“What do you care?” Elio snarls.
I shouldn’t care. I don’t know why I’ve let myself get caught up in this. It’s been fucking years and yet that woman still haunts me. I shrug my shoulder. “I don’t care. Just can’t fucking stand Magnus.” The truth is, I never stopped being caught up in this. Caught up in her.
Lucia pulls her mask away from her face and croaks, “Liar.”
What does the old dear know about it? I lift my wrist and check the time on my watch. Her plane lands right about now. “We’re wasting fucking time here. If you won’t call her, I’ll go to the airport and tell her myself.”
“You think you can protect her?” Elio asks.
“I protect what’s mine.” I roll the gum around my tongue, thinking about Rose. She is mine even if I hate her. She may have married someone else, but she gave herself to me first. I have a piece of her I’ll never give up.
Elio huffs. “Your father couldn’t protect your mother.”
I stride over to him and grip his lapel, baring my teeth. “You leave my mother out of this.”
Lucia makes the sign of the cross. “God rest her soul.”
I tilt my head, my eyebrows pinch, wondering what Lucia knows about my mother. She never knew her. I don’t think my mother ever left England.
Lucia coughs up another lung. “If anyone can protect her, Elio…” She wheezes. “It’s him.”
“What makes you think you can protect my sister better than me?” Spittle flies from his mouth.
Because I love her. I loathe her. She’s under my skin. If anyone’s going to hunt her down, it’s me. “Because your home is the first place anyone will look.” I release his jacket and put some distance between us. As much as I hate the Conti family, Elio is nothing like his father or his uncle.
I check the time again. “You have about an hour before she gets here, damn it. The room could be bugged. There could be eyes located here.”
“If there are, they’ve seen you here.”
“Nobody knows me.” Though it seems I’m more popular than I thought.
“I recognised you,” Elio says.
“What do you want, a medal?” I rub my forehead. “Don’t worry about me. Just call her.”
He looks down at his mother. “You trust a Bianchi?”
Lucia nods, taking a deep inhale of her oxygen.
He pulls his phone from his pocket and hits the call button.
Rose’s faint voice comes through the handset. Water cascades from the fountain as if washing away all my anxiety at the sound of her voice.
“Hello.”
9
ROSE
Gripping the handle of my crew case, I make my way to passport control. “I told you before. I’m done letting Magnus control my life. He won’t stop me from seeing my mother.”
“Just give me some time. Meanwhile, Mamma’s instructed D’Angelo to take care of you while you’re in the UK.” Elio sighs through the handset.
I stop in my tracks. “Are you fucking kidding me?” My stomach twists into a tight knot.
D’Angelo’s voice filters through the handset, deep and maddening. “Damn it, woman. Just lie low for a while.”
I tap my manicured nails against the top of my case as I join the line at passport control. “Fine, but I don’t need a babysitter.”
