Wait. What?
That’s my first thought as I look to her, feeling as mixed up as she sounds. Because if she doesn’t know he has a daughter, then Goedhart couldn’t have meant…
“What?” Luca asks, like he pulled the incredulous question from my head. “You…you…” He points to Mom with one hand, Russo with the other. Then one of the accusatory fingers drifts to me, followed by a dazed, barely audible, “She…she’s his, right? And yours, the two of you—”
“What?”Mom screeches, making it clear where I get the ability from. Her absolute horror at the implication is written in every scrunched-up line of her face, in her arms flung wide, shoulders up near her ears. “Absolutely not. What on earth would make you think that?”
She is a combination of fuming and completely baffled that I’ve never quite seen on my mother. Luca is matching this energy, though leaning more toward the baffled end of the scale. I’m trying to put together the pieces, maybe more confusedthan anyone, given that I was, you know, a fetus when everything between these folks first went down.
But the only person who doesn’t look totally lost is Gianmarco Russo. No, his expression is carefully blank, though he is nearly vibrating, with tension or anger or whatever else, I don’t know.
Before I have time to analyze it further, he calmly turns away.
And then—very not calmly—starts running.
Chapter Twenty-Two
West
There are a few moments,after Johnny Russo sets off like a sprinter from a starting block, in which those of us he’s left behind—Dr. Alex, my dad, the exes, Dr. Constantini, and, of course, Cam and me—look back and forth to one another as if needing confirmation that we’re not all sharing the same surreal fever dream or drank the same bad batch of limonata.You’re seeing this, right? And you too? And we all…? Even if we don’t quite get…? Yeah, this is all really happening?
Then Dr. Alex is the first to give chase.
That sets the rest of us in motion, and soon the whole crew is running after the mysterious-but-clearly-guilty-of-something villa director. Because it’s still highly unclear what’s going on, what caused him to run, and who—if anyone here—is Cammie’s father. But we all seem to know Russo has answers.
Fortunately for this group of not particularly experiencedrunners, Johnny’s run is a sprint, not a marathon. One that goes only far enough for him to reach, of all places, Villa di Bronzo.
He makes it to the bottom of the stairs of the dig site before he begins losing steam. Cammie can make fun of me all she wants for being an overly cautious person, but if I was on the run from someone—several someones, in this case—I have enough basic self-defense understanding to know that you can’t run into a big hole in the ground and expect you won’t get caught. Just like bears can climb trees, your human pursuers can follow you into the ditch and will be there waiting when you realize you’ve hit a dead end.
Or so it seems, until I watch Johnny charge straight into one of the tunnels in the yet-unexcavated side of the villa. I stop short and fight to catch my breath. What is traveling in a large pack of people good for if not letting others go into the dark scary place to get the bad guy so you don’t have to?
But there isn’t even enough time for anyone but Cammie to notice I’ve stopped my pursuit before Paolo, Luca, and Tony reemerge from where they followed Dr. Alex into the scary ancient cave without hesitation, the three of them dragging along Gianmarco. He is sullen and exhausted, and appears to have accepted he’s been caught.
Dr. Alex brings up the rear, hands on her hips, her chest rising and falling under her elegant red silk dress. Most remarkably, her high-heeled shoes are still on her feet. I don’t know if Russo is scared of this woman, but I sure am.
“Okay,” Dr. Alex draws out when she’s able to speak, though her breathing is still rapid, “explain yourself, Johnny.”
For a moment, it still looks like he’s going to try to evade or lie, but finally his chin drops to his chest, his shoulders slump inward, and his own heavy breathing turns to the world-weary sigh of someone whose time is up. He doesn’t look at any of us as he begins his story.
“It seems it’s no secret that as a young man, I did have feelings for Alex.”
“You can call me Dr. Lovett,” she interjects, to which Russo presses his lips tightly together and gives a faint nod.
“Dr. Lovett, that is. And my interest was not returned. I do not consider myself a vindictive man—”
I see my dad make a funnyyou sure about that?face and know he has some stories that must prove otherwise.
“But I struggled to accept this. It was a difficult time in my family, you see, as my grandfather had fallen ill, and the future of our family villa was uncertain, and I personally took a leave of absence from my studies to do some soul-searching in my homeland—”
“Is this relevant?” Luca Goedhart cuts in, voicing what I imagine we’re all thinking.
“Yes, why don’t you get to the point, Johnny?” Constantini agrees.
It’s satisfying to see the prideful man flinch every time someone uses his American name.
“I’m getting there, I am. So when Dr. Lovett made the discovery she did, she was immediately hailed as a hero, rightfully so, and that is when my admiration began. But as excavations proceeded, it became difficult for me, accepting that this relative outsider to my family, our home, our country”—there aremultiple eye rolls from the ones among us who know the guy’s actual background—“had been the one to uncover this incredible find. That while it was on Russo land, I was not able to feel a part of the Villa di Bronzo revelations.
“My pride suffered, as I had lost my sense of purpose in my own career journey while others thrived for finding what felt like my birthright.” He waves a hand to encompass the site around us, inadvertently drawing attention to the fact that he’s still being gripped on either arm by Paolo and Tony, like a fugitive. “It suffered further when I faced rejection from a romantic interest, then had to watch her gallivant around with other men. I was hurting. I was also, I realize, young and immature, and did not channel my hurt in an effective or healthy manner.”
