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She roused me out of bed, her hold gentle but firm. She drove us to Aunt Francesca’s. The drive was quiet, the night was alive. It felt like it was just the three of us—me, my mother, and the moon.
“Ti voglio, tanto bene,” she said, kissing the top of my head before leaving.
“I love you too, Mammina,” I said.
Aunt Francesca lived alone in a grand, old house that always had fresh flowers around. And she loved to bake. We baked everything from biscotti to tiramisu that night. I watched the bread rise in the oven like I always did. I picked at the hot desserts and burned my finger. I fell asleep in the guest room. An ordinary night.
I shook my head, putting the memory back in its rightful place, at the dustiest corner of my mind. It was always lodged there, niggling at me day and night. It had been an ordinary night. No premonition warning me something was wrong. No prickle tingling down my spine.
I don’t even think I thought of my mother that night after she left—all the while she and the rest of my family were dying, burning alive, a few miles away. I should have been there. With my family. Loyalty, in life and in death.
But they weren’t dead. They weren’t burned alive by a fire that devoured our family home. According to everyone else, I was the one who died. Burned alive.
For one strange ridiculous moment, I contemplated it—it made no less sense than anything else. So, was it possible?Was I a ghost?I’ve seen that movie where the guy didn’t even realize he was a ghost. Was that me?
Then I shook my head again, pushed the impossible thought away, and stared at the screen. I was alive, and so was my family. Except for my mother, and I had no idea how to feel about that.
How did one mourn the loss of someone they’ve already lost?
I’d already grieved for all the moments I’d never have with my mother. Her hugs, her bedtime stories, the mother-daughter talks she and I would never have, the empty seat at my high school graduation. Each moment my mother and I had lost had been like a deep, gaping wound, but over time, those wounds had, if not healed, then patched themselves up. And yet, I could feel them opening up inside me, fresh and bleeding, like she’d kissed me goodbye in Aunt Francesca’s foyer just yesterday.
“Raven, talk to me,” Greta said, wringing her hands together. It was a testament to just how concerned she was because I’d never seen Greta anything but cool under pressure.
“It’s all true,” I said, wiping away tears I hadn’t realized had escaped. “I lied to you.” Maybe that made me no better than everyone else. I’d lied to Greta, just like Vito had lied to me.
“Are you telling me you’re the dead daughter of some mafia boss?” There was a nervous edge to Greta’s voice. Greta never sounded nervous.
I couldn’t blame her, though. It sounded crazy.
“My real name is Sofia Luca,” I confessed. “Vito and I moved here after my family died in a fire.”
“Whoever did this is dangerous, passerotta,”Vito had told me as he bundled me into the back seat of his black SUV. “And I promised your mother I would keep you safe no matter what.” He’d then driven us across the country to California. Away from my home, away from the people who had been my whole world. My family, who had carried on without me. They’d kept up with business. Dominic had even gotten married—very recently, according to an announcement in a New York newspaper. Had he thought about me that day? I wondered.
I closed my laptop and stood up for the first time in too many hours. “I’m going to New York, Greta.”
I had a father and three brothers who were alive and well. A father and three brothers who I’d thought had been dead all this time, and I wanted to know why.
Chapter Five
Nico
So, this was what hell looked like.
Two hundred weeping, sniffling, red-eyed faces—all Lucas—in the middle of an old cemetery. And here I stood, side by side, with my father, mother, and three younger brothers. We were an island of Costas amid an ocean of sharks—well,potentialsharks.
Alessandro and Caio, my youngest brothers, whispered under their breath, reciting names and useless facts about everyone here like this was some study session instead of a funeral.
The two liked to pretend they were tough. Their shoulders were square, chins raised, like a man, but beads of sweat rolled down their foreheads. Every now and then, they’d glance to their right, where Lorenzo was. In the face of the almighty Lorenzo Costa, they were globs of modeling clay—malleable, pliant, ready to be molded into any shape or form as Lorenzo wished. I’d take a bullet for any of them, as any of us would. But only Gabe was on my speed-dial.
Lorenzo cleared his throat, and his two youngest sons fell silent.
I’d often wondered what I would do if it ever came to taking a bullet for Lorenzo. Would I do it? The man had been valuable to the Costa family, so the right answer was obvious. But the truth was the man had been a monster who’d beaten his wife and kids every chance he got. One day, shortly after I’d turned fifteen, I’d stepped between him and my mother. I pointed a gun in his face, finger on the trigger.
His face had contorted in rage, just like I’d expected, but then something changed. A light in his eyes that slowly transformed the rest of his face until he looked like a kid in a candy store.
“If you can kill your own father so easily, Nico, I think you’re ready,” he’d said. “Do well, and I’ll never lay a hand on your mother again. Do we have a deal?”
“You keep your hands off all of them, and I’ll do whatever you want,” I’d bargained instead of pulling the trigger like I should have done.
