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“He’s stable. Just needs some rest.” I pause for a moment, staring blankly at the wall behind him. “But I’ll let Sandro know that myself. Can you fetch Roxanne Rochford for Leo? He wants to see her. Escort her into the room, but then let them have their privacy.”
“Sure thing.”
I make my way downstairs, to where Jack and Sandro quietly confer in the grand salon, and I fill them in on Leo’s condition.
“And you think he’ll go along with the plan?” Sandro asks.
“Why don’t we listen in?” I produce my phone like a magic trick, and bring up the camera feed from my bedroom. “Unless you think it’s an invasion of privacy, Don Castellani?”
“Just show us,” he growls.
I unmute the stream. Leo tells a crying Roxy that he’ll do whatever it takes to keep Gino and her safe.
“See?” I say to Sandro and Jack. “He’ll do it. He’s a clever boy. Besides, you should have seen the look on his face when we went into my wing. He’ll learn fast that the good life is better than living on the streets.”
“On the streets? He’s not a lost puppy,” Jack cautions me.
I’m still annoyed at Jack for the whack he gave Leo back at the bungalow, so I make my reply extra-frosty when I say, “He might aswellbe living on the streets, Jack. You should see his apartment. Ghastly. And of course he’s not a puppy. He’s alion, and if you’d come at him from the front last night instead of sneaking up behind him, you’d’ve had your arm taken off.”
“Yeah,” Jack says. “Which is why Ididn’tcome at him from the front. He wasshooting at you, Julian. And you’re welcome, by the way, for saving your—“
“Enough,” Sandro says wearily. “When you’re allies, you hound me; when you’re enemies, you squabble. So please, enough. And no, Julian, you can’t keep the Lion. Put that idea out of your mind and concentrate on the situation at hand. Or on your mother’s murder, at least.”
He’s never outright called it a murder before. Perhaps he’s coming round. “What do you think is the point of all this? I’ve been a little preoccupied with espionage,” I admit. “But Iknowthat silly old prick Aldo Bernardi has intel. Once Leo and I convince him Roxanne Rochford is dead, he’ll spill.”
Sandro and Jack exchange a look, the kind that irritates me, because they know what each other is thinking, and I don’t. I glance over at my mother's portrait, since she's the only one in the room I have right now for moral support.
“Alright,” Sandro says, pulling on his jacket. “I will be back tomorrow, and perhaps then we can contact the brother, Gino. As for the Lion—“ He fixes me with a severe glare. “Do notpester the man, Julian. Let him get his rest.”
“Are youorderingme not to have sex, brother dear?” I ask with a smile and a batting of my lashes.
Sandro says something under his breath in Italian as he leaves the room.
“Guess that’s me,” Jack says, backing out after him. “Now, historically, your obsessions haven’t ended well, have they? So behave, Julian. Promise me?”
“I promise.”
I don’t know why people ever ask others to make promises. It’s not as though anyone ever keeps them.
Except one, perhaps. I go over to my mother’s portrait and look up at her beautiful, serene face, seeing it again for the first time, thanks to what Jack calls mycondition. I enjoy looking at her. It gives me a sense of connection, somehow.
My mother told me early on to hide my prosopagnosia, my face blindness. It was a weakness, one she knew well enough herself. She never said as much, but the strategies she taught me—that I remember and still use, after all this time—were so detailed and clever that I know she must have had first-hand experience of it.
“If your father finds out,” she would whisper, “he might be upset.”
Papa must never be upset. I knew that deep in my bones, though I did not really knowwhy.
I understand perfectly these days, of course. Ciro was a dangerous man, a man who despised imperfections, because they reminded him of his myriad own. Of course, Ciro’s view on what was and was not a weakness tended to be biased.
Sandro’s strong, obstinate nature and natural leadership? A weakness in Ciro’s eyes. He feared his own son might one day turn against him, a fear seeded so deep in him that he sent Sandro away for many years.
I am very fond of Sandro. He’s a good leader for the Castellanis. But I can’t keep my promise to him to leave Leo alone to rest.
IwantLeo. I want to touch him and have him touch me, and I want to watch him sleeping there in my rooms, wonder of wonders.
Who would ever have thought I’d be able to keep the Bernardi Lion in my own home?
CHAPTER35
