Especially after I witnessed afterward how she’d reacted to the stress of it. Just as mamma did. Laughing like something had cracked inside of her, and the madness snuck out of her mouth. I had only seen it once from Mamma. Papà had said it happened often when they were going through wars.
Angelo rolled his shoulders. “The name,” he said. “Rattler.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The fucking name.”
“My wife holds onto me as though she is losing me. She breathed easier after she told me about the property. However, I sense there is more. There is something else she is afraid of, though she is keeping it close to her heart. She cries when she sings. Always sad tunes. It is breaking my fucking heart.” He pounded his chest.
I squeezed his shoulder, feeling his fucking pain.
The way Sistine had reacted to that snake. The admission about the property and Rattler. Even how she acted tonight when that assistant had touched me. She was striking out at something, probably a feeling she couldn’t control. She wasn’t confiding in me about it. It was driving me fucking mad. Mad enough that if I didn’t put an end to it, the entire world would have hell to pay.
“I’m going to talk to Rio,” I said. “I want to know who these motherfuckers are, and we’re going to pay them a visit.”
“Welcome home, motherfuckers,” Angelo said, and it seemed like he stood taller, his muscles flexing.
We both nodded and grew quiet as we walked up a slight hill. At my signal, my man nodded at us and started back for the bonfire.
Angelo kept walking, but the sight haloed by buttery light from the many windows stopped me in my tracks. It was a log cabin. A log cabin that had probably been on the property since it was first inhabited by the Watt family.
If Sistine was my home, this was the home I longed to bring her to.
The log cabin was surrounded by trees, and it sat in the middle of them, protected on all sides. It had plenty of windows. For sunrises, sunsets. For all seasons. Even the switching of them. It was a beacon amid being lost in a racing world. A place where a soul could reconnect with the land at a slower pace. A couple could exist if it was the two of them against the world.
Angelo stopped and turned toward me, hands in his pockets. “All is good, cousin?”
“All is good.” I nodded.
All was fucking perfect.
Sistine crossed her arms over her chest and quirked her thick eyebrows up. “I am sure this is not animal proof?”
“Nah,” I said. “At best, it’ll just protect us from the rain.”
Sistine had confided in me that she’d always wanted to camp outside. The spot of the bonfire was a prime area. The fire was still crackling, and she would have a wide-open view of the stars. At the last minute, she wasn’t sold on the idea that animals could get to us in the tent.
A slight breeze blew, bringing with it the tinge of smoke from the fire. From the fire of fall too. I could feel a slight chill in the air, especially when I took a deep breath. It touched my lungs.
Her hair trembled with it, and I knew, like I’d known the first time I set my eyes on her, there was nothing in this world as fucking beautiful as she was.
She was staring at the setup when I called her name. I had to call her twice to get her to meet my eyes. I opened my arms, and after sighing, she came into them. I wrapped her up. Her armor.
“I’ll fight a bear for you. I’ll fight lions.”
“I know this,” she whispered, stepping back, looking into my eyes. “I do not want to see you hurt either.”
“We have each other, Annie.”
“I have your back.” Her eyes were fierce on mine. The fire roaring back to life, glowing in the middle of pitch-black darkness.
“Yeah,” I said, the vow in her voice almost choking me up. “And I have yours. I’d die for you.”
“Do not speak to me of such a thing, Mariano Leone Fausti.”
I gently ran my knuckles down her face, and she closed her eyes, breathing in.
“All right,” she barely got out. “This is our date.”
“Yeah,” I said, leaning in, barely setting my lips against hers. “This is our date.”
