“Your Italian is better than my Russian.” Her tone is rueful and still sad. “Velella velella is the species name. By-the-wind sailors. They’re marine colonies that float on the ocean surface. They rely entirely on the wind to blow them around, so they get stranded during storms. A bunch washed ashore on the beach where Leo got married. E-Enzo and I spent hours tossing them back in the waves.”
“They don’t sting?”
“They use their tentacles to catch plankton. I did some research after that night. I was fascinated by them. They …” Her voice trails. “They kind of reminded me of … me. They drift atthe mercy of currents and wind. I felt aimless, too, like I had no purpose or couldn’t make my own decisions. Sort of … fragile.”
“Or resilient. We all navigate storms the best we can.”
I stare at the stranded jellyfish past the strands of Carina’s dark hair blowing in the wind. Some are fully translucent, their texture crinkled, like candy wrappers. A few have a bluish tint, which must be their normal hue.
“I keep navigating wrong.” Her gaze is straight ahead, tone resolute.
I still haven’t told her about Salvatore’s real plan concerning Nico Morello, and she already has regrets.
“I’m sorry,” she adds.
“For what?”
“For everything I’ve … messed up.”
“I don’t think you’ve messed anything up.”
She scoffs. “Are you serious?”
I spin us so she’s bracketed between the cliff and me. “Very. There’s nothing you could do that I wouldn’t consider extraordinary, Carina.”
“You’re mad I wrote that letter and got Andrea killed and messed up your entire life.”
“Is that all?” I drawl.
Carina rolls her eyes, then shoves my chest. “Move.”
I don’t. “I’m mad that you gave my father another reason to mistrust you because that puts you in more danger. I’m mad they killed Andrea because it’s going to be harder for me to be in a room with your father. But I’m not mad you messed up my entire life because you didn’t.”
“That’s not—wait. Why would you be in a room with my father?”
“I found out what was on the drive.”
“What? You did? When?” She hurls the questions at me rapidly.
“It’s a kill file on Nico Morello. Addresses, names of associates, guards, surveillance reports. Building plans for a church, where I assume you were supposed to get married.”
She blinks rapidly, processing. “I—that doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does. Your father was using you, but not the way it seemed. My guess is, he was intending to make the assassination appear accidental. Poison or a targeted attack that injured some of his men too. If an alliance between the families was imminent, he’d be in a prime position to step in for Morello, absorbing businesses while removing competition. He’d double his territory and resources overnight.”
“He wasn’t actually going to make me marry Nico?”
“That’s a question for him. But it appears the attack was supposed to happen at the church. They knew where and when Morello would be. Lots of people, lots of staff, lots of confusion. That’s how I would do it.”
Carina exhales, slumping back against the cliff. “Why wouldn’t my father tell me?”
“The drive’s encryption was advanced. The information was carefully guarded. He wouldn’t have wanted to risk Morello finding out.”
She shakes her head. “Meaning he didn’t trust me.”
“It was a smart plan. If it’d worked, he would have gained a lot of power. Power he could have used to protect you.”
“So, I’m supposed to forget the twenty-eight years of hiding me away, only to announce my existence so he could marry me off to a psychopath because itmightmean I’d be able to live near my family for the first time ever?”
