Page 50 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

She just confessed to me her most agonizing trauma, but holds her head high. She should be demanding my discomfort, making me grovel on bended knee, begging her forgiveness for my foolish accusation.

Yet she waits.

It is an act of mercy I don’t deserve, but I think she is patient because she knows I have feared this reunion. I hoped to return home with my penance served, my guilt over my sister’s drowning absolved.

In two decades, I have seen my father a handful of times. Never my mother. Not since the day she grabbed my jaw and told me I was the devil.

Mercy knows exactly what breathes beneath my ribs. She has seen the black ribbons unspool from my flesh and devour. And she still honors me with her secrets. With her trust.

I brush my knuckles over the bruised skin on the hand holding her bundle. She glances at me and offers a shaky smile. Warmth spreads through my body, and the frantic ache behind my sternum ceases to exist.

I lean down and whisper, “When we get a moment⁠—”

“Later,” she quips, and nods at the door.

Abruptly, it opens to Enzo’s grinning face. “Cousin!”

His enthusiasm is infectious, and it’s hard not to smile. He met me only once when he was a young boy. Having recently made the deal with the Vatican for Paolo’s arrest, I stopped in here for a few days before heading to the seminary and helped set up the new living arrangements. Technically, I never accepted being the Don of the family, but my name was added as director to the Angelotti estate the instant the curse manifested in my blood.

When Paolo gets out, he’ll be furious that I removed him as a beneficiary of the estate. He’ll also hate that half the family followed my parents out of Naples to start a new life. Enzo and his sister are among them.

“Buonasera,” I say to Enzo.

We step inside after him, and nerves flutter in my stomach. I turn and close the door, locking it after Mercy steps in. She’s about to meet my family. What will she think?

I sneak a glance at her and find her face is a map of unbridled wonder. Her eyes are wide, her plump lips are parted, and she clutches her bag and bundle like she’s worried she’ll fly away.

“Let me,” I murmur, and relieve her of her bag so that I’m carrying two.

“Thanks.” She smiles.

My gaze snaps back to Enzo’s head. Heart pounding, breath quickening, I let myself do something I’ve not done in a very long time. Hope.

We follow him deeper into the restaurant, and the air thickens with the scent of simmering tomatoes, fried garlic, and spilled Chianti. Chairs are upturned on tables. Nothing but chalk crumbs and a stack of battered menus. The noise of my bloodline filters in from other rooms out the back. That sounds like a lot more Angelottis moved to Rome than I realized.

Enzo veers right and continues past a smaller, second dining room. A glimpse through the open doors reveals a boardroom-style table with luxurious leather seating and a lounge area by the front window.

My lips flatten at the sheer opulence of the room. I have no doubt it’s used for special VIPs and corrupt politicians. After escaping Paolo, they were supposed to leave this life behind.

We approach a small, open kitchen where most of the mouthwatering smell comes from. Two women lift their heads from their boiling pot of pasta and freeze.

I hold my breath. Wait for it . . .

The older blond in Gucci makes a hasty sign of the cross, lowering her gaze with respect. The brunette is quick to follow. I don’t recognize them, but nod to the third, a gray-haired aunt sitting on a stool and peeling carrots. She casually smiles, then does a double-take and gapes, dropping her tool to make the sign of the cross.

Enzo is already disappearing down another narrow hallway, so he doesn’t hear Mercy mutter, “Is that because you’re a priest?”

“Nope.”

“Hm.”

I hear her take a breath for a question, but I walk ahead and answer before she has a chance to ask. “Yes, it’s because I am Il Giudice.”

Her jaw clicks shut.

We head up a staircase and dodge two children running down, oblivious to our ascent. Too young to recognize the danger, they skirt. To be that innocent and naive again. We emerge on the first floor landing into a small lounge bar. Wine barrels line the far wall where another staircase heads upstairs to the accommodation. Vines seem to have grown in from the terrace outside.

More extended family members are bustling around. My aunt’s familiar large, round bottom is in the air behind the bar as she rifles through the fridge for cocktail ingredients. Aunt Rosa is my father’s sister. Her stout and mustached husband, Uncle Vince, is nearby, leaning on the bar, pouring wine into a glass. He sees me and drops his jaw. Wine overflows in his glass. Uncle Nico walks in from the terrace door and freezes. They stare at the catacomb dirt coating my clothes, on Mercy’s robes, and the irritation radiating from my posture.