When we get back into the bedroom, Luca pulls me into his arms once more. “One more thing, baby bird. You’re no princess in a tower. No matter what you might think, or what Frank calls you. You’re myking, Finch D’Amato. Don’t you ever forget that.”
I give him a lazy blissed-out smile. “And you,” I tell him, “are my emperor. Make sure you rule over me wisely.”
He laughs at that. “There’s no one alive who could rule overyou, baby bird, not unless you allowed it. I’d be a fool to think otherwise.”
He knows me, this man of mine. He knows me.
* * *
“What next?”I ask the following morning, once we’re both showered and dressed and ready to face the day. Wafting up from the kitchen I can smell pancakes, and I smile. Hudson is too kind to us, really. I’ll have to make sure he knows how much I appreciate him.
“Well,” Luca says slowly, and I turn to stare at him.
“You’ve beenthinking,” I say sternly.
“I have,” he admits. “I want to go back and look through Tino’s house again.”
That’s not what I expected. At all. “Why?”
He gets this weird look that I can’t place. It’s almost embarrassment. “I just…” He sighs. “There’s something that’s been playing on my mind. I went through all his safes after he died, as you know. He left the combinations with Angelo, encrypted. But there was this one combination that didn’t work on any of the safes. So I’d just like another look through the house.”
“But you said it was renovated. And Teo’s been ripping out walls, adding shit back. They never found anything, another hidden safe?”
“No. But I’d still like to have a look for myself.”
I never went to Tino’s house while he lived, and I’m not too sure I want to go now that he’s dead, either. But just last night I gave my grand speech to Luca about being his partner in everything. I can hardly back out now, otherwise he’ll just keep on using me for fucking fashion advice.
Although it must be said, Idogive great fucking fashion advice.
I try to sound nonchalant as I ask, “When do you wanna go?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
LUCA
Tino lived on a corner block in the Upper West Side, in a gardened, four-story luxury mansion. It’s actually a landmark in the city, built in the early nineteen hundreds by a wealthy tobacco merchant. When Tino bought it, it was falling apart—so Angelo told me. But over the years, Tino had it restored in painstaking, loving detail, including the reason he bought it in the first place: the Prohibition-era secret passageway from the cellar that originally led down to the river. The reconstructed passageway only extends as far as the other end of the block, and that was where he, Angelo and Connie had been headed during the final attack.
In the end, only Angelo had made it out alive.
The bright white facade of the mansion makes it stand out among the darker buildings surrounding it. I had it cleaned from the tarry smog clinging to its marble exterior during the renovations carried out after Tino’s death, and I’m glad now that I did. It shines even brighter than it did in my memory.
We’ve had it emptied of Teo Vitali’s security outfitters for the day, though their tools and workbenches still clutter the opening of the mansion.
“I wish you could have seen it before,” I tell Finch after Vitali unlocks the front door. I haven’t been here since just after Tino died. I had to see it for myself, just once. Since then, all I’ve seen are photographs of the repairs and renovations. I haven’t been able to bring myself to step over the threshold again until today.
“It’s very beautiful,” Finch says, as we walk slowly in. “I can see it must have been…a palace, of sorts.”
Very few mansions from the Gilded Age survive intact in Manhattan, and the restoration work Tino carried out was faithful to the original interior design. The floors beyond the marble foyer are shining, polished hardwood, and the coffered ceilings throughout the first floor are ornate, hand-carved wooden honeycombs, echoed in the carved staircases and panel detailing around the fireplaces. I wish Finch could have seen it with all the furniture, rugs and ornaments in place, but they’ve been placed in storage while the workers replaster the walls, which Vitali has had reinforced, and they are still to be repainted and the wallpaper replaced.
“And the conservatory is extant?” I ask Vitali.
“You mean that plant room?”
“Theconservatory,” I correct him.
“At the back of the house? Yeah.”
I pause, the same elusive memory tugging at my mind. “You’re sure? The tiles weren’t damaged?”
