Page 7 of A Dangerous Bargain

“She’s fifteen. Hardly a child anymore. It gets her out of the house and cuts our expenses.”

“Over my rotting corpse it does.”

“Niccolo, you’re nearly eighteen. You’re the only man in the family. You’ve had your time to play at being an artist, and now it’s time for you to be head of this household. It’s what you were born to do.”

Merda, not this again. “Don’t call me that.” I mean it to be a growl, but the words are a whisper. “It’s Virgil.”

We’ve been over this a dozen times, but she still doesn’t get it. None of father’s old business associates want to work with a boy who can barely read and do his sums. I’ve asked them. A job working with my hands is the best I can do, and it wouldn’t be an issue if Father hadn’t magnificently fucked us all over.

Before he died, my father had struck a deal with the Medici bank. Mortgaged Casa delle Volpi to pay for his final trading voyage, promising them a handsome cut of the profits. He was so confident it would work, even though other merchants had told him there were rumors of bandits in the mountains.

And when it didn’t?

The Medici bank was more than happy to come collecting. They demanded the first payment the day after Father’s burial, colder and less forgiving than winter’s first frost. It was grueling, but when Niccolo had still been around, when he was running what was left of the family business, we could make the payments.

Since he’s been gone? I’m barely keeping us afloat.

There’s a series of frantic thuds overhead before my two younger sisters burst from the staircase. They tackle me from either side, shrieking. “You’re back!”

I laugh and hug them. At fifteen, Giovannia looks more like a young woman than a girl, and Elisabetta is going through her own mortifying adolescent journey. And, Madonna santa, has she gotten taller? Again? The hem of her dress barely goes past her knees. “You need a trip to the tailor,” I say, tapping her on the nose.

Elisabetta scrunches her face and pulls away, revealing my brother’s old practice sword in one hand. “Mamma has already bought me dresses, but I don’t like them!” She spins away, thwacking a chair with the flat of her blade. “No one’s going to slay Cerberus in a dress!”

I swallow and try to keep my voice light, teasing. “Fighting is no pastime for young ladies.” What would the neighbors think? Two of Lucrezia Pitti’s children have already caused enough scandal. There doesn’t need to be a third.

Elisabetta stops, cheeks going pink with anger. Giovannia tugs her arm before a fight can break out. “Mamma also bought us more poetry. Let’s show Virgil, shall we?”

New dresses? New books? I bite the inside of my cheeks, feeling the expenses pile up like bricks.

“You were like that too, once,” Mamma chides when the girls disappear. “Be more patient with them.”

Niccolo would be.

Mamma is always making comments like this, not comparing me outright to Niccolo, but letting the words hang unsaid like rotting figs. The worst thing is that she’s right. Niccolo would know what to do with Giovannia and Elisabetta, how to care for them and give them room to grow. The panic simmering in my stomach billows to a boil.

The first fall he was gone, I had dreams that he came back whole and unharmed. Sometimes he was married to a Napoletano princess. Sometimes he’d return with ink-stained fingers, a famous poet from the royal Valois court of France. In my dreams, he clasped my face and kissed my brow. I imagined him saying, You were right, Virgil.

But I always woke up before he could say the words. Even dream Niccolo knew the truth that I would never, ever share with anyone.

It’s my fault Niccolo is gone.

Mamma’s cold fingers are a jolt on my skin. For the first time, she appears concerned for me. “You could look for Niccolo again—”

I laugh bitterly, because of course she’d suggest that. Niccolo was as good at doing the right thing as I am at doing the wrong thing. If he were here, he’d find some handsome, age-appropriate boy for Giovannia to marry who just happened to be a minor prince.

But he’s not here. He’s either dead, or he’s not coming home, and Mamma refuses to believe it.

“We all wish it was me missing and not Niccolo,” I say. Mamma flinches like I’ve stabbed her with her own sewing needle. “But unfortunately, you’re stuck with me, and I’m not marrying my sister off to a lecherous old geezer so she can be miserable like you were with Father!”

Mamma’s mouth flops open like a dead fish’s.

Behind us, a throat clears.

I turn around, and guilt runs me over like a wagon.

My sisters stand in the parlor carrying shiny new books. I can tell from how Elisabetta clutches Giovannia’s elbow that they overheard all sorts of things they weren’t supposed to hear. Giovannia crosses her arms. “Sorry, who’s getting married off to a gross old man?”

I choke and flush from head to toe.