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“I can’t lose you,” he mutters. “I just fucking can’t.”
“Then don’t. Don’t do this—whatever it is you’re trying to do. Your father still trusts me. We still have an excuse to see each other. Tobetogether.”
He pulls my hands from his jacket and holds them in his. “Listen to me, Julian,” he says quietly. “I can’t stand against my father with you. With the Castellanis. When the time comes…when the war turns hot…I can’t turn away from my blood.”
I’m struck by his tone. I’ve never thought about it that way. I’ve never thought about what might happen in the future. And what he says is true: our worlds will always be separate. We can’t bridge the divide between his Family and mine.
And it hurts in a way nothing has hurt before, not since I was five years old.
“But Leo,” I begin, but I have no more words. I take a breath, trying to think of something to say. There must be a way out of this mess. Finally, I settle on something I’ve wondered ever since we started this whole adventure. “Why did you do it?” I ask him. “Why did you pull me into this in the first place? Why did you think I could be turned?”
“I didn’t,” he says simply. “It was my father’s idea.”
Ah. That makes sense. “And you wanted to make himproud,” I spit out.
He lets go of my hands and looks down at the ground between us. “I’m sorry,” he says to the sidewalk.
And then he turns and walks away from me for the second time today.
CHAPTER45
JULIAN
I spendthe next day or three in an elegant stupor. I lie around in the grand salon drinking gin and tonics, or play the piano there with the most melancholy pieces for which we have sheet music. I wander the gardens under the sick yellow moon and hack the beaks and legs off the topiary birds. I don’t go out. I don’t eat. If anyone ever texted me, I’d ignore them.
Until Sandro makes it impossible to continue wallowing.
There’s a sharp rap on my bedroom door this morning, and when I shout, “Go away!” the door opens anyway. It’s Pedretti, looking more grim than usual, and sounding very much more abrupt when he speaks.
“Get up,” he says. “Don Castellani needs to see you.”
I roll over in bed so my back is to him. “Tell Don Castellani I’m in mourning.”
Usually Pedretti is pretty easygoing. So when he raises his voice, I know it’s serious. “Get the fuck up, Julian. Your brother wants to see you.Now.”
I groan and sit up, rubbing my eyes. I’m hungover. Or maybe I’m still drunk. Either way, I’m in no shape to face Sandro if he’s in one of thosemoodsof his. “What does he want?”
“It’s urgent,” is all Pedretti tells me. “Believe me, you don’t want to make him come up here and get you himself.”
I drag myself out of bed and throw on the same pajamas and robe I’ve worn day and night since Leo dumped me. As I walk down the grand staircase, dogged at my heels by Pedretti, a prickle runs up the back of my neck. What could be so urgent that Sandro needs to have me pulled out of bed?
Sandro is in his study, staring out the bay windows, one hand in his pocket, the other clenching and unclenching at his side.
“Here he is, Boss,” Pedretti murmurs.
“Stay,” Sandro barks at Pedretti, as though he were a well-trained dog. I suppose he is, in a way. I collapse into the chair in front of the desk, my head still pounding and my gut threatening a revolution in the near future.
Pedretti stands at the door and takes out his gun. If I were less hungover, I might have the processing power to think through the implications of that...but I’m sick enough not to care.
“What do you want, Sandro?” I ask, my voice rough from the alcohol and the lack of sleep.
Sandro turns on me, his dark eyes blazing with anger. “What do I want, Julian? I want thetruth. That’s all. And yet you seem to find it so very difficult to give to me.”
Sandro points to the desk, so I lean over to see what he’s talking about and stop mid-lean as I take in the spread-out photographs.
It’s the clothes I recognize. The clothes, and the alleyway. My prosopagnosia extends to my own face as well, but I really like the jeans I was wearing that night.
In one of the photographs I’m crouched by the body of Vincenzo Esposito, my face very close to his. In another, I’m standing, looking to the side, obviously checking to see if anyone’s around.
