Page 82 of Accidental Alliance

Her dress had been pale blue then, complimenting the color of her hair that had been loose down her back in thick waves.

She had turned once to glance over her shoulder, catching me looking, and instead of blushing, she lifted a brow as if daring me to deny it.

I had wanted her even then.

Maybe that was why Alessio saw the danger before I did.

I thought attraction was something I could control, but perhaps he had recognized worship in its earliest form taking root and believed crushing it would save us all from future disputes.

In hindsight, it had been a noble effort.

One done far too late.

The abandoned Russo estate appears through the thinning fog, emerging slowly as the car takes the winding road up to it. At first, it is only a vague shape of pale stone and black iron, half swallowed by the morning mist clinging low over the grounds.

Then the road bends again and the cypress trees fall away, the house revealing itself piece by piece.

Even after eight years with neglect pulling it apart by the seams, the estate still has a grand presence, that old Russo arrogance carved into stone with its tall windows, wide terraces, and iron balconies twisted with dead vines.

My hands tighten around the wheel. I park far enough from the entrance that the car is hidden by overgrowth, pulling it into a gap between wild hedges and a collapsed stretch of stone wall.

I kill the engine and sit there for a moment, listening to the ticking heat of the car settle around me. The silence feels unnatural without the usual machinery of my life moving around me.

I step out of the car and close the door quietly, adjusting my coat as I scan the road behind me. Only fog eats the distance in both directions. While I doubt any syndicate would be stupid enough to still patrol this dead section of Russo territory, I am also not in the mood to unexpectedly involve myself in a shoot-out over it.

Gravel crunches quietly beneath my shoes as I move toward the entrance.

The sound feels too loud in the morning hush. The gates are chained shut, the iron old and weather-bitten, dark with rust where rain has eaten through the metal.

The chain is rusted badly enough that a few hard kicks sever it apart.

The metal snaps with a brittle groan, falling against the gate in a clatter that slices through the fog. I exhale slowly and push the gate open.

It complains the whole way, hinges shrieking softly as if the estate itself resents being disturbed.

The path heading up to the front doors is choked with weeds, the roots splitting through the gravel in thick, stubborn clusters that swallow the once refined structure of what was once a manicured drive.

The fountain in the middle of the circular carport is cracked through the center, its basin empty except for leaves, rainwater, and a thin film of green rot.

Vines crawl all over the stone faces carved along its sides, strangling cherubs and saints and whatever Old-World symbolism Amos once paid someone too much money to install. The figures stare out from beneath the growth with blind, eroded eyes.

Roses have grown wild on either side of the estate’s walls. They bloom beautifully despite being completely abandoned, thorns tangled through stonework, red petals opening bright against the gray morning.

I stop when I reach the marble steps, finding something I’m not expecting.

The stain is still there.

It’s faint, browned by time and nearly invisible unless someone were to know what had taken place here years prior.

This is where Isabella’s father bled out under the open sky. The first domino to fall, setting off a chain of events none of us could have ever predicted. Though perhaps my father’s hand had tipped it long before that.

I crouch near the stain before I can stop myself, my fingers hovering over it but not quite touching it.

“I’m sorry,” I say. The words disappear almost immediately into the fog, swallowed by the wet morning air and the silence of the abandoned grounds.

A useless offering.

The words are barely audible, and I realize belatedly that it is pointless to do so. The dead do not need apologies as much as the living do. I have given Isabella nothing but reason after reason to spit mine back in my face, all the while expecting something different from her. As if guilt counts when it never reaches the person it first wounded.