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I will.
I rise and follow him, carefully walking down the stairs. There’s another sleek black car waiting for us on the runway, and we bundle Luna in without a word. Elio sits next to me, with Luna on the seat in between us, her head cozied in my lap. Gia rides up front with the driver.
Some ridiculous part of my mind panics, pointing out that we traveled without Luna’s passport.We’re going to get stopped by customs. She’s going to be taken away from me. I don’t have her birth certificate, I can’t prove she’s mine. I can’t…
I suck in a huge breath and let it out.
Elio smuggles millions of dollars worth of goods. For a living.
There’s no way that I need to worry about Luna’s passport when Elio is around.
It’s weirdly reassuring. At least I can count on him being a proficient criminal. At the very least.
The thought doesn’t exactly sit well, but I’m calmed by it nonetheless.
We don’t speak in the car. I’m not about to ask where we’re going, and it appears that Elio is not about to offer.
So when we pull up to an absolutely gorgeous villa, it’s all I can do to keep my jaw from dropping.
When I was little, I used to fantasize about moving to Italy. My dad did such a good job of making Italy seem like a magical place, where nothing bad could happen. The food was always perfect, the wine was always flawless, and nothing could ever ruin such a place.
When he described the De Luca family home in Tuscany to us, I had envisioned something grand, sprawling, and very… Italian.
This villa blows all of my expectations out of the water.
The marble looks polished and worn at the same time, a kind of curated matte finish that I know was expensive to maintain. The house towers above us, looming tall and sprawling to either side with the kind of majesty and grace that evokes images of Europe in another time.
Like, Roman times.
There are fountains literally everywhere, and when we get out of the car the sound of them fills my ears.
“Nice, right?” Gia smiles. “Elio bought this for?—”
“Gia. Can I have a word with you in my office, please?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes boss.”
The two of them stomp off, leaving Luna and me with a somewhat befuddled driver. I look awkwardly over my sleeping daughter’s shoulder. “Sorry, we don’t have any bags…”
My voice trails off at a shrill shriek. “Bambina!”
Oh, lord.
A woman in a housekeeper’s uniform sprints out of the house. She looks to be somewhere in the late 60s, early 70s range, but I could have no idea. There’s a smile on her face that’s a mile wide, and I can’t help but return it.
She’s babbling in Italian a mile a minute as she runs (actually runs) down to where Luna and I are standing. My Italian being what it is, I only get about every fourth word, but from what I gather, she’s the housekeeper that’s been with the Rossi kids for a long time, and she’s beyond thrilled to have Luna here.
“Um. Thank you?”
Her bright green eyes turn to me, and her face wrinkles into an even bigger smile. I stand stock still as she grabs my face and layers even more kisses on my cheeks.
Continuing to pour rapid fire Italian on me, she grabs me by the elbow and drags me into the house.
Meekly, I follow.
She may not be related to Elio and Gia, but in my heart, I know that being welcome like that can’t be a bad thing.
Maybe I’ll have an ally to find my way out of this mess after all.
