“Va bene. So, what do you care if Accorinti has his eye on her, huh? If you really want to get rid of her, it would have been perfect. You could have let him kill her or kidnap her for his dirty business. He would have been responsible for what happened to her, not you. Finito.”
Feeling my face grow cold, I turned back to Filippo, nausea racking me. The mere idea of my Piccola Furetta in Accorinti's hands was horrifying. Daisy was too kind, too fragile beneath her mask of bravery. She wouldn't survive a monster like Cissio Accorinti.
Filippo's eyes widened. “You're not going to execute her.” He whispered. “It's as I thought. That look...”
“I have to kill her. She knows too much about my business.” I replied, shaking my head, rejecting the truth contained in his words. “I can't make the same mistake all over again.”
“’All over again’?” Filippo was now standing next to me, his hand on my back. “You just said it yourself. This Daisy isn't Valentina.”
“A few nights of sex and I can forget her.”
Filippo snorted. “Like the other night when you were at my club? I heard that dick was limp as a noodle. I wonder if that was because of this Daisy.”
I grunted, shame consuming me, but not because I was unable to fuck some stripper. That wasn't it. It was something much worse, much more serious.
“Daisy... This is just horniness, Filippo. Nothing more.”
He smiled, patting me on the back. “No one starts a war over lust,amico mio.”
Reality hit me.
No, no one started a war over pussy. Just as I had never started a quarrel lightly. However, it was done. I had declared war on three ‘ndrine because I couldn't bear the thought of anyone else laying their hands on Daisy Parker.
I said goodbye to Filippo and got into my car.
We set off for Castello dell'Fiero after a barrage of concerned questions from Martino, who still saw me as the same Camillo hehad known many years ago, the teenager he often rescued from trouble. When the car engine roared to life, I took a deep breath and leaned against my window.
Daisy Parker was not indifferent to me, and I didn't know why or how it had happened. I focused my attention beyond the glass, or tried to, because instead of the landscape, I found my jade-green gaze lost and streaked with blood, my disheveled and wounded figure. Unrecognizable.
I swallowed hard. Mamusia, if only you were here to tell me what to do...
I decided to close my eyes until Castello dell'Fiero, and at some point, exhaustion got the better of me. Before I lost myself in a brief sleep, my last thought was a prayer. A request for someone in heaven to forgive my sins and send me a sign, because I had just declared war to try to protect the woman I had sworn to kill.
Chapter 38
Daisy Peonia Mary Parker
July, 2025
Castello dell’Fiero, Calabria, Italy
The entire day was spent cleaning the villa. It was either that or die of boredom.
Right after lunch, I tried to take a walk around the surrounding area and down to the vineyard, but I soon realized I wouldn’t be welcome. As soon as I approached, I found Fabiano and tried to apologize for the previous day, but he turned around and left me talking to myself, after giving me a sour look.
I was taken by surprise, but no one could blame him. Because of me breaking the rules, Camillo took it out on him. Maybe it was better to stay away. The last thing I wanted was for others to get hurt because of me.
After that, I still tried to run to the hills, but was instantly intercepted by the men—the Soldati—who patrolled the villa.Sometimes they would sit on the stone wall surrounding the house, looking out over the vineyards. Other times, they would wander through the gardens. And on rare occasions, I would find them just standing there at opposite ends of the property like freaking trees.
Disappointed, feeling like a bird in a cage, I ended up grabbing the cleaning supplies and tidying up the villa... avoiding the kitchen. In particular, that table.
‘Don't wash. I want you to keep my scent until I come back.’
I had taken a shower and changed my clothes as soon as Camillo left the villa. As much as I enjoyed what happened that morning, there were vital limits that no one should cross when it came to hygiene.
Wearing jeans and a loose T-shirt, I washed the floor, dusted, and repeated the process until there wasn't a single footprint left to show I'd been there. When a massive grandfather clock, the kind we only see in horror movies, announced five o'clock in the afternoon, reverberating throughout the living room, I took a deep breath and dragged my feet down the hallway.
There were small pictures serving as decoration. They were modern, unlike the rest of the house, and I stopped to look at them a little more closely, hoping they would help me kill time. The frames imitated the deep mahogany tone used throughout the villa, but they were far from being made of fine wood. They looked like they were made of cheap material, and I suspected they must have been bought at everyone's favorite Swedish maze: IKEA.
