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Prologue
PACE
Catania, Sicily
Stepping into Natale Morello’s home, children run around screaming and laughing freely. Abundantly. Natale and his family have spent over a year creating a new perception of the mafia in Sicily, and from what I can see, it’s working.
“Pace,” the “kid” calls from the entrance of his office. I’ll never be able to see him as anything but the boy I once knew all those years ago. Before his life went to shit and his family found themselves on the run. Catania was a different place while they were gone, but it has new life, now. New blood flowing through the streets.
“Rome, huh?” I say as I walk past him, and the door closes with a soft snick. Standing in the middle of the Morello study, Carlo is behind the desk watching us with what I can only describe as a defeated look on his face. “What’s going on?” They didn’t divulge much detail over the phone when they called me across the island.
“There’s a priest at a church…or the entire church, actually.” Natale shakes his head as he speaks, anger lining every tense muscle of his body. “They take children from their mothers. Unwed, single mothers, who can’t fight back because the church paints them as unfit to care for their infants.”
“What do you want me to do?” If they expect me to kill a priest and his entire flock, they’re going to need to spell it out.
“Here.” Carlo hands me a sheet of paper. Skimming it, I see there are a dozen names listed.
“Nuns.” I glance up at them, looking from one to the other. Their grim expressions relay a horror story. “How do you know about this?”
“Maria has an old friend in Rome; her granddaughter was stolen from her mother’s arms in her own home. They were able to retrieve the baby, but only because they used our name as a threat. The friend gave us the list of people involved, stating she spoke or fought with each of them before getting the child back for her distraught daughter,” Carlo explains, and I can tell it’s not just his wife’s friend, it’s one of his as well. “We dug deeper, and there’s more on each of them in the file.”
“We would consider it a personal favor if you destroyed them.” Natale says this so casually that you’d think he didn’t have a heart, but I know better. I know the obsessive way he loves his young wife.
Never in my twenty-nine years on this earth did I think I would be jealous of a man nearly a decade younger than me. And I find, after watching my brothers—first, Domino and then Santi—settling down, that I’d like a woman of my own as well. I’ve never had one before, so I don’t even know if they’re to my liking.
“Fine. If I find other babies there, shall I bring them here until we find their parents?” I see from the look on their faces that they hadn’t thought about that.
“Yes, the orphanage will care for them here,” Natale responds. The orphanage is Posy’s baby. She brings in children from all over the country to ensure they’re taken care of to her standard.
“I’ll call you when it’s done.”
Little do I know just how difficult my life is about to become.
CHAPTER1
Isabel
ROME, ITALY
“Don’t do it.” I look back over my shoulder at Sister Daia as I reach further into the rose bush. I just want one clipping. Just one. “They always catch you.” Sister Daia is the only friend I have in the church. She’s the only one who even pretends I exist as a human rather than a nuisance.
“I’ve almost got it,” I mutter as a leaf blows into my mouth.
Ignoring the sting of the thorns slicing up my arms so I can gather this one simple rose bulb, I finally clip it and breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not supposed to be in the war memorial let alone in the gardens of it, but I just can’t take it anymore.
I’ve lived my entire life under the rule of the church. Under the thumb of Father Cassio and Sister Jeanne. I live an existence of poverty and potato sacks for clothes. I have no color in my life, and the roses are too beautiful to pass up. Nobody will miss this one flower. They won’t even know it’s missing because I took it from the back of the bush where it meets the brick wall.
Not unless Sister Maura spies on us again. She’s always tattling, despite asking to join Daia and I on our tunnel adventures. She’s a fighting spirit being stifled by the rule of God himself.
I’ve lived inside the church for as long as I can remember. Prayed to a man I don’t even believe exists. How can he when he allows the things that happen to me? My earliest memories of this horrid place: agony, strife, conflict. There’s always something challenging my faith in His grand plan.
“Come on, Isabel!” Daia’s plea is more insistent, which means someone is coming. Probably Sister Dolores. The old hag enjoys nothing more than to drag me around by the ear and toss me at Father Cassio’s feet. She glories in the punishments I take at the hands of Sister Hildegard’s beloved whip.
I don’t understand why they don’t let me leave. According to the documents Daia and I found a few weeks ago, I’m older than eighteen. At least the date listed on the intake form of the day I was brought here is older than eighteen years. It’s sad really. To not know my legal birth date or age.
I’ve never celebrated anything in my life. I glimpse the fireworks from the city of Rome a few times a year, but I’m quickly dragged inside and tossed into the dungeon before I can enjoy them. I’m stuck behind the walls of this prison all day, every day. There is no relief. There is no exploration of the country I wish I knew how to appreciate.
There is nothing more I’d love than to leave, but the last time I tried, I wasn’t able to move for a week. Daia had to tend to me, and while I don’t remember the horrors of those days, it puts fear in my friend unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
