“Let’s sit a while.”
Amina sat on Alessandro’s knee as we chatted, reminiscing about years gone by. He spoke of a time before I was born and my infant years.
“Your mother was a wonderful woman, so gentle and kind, much like my wife which is why they got on so well. I remember the night he saw her for the first time and he knew from that second that she was his soulmate.”
I grinned at the picture he was painting of my parents, not that it was a surprise as they had always been devoted to one another.
“He hadn’t even spoken to her when he told me she was the girl he was going to marry and build a family with.”
“They had a real love story,” I said, a slightly sad feeling settling in my stomach as I recalled the devastation that had befallen my father when my mother had died.
“They did . . . you know I think he died of a broken heart.” Emotion tainted his words. “And he would have been thrilled to have been a nonno to this beautiful girl . . . her father–”
I cut him off. This wasn’t a conversation I was having with him, but I did wonder if this had been the purpose of his reason for wanting to take a walk with me. “Alessandro, with respect, I am not discussing this with you. I haven’t really discussed it with Dante, so I won’t discuss it with anyone else.”
His toothy grin made him resemble a wolf who was ready to secure his prey. “You’re a good girl, and Dante is lucky to have found you again. You and he are like your parents and my wife and I, destined to be together. Come, it will be lunchtime by the time we get back to the house and it looks like rain.”
“Can we go back via the orchard?”
“Of course, Anna, of course.”
CHAPTERNINE
DANTE
My brothers stared across at me as I washed the blood from my hands and pulled off my shirt that carried the evidence of the couple of hours I’d spent interrogating one of the men we’d captured from the club. I had never questioned our way of life but since Anna had returned there had been fleeting moments where I had. I wondered how it was possible to do the things we did, cause the pain and suffering we did, and then go home and be caring and gentle. Looking down at my hands as I dried them, I questioned how these were the same hands that held Amina, a picture of pure innocence, that pushed stray hairs from Anna’s face when we lay together, the woman who encapsulated all that was good in the world – love, but had so recently taken a man apart, bit by bit until his soul had left his body. I’d seen my father, Carlo and Marco balance those things and although I hadn’t given it much thought until now, I could see that while they were two sides of the same coin, the two extremes never occupied the same space.
“At least we know it wasn’t one of our guys who told them we’d be in the club.” Joey sounded relieved as he interrupted my thoughts.
“Yeah, I don’t know that I could have dealt with any more betrayal,” Carlo agreed.
Accepting the sweatshirt from Joey, I noticed all of my brothers were sat in an arc as if they were about to interview me. A single seat was opposite them and Marco gestured to it. Okay, maybe they were going to interview me.
“You wanna tell me what the fuck this is?” I asked, already dropping into the chair. “Is it an intervention?”
“Does it need to be?” Tony asked seriously.
“What? No!” I answered my own question. “Why would I need an intervention?”
They all exchanged glances and then the penny dropped for me when I saw Carlo shake his head.
“Ah, you want to know about Anna?”
Joey sat forward. “We know how important she was to you, how close the two of you were as kids and figured you may be distracted by that . . .”
If I hadn’t just cleaned all of the blood off, I might add some more. “I am not distracted.” That was a lie. From the second I had set eyes on her again, she had been the only thing on my mind. Even before then. Since she had left I had thought of her often, then when she returned for her father’s funeral, and again when Aldo had crossed us and left, meaning she’d disappeared too.
The disbelieving expressions on all of my brother’s faces suggested that they didn’t believe a word of what I was saying and they knew I didn’t either.
“Okay, she distracts me, but in a good way. You mean that I can’t see straight and that her reasons for being here are dishonest, well, they’re not. She is Anna, the same Anna we all know and lov–” I cut myself off before one of them did.
Carlo smirked and shook his head at me. The others exchanged more glances, some amused, others disapproving.
“Jeez, what the fuck is the matter with you pussies?” asked Luca, pointing between me, Carlo and Marco. “All this love and romance bullshit. I intend to marry a suitable woman, one that won’t ask questions and knows her place.”
“Tread carefully,” Carlo warned, sensing that the inference was that Gina didn’t do either of those things.”
“Anna knows this world as well as we do, she even accepts that Aldo’s fate had to be fulfilled, but I love her, always have, so, if you have an issue or if there is anything else you’d like to say.”
