That samethingseemed to be driving him mad.
Romeo oversaw dealing with Moro. Even though the pirate was seedy and deserved it, the plan was not to kill Moro. Romeo had killed him. Pinned Moro to his ship with a sword through his heart. I’d said nothing as we’d left.
I felt eyes on me from each side.
Romeo and Juliette had five sons. Angelo, Michele, Giacomo, Dante, and Piero. Angelo was around my sister’s age. Michelewas around Matteo’s age. Giacomo and I were close in age. Same went for Marciano and Maestro and Dante and Piero. I was close to all mycugini,but I was closest to Angelo and Michele from Romeo’s crew.
Angelo was with us during the recon mission for Stella, and when his old man kept a straight face, his jaw tight, Angelo raised his eyebrows at me.
I didn’t respond, but when we stopped for a minute to regroup, I decided it was time to try to put my uncle’s life into perspective. I nudged him, and he turned his stoney eyes on me.
“Question,” I said to him in Italian.
It took him a moment to give me a stiff nod.
“Do you regret any part of your life, uncle?”
The question took him by surprise. Just like the question about Sistine’s hair took her off guard. To his credit, though, even though we were in a battle situation, he seemed to be considering it.
“Yes,” he said. “The time I did not spend with my wife before we met.”
I was expecting him to say no, because he loved his wife and the life they’d built. My uncle had been the same as me as a younger man. His name said it all. Romeo. And he had been fulfilling the name’s prophecy, until his Juliette had stopped him in his tracks in a bar in Ireland. But what he’d done was point me in another direction instead of the one I’d planned on going in. I had planned on connecting the silver in his hair to scars life brings. Every battle was worth it.
Instead, he’d pointed me to the root of his problem, metaphorically and literally. He regretted the time he didn’t spend with his wife when he’d been galivanting all over the world, romancing women. And it wasn’t as if my uncle was old when he married.
“Huh,” I said, considering this. “So, your issue, uncle, is not with time flying, but the time spent apart from your wife before you met.”
“Time is not something that can be changed. It is stronger than anything in this world. Even a Fausti. There is no cure. When moments from the past become moments we cannot change, the devil does not even know that kind of anger and misery. A hell that not even he could design. You will see.”
You will see.Because he was taking note and acknowledging that something was moving between Sistine and I. Something he recognized, just like my father had. And he knew that the time I’d spent refusing the idea of one love would come back to haunt me.
Maybe one day when I stood where he was, my hair turning silver, a mark of time.
Time.
That powerful thing that couldn’t be changed. A second passes and there’s no repeat of it. No getting it back. A breath gone. Since life is made up of them.
A second could change life to death.
My uncle squeezed my shoulder. I’d been so focused on his admission that it took me a minute to meet his eyes. He gave me another nod, this one the opposite of the first. I could feel something had been relieved inside of him. The tension he’d been emitting had lightened. Even though I couldn’t feel like Mamma or Mia, I could still feel changes in the atmosphere around me. MaybeZioRomeo admitting his issue out loud had freed him some.
My uncle lifted his arm and checked the time on his watch. He gave Angelo and I the signal to break off in different directions. We each had a head soldier with us. Vincenzo’s son, Remo, was with me. These soldiers had a job, and their main job was to protect the sons and grandsons of the current king, mygrandfather. Our main job was to follow protocol so we didn’t fuck anything up.
Remo and I directed the men to the area we were assigned to search. We’d been instructed to check every nook and cranny. Some of the men even pressed on the walls to make sure no proxies had been put into place to trick the eye.
We found no trace of Stella.
My old man came to check out the situation on my end when his search came up empty. No doubt his words and intentions were true. He was checking on the situation, but I also knew the situation had to do with me as well. Brando Fausti was keeping tabs on his sons. After he was finished with me, he headed to find Marciano.
It seemed like only seconds had passed when my old man passed by in a blur on his way from checking on Marciano. Mac, Saverio’s father, with him. My old man made a motion for me to follow. I made a motion back that we would. Remo would round up the men up and we’d be right behind them.
Maybe one of our crews had found Stella. I hoped it would be Matteo who found her. He’d fought through hell to get to this point. They both deserved to see each other first.
Ifshe was in the underground club. There were thousands of places the Nemours and the Russians could’ve taken her.
No one had briefed us in a while. I checked my watch. There was no way time hadn’t moved forward much since the last time I’d checked it. Saverio gave us the watches to communicate. He said we couldn’t use our phones. He and his sister, Evelina, had designed the watches so nothing could interfere with them. Something had. All my communications had been severed with the main team.
The main team was put together by Saverio and Evelina. She was the main point of contact off site. She had her own team at a place nearby. Evelina practically lived in her man’s ear when hewasn’t around. Her man’s name was Wolf, and he was an intense motherfucker. Just as intense as Mac.
