She had run straight into my arms, and I was haunted as well. I was haunted in a place all men fear to be haunted—in the cavernous core of the heart. This was where the memories of life lived. This was where they could not die, but express sorrow over the time being gone. This was what a ghost was made of. A time gone that could not be again. Whether that makeup was created from regrets or grief, who was to say. It depends upon the life. However, the howling cry sounded all the same.
The way the sun fell on the broken glass in my palm, sparkling as diamonds would, entranced me, bringing me back to that warm spot who broke through the clouds and shone light down upon me.
MyAria Amora Bella.
She was a woman who understood my silent language. When I had taken a step away from her earlier, she had stuck up her chin and taken a step toward me. It was as if she were daring me to pull away from her, from what existed between us, something that felt ancient and new at the same time. Her heat had warmed me all the way through, from that first sighting, and the starved lion in my chest, his ribs poking through, emaciated, started to stir. When I had thought she might be in trouble, he stood on shaky legs and gave a roar that was much more powerful than the rest of him.
It had shocked me. Made me stumble in the wind. Double my pace as I tore through the storm to get to her. After holding her in my arms, her fingers still tangled in the chain, palm around the heart I had torn out of my chest for her to have, I knew she was created to be in them.
Years too late.
This was my fate.
My punishment.
To feel love, to touch it, to hold it in my arms and cradle it to my chest, toknowit, but unable to claim it and give it in return.
My haunting could not become hers.
My Amora’s warmth attracted me, and I could not stay away from her either. Her beauty went much deeper than her flesh. She was soft, in so many ways. Milk-chocolate-colored hair, hazel eyes, pink lips, and tan skin. Deep down, below her physical appearance, her strength was her armor, though her heart seemed to be filled with tender love.
That was what I could not deny. It was the truth.
At all times, I had eyes on her from every side of the island. I knew she would not go unnoticed here. It was full of men like me, though I led them all. Amora was a woman who attracted what most men in my family longed for: a woman who made them feel something new, just like the sister of my heart was known to do. This feeling was not a fleeting one, but was made of a substance no man could replicate. This was something that could exist in the darkness as well as the light, that was not frozen by it or touched by it.
Love.
Amore.
Or inAri’s case, Amora.
Her family had named her well. Her entire name was a stanza in poetry.
Aria Amora Bella.
I longed to feel the needle pierce my skin, inking her mark onme. A brand so beautiful, it should be immortalized in my flesh for the entire world to see.
Closing my eyes, I closed my fist around the shards of glass even tighter.
So many years of my life, moths were attracted to me. I was the fire. Hypnotizing and passionate to a deadly degree. But none of them had wings that were completely fireproof, as hers were. She had been made from the sun but had been set out to cool—harden. She would thrive in my arms. But my haunting went too deep, the barbs still pulling me toward the frigid grave, to sleep in the bed Rosaria Caffi and I had made together. I could not bear to call her my wife any longer, even before her death. I could not, in honesty, call hermyanything. She was not mine and I was not hers.
We were only the future King and Queen of the great Faustifamiglia. We belonged to thefamigliathrough each other. And I had made that choice. It was mine. I owned it. Even when my passionate heart had craved a woman such as Aria Amora Bella, my loyalty to myfamigliahad come first. It had guided me through all the names my father had sent for my arrangement, and after the night in the witch’s tower, I had selected the woman with the most truth in her voice.
Rosaria Caffi’s love of my family name sang louder than any love she could have ever felt toward man or woman.
Above her love for my family, even, was Rosaria herself. No one or anything came before her desires and demands. I could not fault her for this. Rosaria Caffi was true to herself to the night she took her last breath. Love her or hate her, she was to be respected for that. A world such as the one we lived in could not change her.
Feeling I was not alone, I opened my eyes and found Mac staring at me. I stood, opening my palm and letting the glass fall back to the ground. Mac glanced down at my hand before he nodded toward the villa.
“The ghost is singing,” he said in Italian.
Allowing the blood to run freely from my hand, I entered thevilla ahead of him and almost stopped in my tracks when the eerie voice greeted me. A second later, it had disappeared, as quickly as a howling wind.
All the men at the door were pale and sweating. It did not seem as if they could take another day or night of duty. The island doctor might even have to treat them. As if Mac had read my mind, he grinned at me. I glanced down at the candelabra and picked it up. It was vintage and made of real silver. Probably a relic from when the villa was first built as a gift to a bride from her groom.
This was the bride my entire family, the entire island, had made into a ghost. Unexplained noises came from the walls, and supposedly items were moved from one place to another. The only souls brave enough to take care of the place lived on the island. Eufemia Limatola and Samuele Telesino. Wife and husband were both from Benevento and claimed to be “touched.” Roaming and communicative spirits did not bother them. Their sole job on the island was taking care of the villa—Eufemia kept it clean and Samuele kept it in good order.
I found the husband and wife standing with Vincenzo. Eufemia wrung a cleaning towel in her hands. Samuele stood taller when he noticed me. We shook hands. He hurriedly apologized to me for the broken window. He said he was working to clean it up but that one of the men who was ordered to keep watch on the villa had wanted a word with him.
