Chapter 14
The Fausti Three
It almost seemed as if fate was guiding the steps of my life. Before the beautiful ballerina had come into my world, I had planned to meet with my brothers. At my suggestion, we met in Pienza for lunch instead of in Rome for dinner. After, we took my new Ferrari, a four-door, four-seater, a prototype, and traveled to Siena together.
I had decided that I needed to let Dario and Romeo in on the situation with thebellaballerina. Whatever was coming, I wanted them to be prepared. I was not sure who Scarlett’s husband was and what either of them truly had to do with our family. Whatever it was, it would affect my brothers as well.
My father had given me instructions to allow fate to work.Time reveals all at its own pace. I had pondered his message, attempting to make sense of it, but none had come yet. For my father to instruct me to allow the situation to come to me was telling. He had something to do with it.
Another secret of my father’s that I was keeping close to my chest was the one Monica had somehow figured out. Who the women were who had given birth to the three of us.
I glanced at Dario in the passenger seat. He was quiet, as he usually was. He did not speak much. He was articulate, intelligent,and thoughtful about his words. He would rather be designing a building than doing anything else. He enjoyed reading non-fiction books.
I glanced in the rearview mirror.
Romeo was checking out his reflection in the glass, singing to himself.
The sight of them, so alike physically, yet so different in personality, made it hard for me to not think about the paper Monica had given me. It didn’t just list my birth mother’s address. There were two other addresses as well. I found the names of the women connected to those addresses myself, but I decided not to step foot on the listed properties. Both women were dead, as was the woman listed for me.
Matilde was a scientist—Dario.
Serafina was a model and aspiring singer—Romeo.
Dario would accept the information and move on. I was not so sure about my youngest brother. Out of all of us, he disliked our father’s wife the most. He found her disturbing. She was cruel to us. This was when I went to my grandfather and had a talk with him about all that had been going on in the house. Not even a day later, she was out, and we rarely saw her. It was I who led my family. But it left Romeo with more maternal-related issues.
Romeo caught my eyes in the mirror and grinned to himself as he ran a hand through his hair. “I do not ask this ballerina questions,” he said, repeating the instructions I had given my brothers before leaving Pienza. Romeo was curious by nature and would ruminate on the mystery the hardest until he figured it out.
“Corretto,” I said, squinting against the glare.
Romeo tapped his fingers against the window. “She is beautiful, ah?”
I narrowed my eyes, and he held his hands up.
“If she is beautiful and talented, a Fausti must have married her. I do not see why else she would claim the name. Perhaps Nonnohad a child after Nonnapassed. Perhaps the woman—Scarletta—is married to Nonno’s son’s son.”
“You have wild ideas, brother,” Dario said to him.
Romeo lifted his hands and grinned. “This is why I am a sleuth.” He sighed. “I wonder if she has sisters.”
Dario shook his head, probably wishing Romeo sat in the front so he could slap the back of his head. Dario had been quieter than usual. Abree had chastised him for not buying her a bigger engagement ring and had turned down his offer for marriage. Rosaria had made a bold statement to me: her sister deserved better. I felt Dario and Abree were a good match, but he was not bowing down to her demands. Perhaps after time she would miss him and would speak to him.
Dario sat up straighter and fixed his suit. “Brother,” he said to me, “during the trip with Abree, there was a man with the Fausti name staying at the same ski resort. I did not think much of it at the time, but I wonder if he could possibly be the same man that received your first package from Mario.”
“Better and better.” Romeo nodded his head. “A simple case of the same last name? Highly doubtful. Or a man who shares our blood but not our laws? Perhaps his wife is in some kind of trouble. Or he is. She came looking for us for help. Perhaps she has not worked up the courage to share their secret yet. She is, ah, how do they say…feeling us out first.”
We all became lost to our thoughts as the Ferrari climbed the hill to the ballerina’s farmhouse. All of what Romeo said could be true. My wife was also involved, which meant that she had found whatever was going on worth her time. I knew better than to outright ask her. Rosaria was a sly snake. I would not ask the ballerina either. She danced around the subject of her,my, last name and what she was suddenly doing in Tuscany, no longer dancing in Paris.
I came to a complete stop in front of the farmhouse. In the silence, my brothers looked to me for direction for what would happen next. It was our way, just as they would exit the car after me, the three of us walking up to the door in the order we wereborn. If we could not keep in line out in public, what did that say about our rules?
We would walk in line.
“What if father had another son?” Romeo said out of nowhere.
Dario made a disbelieving noise. “We would have known about it. Father is proud of his heirs, and we would have all been together by now. There is no other way about it.”
I fixed my suit, my brothers doing the same, and stepped out into the bright sunshine. The weather was hot, but I enjoyed the feel of it. This was why whenever I seemed to break a woman’s heart by not committing to her, she told me I was at home in hell.
Feminine laughter echoed from beyond the farmhouse doors. It had been two weeks since I’d last seen Scarlett, and I did not plan for this trip. I was arriving unannounced, but I was pleased my brothers would have a chance to meet thebellaballerina.
