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“I can’t believe you grew up here,” I say to her, shaking my head.
“Eh, she hardly grew up here.” I startle at the sound of a deep masculine voice behind me. My heartbeat races. Is it…? I look to see Tavi standing behind us with his hands in his pockets.
Why am I disappointed?
Marialena rolls her eyes. “I spent four summers in Italy, yes, but I did spend a lot of time in The Castle, Tavi. Just because you’re jealous you didn’t get to summer in Tuscany doesn’t mean I didn’t grow up here.”
A muscle ticks in his jaw, but he doesn’t reply, other than to say, “Tell your story the way you see it,” before he turns to go. “I’ll tell mine. Once you’re done with the tour, I need to speak with you, Marialena.”
She sighs. “We’re done for now. I’ll be up in a minute.” She turns to me. “I can tell you’re tired.” It’s more like overwhelmed, but I only nod. “So let’s get you up to your room and fed, and we’ll finish the tour later.”
Alone in my room, I feel as if I’ve lived this day four times over. After she sends up a tray and I’ve eaten, my eyes are heavy. My belly’s full of homemade soup, bread, and a tossed salad. I’m sleepy. I can barely begin to even process everything that’s happened. I lay on the large four-poster bed and gaze at the ornate furnishings.
I should feel like I don’t belong here. I should feel as if I’m a stranger, or a guest, or maybe even a trespasser.
Why don’t I?
Why do I feel a strange sense of… belonging?
I wonder where Romeo is. I wonder what he’s doing.
I wonder why I care.
I close my eyes, so tired I feel as if I could sleep for hours.
So much to think about. So much. My run-in with Romeo and my attacker feels like a lifetime ago.
Who was that man? I slide my phone out of my pocket and try to see if there’s anything at all in the news about a missing person, a mysterious death, this family, anything. I find nothing.
How odd. Why can’t I find anything about this family? They live in a castle. They’re wealthy as fuck.
My eyes heavy, I type in Rossi family Boston.
Nothing.
Maybe it’s all my imagination. Maybe I just need some sleep.
I walk to the bathroom and find it stocked with the essentials—towels, high-end toiletries. I clean up and decide I need a rest before dinner. I’ll need clothes, but I can wait. Maybe even borrow some from the girls.
I lie on the bed and listen. Laughter downstairs. Voices outside my door that rise then fade as footsteps walk past. I close my eyes, listening for the one voice I want to hear but don’t.
Chapter Eight
“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.” Romeo and Juliet
Romeo
Tavi and I sit in the dungeon, and at first when he’s talking to me, I’m only half-listening. I’m not usually so preoccupied, but this time I can’t get Vittoria out of my mind.
It’s the first time I’ve ever truly seen someone as a potential wife. I have to see her that way.
And this changes everything.
In the modern day, castle dungeons have been remade to house everything from offices to basements to storage units. Ours, however, is a secret place to meet which still functions the way it’s meant to when necessary—a place for captives, punishment, and interrogation. If the walls could speak…
I light up a smoke and sigh into the first drag, my lungs expanding and my tension dissipating. We’ve been smoking down here since I was a teen. The dank walls and concrete floors seem to swallow the smell of the smoke.
“New York,” Tavi’s saying. He’s frowning at something on his iPad, shaking his head from side to side. “Mother died, all true. I don’t have many details about her father, but it looks like her grandfather served in the military at the same time ours did.” An Italian-American immigrant, my grandfather served in the Second World War. After the war he opened his first restaurant here in the North End. “Seems like there could be a connection there.”
Interesting.
“But here’s the strange thing, Rome.”
“Yeah?” I watch the tendrils of smoke rise and think of the bonfires we lit in the quarry when we were younger.
“She was pretty well-off. I mean, I wouldn’t say she was wealthy. She was firmly established, solid income. Money invested in stocks, lined up with a realtor to buy a house. Then about a month ago, everything just… vanished. Bank accounts wiped clean. I can’t even find a record of where she lives. Landlord says she was evicted a few weeks ago.”
Motherfucker.
“We have some more research to do.”
He nods.
We talk about business, go over our numbers, but I’m only half-listening, vaguely aware that our restaurants in the North End turned a higher profit than we’ve ever seen, but I can’t focus. My mind’s on the woman upstairs, the woman who will change the course of this family’s history forever.
