I nodded.
“After our visit to New Orleans, and the subsequent explosion at the rental, her position has been compromised. I do not trust anyone but me to take care of her.”
Amora searched his face for a moment, and finding whatever clue she was searching for, nodded.
“That doesn’t answer all the questions I have, though,” my wife said. She nodded to the whiskey. “That bottle wasn’t there when we left for Lucca.”
Giovanninodded. “SignorFausti was drinking.”
Silvestri walked over to the table. “No glass?”
“Unlike me,” I said.
“Sì,” he said, and after he pocketed the bottle, he checked me over more thoroughly. “Nothing that I can see.” He motioned for my arm. “I will take blood and see if there is anything there I can find.”
I nodded, and as everyone was clearing out, my wife walked the doctor to the door. Ermanno came through it. He came straight for me. And although I was seeing him, I was also keeping an eye on my wife and the doctor. He was young, and although respectful, I could sense how taken he was with her.
“SignorFausti.”
I nodded at Ermanno.
“The witch did this,” he whispered to me.
My eyes narrowed and he took a step back, then he held his ground and lifted his chin. “I do not come with proof.” He held up a wine bottle. “Perhaps I do, but I do not know it yet. This is from the donkey man. He drank himself into oblivion last night. Or did he? This is just an educated guess. Or, perhaps, a feeling in my gut. The witch stirs the animals when she is around. She attempts to send her mean spirit into them. She sent thecinghialeafter us that night. She wanted the donkeys to make the noises they do.Heeehaw. Heehaw. Heeehaw. Heeeehaw?—”
“Get on with the story, Ermanno.”
“She wanted you out of the room so she could poison your brew. She also needed to shut the donkey handler up. This is why she poisoned him too. He is still asleep. I checked.”
“Give me her purpose in doing all of this.”
“The witch wants you and does not want Ari—SignoraFausti to have you. I believe we should have this bottle checked as well.”
I nodded.
He cleared his throat. “There is something else. Your son was on the property again.”
My entire body stiffened with the ice in my veins. My son still had not requested to see me face to face, yet he was living off my land. If it would have been anyone else, he would have been a dead man. My son was doing this to me on purpose, challenging me without speaking a word, because he knew with every bit of disrespect, he was carving pieces of my heart out.
“The last time the witch was in the woods, your son was there as well. Two voices in the woods that night.” Ermanno quickly looked behind us, at my wife, who got a nod from the doctor and looked as if she might float higher than the clouds at her feet.
Ermanno’s stare followed mine.
“The handsome doctor, this Elio Silvestri, is taken withSignoraFausti.”
Perhaps the good doctor had heard Ermanno. The look in my eyes stated the same, except with a warning. He fixed his glasses and left.
My wife turned to me, a smile on her face, tears in her eyes.
“Leave us,” I said to the room.
She kept her eyes on mine, and when she was close enough, I took her arm and slid her sleeve up. She gasped at how quick I was. How her entire body fell into mine with the move. Perhaps the rest of the world could not tell there had been a slight puncture wound on my wife’s skin, but I could scent the loss of blood—my blood.
“Tell me.” My voice was sharp, a command.
It did not faze her. She looked into my eyes with so much love, it could have been the warmth of her ardor that shonethrough the window and highlighted the two of us. She gently reached up and touched my face.
“I’m pregnant, Rocco,” she whispered. “You’re going to be a papà again.”
