Chapter 1
Matteo
Snow twirled in thick flurries in front of the frozen window, obscuring my view of the night sky. The thick white eddies against the inky void created a wall between the stars and me. It made me anxious, like I needed to find a hidden celestial staircase and climb it, ready to go to battle for what was mine.
The woman whose name meant star—Stella.
The moment my eyes connected with hers in that underground club in Paris, I knew she was mine. The connection was sudden and unexplainable, and it stole the breath from my lungs. Which was why, when I couldn’t see the stars, I felt as if I was too far from her. If I could see the stars, I could see her, and maybe she could see me too. Like my old man, Brando Fausti, I was more comfortable cloaked in darkness, but when her light touched me, I knew she’d always burn for me, and that same light would lead me down this path we called life together.
No need to question it. I accepted it. My instincts were strong, and I trusted them. I’d never felt that way before. And I knew I never would again.
She was it—the moon, the stars, and the sun. She was my entire sky. My heaven.
What made this entire situation almost unreal was that we hadn’t spoken to each other yet. Words were useless, though. The connection existed in that space between our eyes—a space as mysterious as whatever existed beyond the veil. Being the man I am, I was instantly hit with the truth when her beauty sucker punched me in the heart.
She’s mine.
It wasn’t her physical beauty, either, though beyond her sparkling costume, I knew she was gorgeous. The beauty that came to mind was one that made her everything to me. What mamma would say existed beyond the flesh. Maybe that was why I had so much faith in a situation that might end badly.
We were meant to be, and it couldn’t end badly. I refused to allow it. My heart and hers were on the line, somehow already tangled and fused together as one. Whatever this was between us wasn’t going to end before it even had a chance to begin.
When you know, you know…
Yeah, I knew in an instant that I was going to marry her… Stella, the keeper of my stars.
Glancing to the right, I plucked a pear from the bowl on the table. Abate Fetel. That was the type of pear, and it was known in my family to be symbolic. It could be traced back to the beginning of…me. Because of that pear, my grandparents, Luca (Nonno) and Margherita (Magpie), had met and created my father. My father then met my mamma. And…there I stood. The carbon copy of Brando Piero Fausti with a touch of my mamma mixed in. An Abate Fetel seemed to be at the beginning of my journey to Stella too.
About a month ago, I’d been at my grandparents’ place in Florence. Though my Italian family didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, it was one of Magpie’s favorite holidays back in the states, and Nonno indulged her. We were all gathered at their massive table, the entire thing decorated with the pears,when a call came through that would change the course of my life.
A girl I went to school with from Natchitoches, Louisiana, where my parents grew up, called me from Paris, where she painted. Chloe had always wanted to be an artist, and she took her talent to the City of Light. On a night out with a dancer friend, she was assaulted. There was nothing romantic between us, but Chloe reminded me of my childhood, and I’m a man of honor, so I took one of our private planes to Paris to find out what had happened to her.
Once there, I followed a shredded ribbon back in time, to the underground club that had started a lifelong struggle for my parents. It was a fight-to-the-death kind of struggle, and I almost lost both of my parents because of arattonamed Olivier Nemours. His kind of evil couldn’t take down my parent’s legendary love, but evil like his lingers. And it had touched Chloe through the underground club.
It wasn’t an easy walk-in-and-walk-out situation like I’d planned. With two of my brothers, Mariano and Marciano, I’d paid a visit to the club, intending to hurt the man who had hurt Chloe. Instead, I’d found my future in a shimmering outfit on the stage, dancing like I’d neverfeltanother woman dance. I was no stranger to gifted dancers—my great grandmother, my mamma, and my sister—but this woman danced in a way that had never touched me before.
The connection to her was, again, instant, and it knocked the breath from my lungs. The Faustis were known for stealing hearts while they still beat in the chests they belonged to. I never thought I’d feel that, a ripping and tearing from the center of my chest, but that night, I experienced a death of sorts. Stella had reached out in the crowd, parted my chest with a piercing look, and then stole what no man dares to lose.
His heart.
I hadn’t been the same since that night.
Nor would I ever be.
I would have taken her home with me to live happily ever after—and not the mushy kind of happily ever after. I was looking forward to the kind of happily ever after that leaves a couple changed, forever marked with scars from the wars of life. Forever wearing the vows of their love around their fingers while husband and wife were being lowered six feet into the ground.
That was the fucking truth about real happily-ever-afters. They run past bone. They hurt in places that are hidden so deep, it takes that kind of love to feel them. But I had to leave my heart behind with her when it became clear the situation was not as clear cut as it needed to be.
It involved the Russians, who had joined forces with the Nemours family. Together, they had taken over the business Olivier used to rule. It was a dark, seedy underground scene that used and abused the women they “owned.” One of those women belonged to me, and it was going to become a war to get her back. Once she was in my arms, she’d never leave them again.
Stella was a dancer in the underground club, Sub Rosa, and she might as well be a star with a net around her body. She moved when they said so, stopped when they said so, unable to set herself free from the restraints. Even if she became too tired and needed to fall, she’d only fall deeper into their trap.
The thought cut me deep, and I took a deep breath, setting the pear back in its golden bowl on the table and grabbing for a glass. I poured myself a straight shot of whiskey and downed it while the snow continued to fall in thick flurries, my eyes straining to see past them to the stars. I almost wished the alcohol on my breath would turn into fire and melt all this cold away. It would be hot enough to clear the sky of ice and turn it into slush, so the stars could come out and burn cold for me.Give me direction when I felt as lost as a new traveler without a map.
The stars and those pears led me to her that night.
I needed them to lead me to her again.
The night the stars aligned for us, she ran from me, and due to security issues, I was forced to leave her behind. And not just because I was ordered to by my uncle, Rocco Fausti, who would be leading the family soon. The only reason I left my heart behind in Paris was because I didn’t want to put Stella in any more danger than she was already in.
