pull me back.
I hated the thought of itandwould be thankful if it actually happened.
I’d melt in his arms and be there long enough to die in them.
I was missing him hard enough that my chest ached with the distance between us.
“Thank you, Ms. Hickey,” the attendant at the kiosk said with a heavy Italian accent, handing me my ticket.
Years ago, when I couldn’t go under the alias Pepper Nash, I would sometimes use my mom’s ID. She’d left one behind, and I had a friend of a friend switch our pictures out. Though, when she was younger, we bore a striking resemblance to each other, even down to the freckles. I even had her birth certificate.
A sad sigh left my mouth when my flight was called.
I was anxious the entire time. I hated that another captain was in control of this plane.
Numerous flights and hours later, I finally touched down in Kentucky.
It was the last place Luci told me they had tracked Janis. I’d bought a burner phone and asked Scarlett to mail the one Nazzareno had given me to New York. That way, if he was tracking me, he would be led to the wrong place,andI wouldn’t lose all my pictures. I couldn’t stand it if I did.
I also asked Luci not to tell Lilo anything. I knew Lilo would always be there for me, but he was a man, and I didn’t want to put him in a position to lie to Nazzareno. She understood and said she would keep it to herself.
The small car I rented had GPS, and I plugged the address in. It was a bar—go figure—and not a nice one. It was almost dilapidated, and the lights strung outside of it by a wire seemed to be the only electrical light on in the place. I noticed a small shack behind it, and I wondered if she lived there. Or had.
Our house in New York was nothing to brag about, but it was a mansion compared to that.
The reality of it made me feel even shittier.
She thought living with us was worse than living in a wooden shanty.
With the air conditioner pumping, I held on to the wheel, watching as people came and went, mostly bikers. I was trying to decide whether I could even do this—face her again and get off my chest what was weighing it down.
I wanted to confront her. Tell her even if she didn’t care, my sister turned out to be an amazing woman, andshewas the one who lost out when she walked out on Sonny. Before her man-whore ran him over, he worked his ass off to keep us all warm, fed, and clothed.
After Lucila told me what had happened, I realized how much Sonny loved her in the beginning, and how she had destroyed not only our family, but him in a way he had never recovered from. Guilt seemed to still be eating him alive. He lived with a woman who was drugging his kids and didn’t realize it until we had already started having issues from it. That couldn’t have been easy to live with.
Then he had a kid with the neighborhood hooker, and she drops Minnie on her head and causes brain damage.
It seemed like he truly gave up after that.
Which was why I needed to do this.
In Sonny’s honor.
In my sister’s honor.
Maybe even a little for me.
Then I was going to follow her around for a while, like a ghost, and haunt her.
