“This woman. Ava Girardi. She needs to be watched.”
My face did not outwardly deceive me, but my entire body flinched. Here was the fucking complication. I was drawn to this woman, and I did not need to be moving closer to her, fate attempting to shove us together.
By fate, I meant my uncle.
I looked toward the window for a second, and when he said the next words—Renato will take responsibility for her—my eyes snapped to his.
Snapped right into a fucking trap.
My uncle sat back, satisfied with himself. He had tested me, and I had failed. I’d given him a reaction, which labeled me as human and able to bleed, and that spoke volumes in our language.
I did not want fucking Renato around her.
He would be good to her, but not good enough.
However, I could not do this, be close to Ava Girardi any longer than I had been.
Even though my father and I had our differences, I belonged to him, I had respect for him, and he had arranged my marriage.
I had given my word.
Elettra Buratti, pasta heiress, would be my wife.
I could see it in my uncle’s eyes, though, that he was in a romantic mood. The singing from earlier should have served as a warning to me.
“You will take care of her.” His tone was final. “Renato has other reasons for wanting her. I cannot be sure he will have clear eyes to see.”
I leaned forward some, just a pleading breath. “I respect your decision and I am honored that you trust me, uncle, but I will be honest. I do not want her for other reasons.”
He thought about this for a second, then nodded. “This is why it will work with you and not Renato. He wants her because she is a challenge to be conquered. Given the circumstances, your engagement, you will be glad to be rid of her—you will see everything clearly, and the time it will take to find the truth will pass quickly.”
He stood, and I had no choice but to stand as well. He walked over to me and set a hand on my shoulder, leading me to the door.
“I believe in fate, my nephew.” He squeezed. “It is always at work. Perhaps the reasons you do not want her are the reasons for her to stay.” He paused and so did our steps. He snapped his fingers, as if a thought had just struck him like a thunderbolt. “The name Ava in Latin means bird; birdlike. You will understand her, since you are a pilot, ah?”
Outside of the room, he pointed me in the direction of the room Ava was being held in. He went in the opposite direction, laughing and singing again.
I was fucking wrong.
He might have been in a romantic mood for someone else, but for me, it was nothing but ruthless.
TWELVE
AVA
If I would have been a much betterswimmer…I would have dived over the side of the water taxi and swam to freedom.
Even for me, the events of the last twenty-four hours were a bit much. I needed time to myself to take it all in and make sense of it. But it didn’t seem like that was going to happen. No one said it, but I was pretty sure I’d earned myself a chaperone for the near future.
I’d tried to get away the night before, after I’d left bloodied footprints on my way out of the palazzo, but Rainer had caught me. He only demanded to know what had happened the night before after he got a phone call. I had a feeling it was ON, that piece of trash, and Rainer was following his orders to get what he wanted.
Whatever it was from Scarlett Fausti.
I was the one who’d suggested snooping around wherever Luca Fausti was staying. I knew that his security—or soldiers, as they were probably called behind the gilded gates—were going to pick us up. I wanted them too. I wanted the chance to speak my truth, letting them know about ON and what he was up to, in a general way, because my mind still wasn’t working like it should. I was lagging. I felt weak. And the only name I could come up with when we were picked up was Nazzareno.
I was worried that no one was going to believe me about ON. They were going to think I was just snooping around for the sake of writing an incredibly detailed article about them. Butone, I would never poke around and do that. Becausetwo, they would probably poison me for it. Or find a way to get me fired from Vice City. They (whoever, because it was never confirmed, only rumored) did that to an author who wrote a book about them once. They got her ostracized, and no publisher would touch her work after that.
When I mentioned the drugs, though, that got their attention. They didn’t confirm with words, but the mood in the room had changed, and something passed between them, something like…the fucker strikes again.
