Over the Russians, my sister was the real threat. Remo had witnessed how temperamental she could be. I thought back to the night in the SUV when he had checked Willa. She was nothing but a practice round compared to my sister. I would have to end up protectingRemofromCapri. He would have to guard his loins and the vulnerable spot over his heart during sleep.
“There will be more Fausti men around the property, but only on the outside,” Angelo added.
I nodded. Got to my feet. Hugged all the women goodbye. Gave the men nods and waves.
The faster we did this, the faster I could be back with all of them.
All that was left of them after the door shut downstairs was the scents of their perfumes and colognes, swirling with the breeze from the balcony, about to disappear with the dense fog of Venice. I took a deep breath, somehow finding my husband in his father’s scent, and a sob stuck in my throat when I thought about him leaving me behind.
There is no other way…I kept repeating to myself as a mantra.February.Then.Honeymoon.
Still, my feet flew to the balcony as most of the private taxis started to pull away. Mariano was still on the pier, his back tome. I wanted to call for him. To scream for him. His name was the key and lock to this prison I suddenly found myself in.
My throat refused to work. Warm tears ran down my cheeks.
I was broken.
The only way to fix all these things?
The man standing on the dock.
I realized Mariano was waiting for me to change my mind, to scream for him, and he would come after me. He would fight lions for me. Not that my family was considered lions. They were more like hyenas.
Taking a shuddering breath, I looked away from him, my heart not able to watch him leave.
I cannot!
If I watched, I would sob, cry out loud enough for him to hear. If he heard, damned what I had said at that table, he would come for me. I turned my face, and after a slight breeze swept off the canal and disturbed the thick fog, my sister was uncloaked. She was standing on her balcony, smirking at me. Before, I would have stood my ground, my eyes and hers in a silent war.
I cannot.
I surrendered, leaving the balcony, shutting the doors behind me, flinging myself on the bed, sobbing into my pillow.
Perhaps it was a figment of my imagination, but a lion in the distance roared out in pain.
Chapter 36
Mariano
Iwas racing again. I didn’t even bother looking out at my land as I usually did as I sped across it.
Maremma is a coastal region of Tuscany, where the rugged land seamlessly merges with the Tyrrhenian Sea. It’s also known for the butteri, or as my brother’s wife, Stella, prefers to call them, Italian cowboys or cowgirls. Most of the cattle, Maremmana, were used for meat production in my time, but in another time, they were also used for draft. I kept a herd of them on my property. Most of their hides were in the gray color spectrum, and they had two long horns.
I dealt with buffalo and horses, too.
Even though my stable was filled with Maremmano, a horse known to the region of Maremma where I lived most of the time, in the Grosseto area, my personal horse was a jet-black Friesian.
My war horse, Guerriero. It meant “warrior” in Italian. My great-grandfather, Marzio, bred them. My great-grandfather’s Friesian was named Guerriero as well. I hadn’t known this fact untilPadrinotold me.
Padrinoeven gave me a framed black and white picture of the stallion, my great-grandfather on his back. The Friesianhad reared up, and my great-grandfather held on as Guerriero’s powerful hooves kicked at the air.
Padrinohad told me that every horse my great-grandfather felt a powerful connection to carried on the name Guerriero.
I adopted this tradition for my own, while also honoring Marzio Piero Fausti.
My Guerriero didn’t need a direction. The tattoo of the horse on my back was a portrait of him. Whatever I felt, he naturally understood. He was a wild horse, one of the few Friesians not of the genial temperament the breed is known for. He would stomp on a snake, remain calm at noises or bad weather, and take a chunk out of a man with his teeth if he didn’t like him. He was me in another form. Whenever I needed to race, he came to me, knowing I needed the ride.
The speed.
