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“I need the truth about my mother too.”

“You may not like what we find.”

“I understand that,” she replied softly.

“Then we call Ivan and Kit in the morning,” I said.

Alessia settled against my chest again.

“Thank you.”

CHAPTER 24

Alessia

The next day, Sergei and I visited my grandparents at the safehouse where they were being kept. When we got there, my grandmother wrapped both arms around me and held on longer than usual. Her arms were tight around me, her perfume the same powdery rose scent she had worn my entire life. When she finally released me, her gaze dropped to the platinum band on my left hand.

“You got married without your grandparents?”

“We had armed guards, a judge, four Morozov women, and five Morozov brothers in the room. There wasn’t room for anyone else.”

“Sure, sure. We’ll discuss it later.”

Her tone suggested ‘later’ would involve enough guilt that I would sincerely regret most of my life choices.

My grandfather shook Sergei’s hand. “You married my granddaughter very quickly.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t ask me for her hand.”

“She didn’t require anyone’s permission,” Sergei replied quickly.

Nonno stared at him for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Good answer.”

Sergei looked almost surprised, but I wasn’t.

My grandfather had spent most of my childhood warning me about powerful men. He had never suggested I needed permission to choose who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with either.

The four of us gathered around the small kitchen table, and Sergei took the chair beside me.

“I need you to tell me everything about Mom’s last day,” I started.

My grandmother’s hands tightened around the dish towel she had been folding and refolding since we sat down. My grandfather glanced at her and cleared his throat.

“She burned the coffee that morning,” Nonno began. After a long pause, he continued. “Your mother made coffee and let the first pot boil until it tasted like tar. She never did that.”

“She was watching the street,” Nonna added. “Every time a car slowed down and drove past, she went to the front window.”

They continued, telling us that my mother had called Raffaele two days earlier, after a man appeared near my school and asked questions about a dark-haired girl with the last name Caruso. Raffaele sent a fleet of cars the following morning. One stayed outside our house. Another followed me between school and home. A third was supposed to watch my mother.

I remembered the men in dark coats and the way every neighbor found a reason to look through the curtains. At fifteen, I had believed the humiliation was the worst thing that could happen to me. Little did I know that things could get much, much worse.

“Was anyone watching us before the Bellandi guards arrived?” I asked.

Nonno’s expression hardened. “A green sedan sat across from the house three nights that week. I wrote down the plate. The police said it belonged to a plumbing company.”

“Did it?”