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Within three minutes, four men approach my door, hands on the guns at their waist.
“Will they shoot you?” I whisper.
Diego smiles again.
“Miss Bianchi,” one of the men yells through the closed door.
Diego steps toward me, inserts my password into the screen, and lifts my hand, pushing my thumb against the pad to unlock the door. My hand drops away, and I stand there stunned.
“Miss Bianchi.”
I can’t focus. “One second.” I hold a finger up. “How did you know that code?”
Diego doesn’t look at me. “I’ve just installed Alessia’s security system for Salvatore. She was merely trying the app on her phone to see how everything worked. Apologies for the inconvenience.”
“Miss Bianchi,” the man at my door implores. “Are you okay?”
I clear my throat. “It’s Mrs. Lincoln, and yes, I’m fine. As Mr. Greco explained, I was testing everything out. You took three minutes to reach my home. Try to be here faster if I ever hit that button purposely.”
The man dips his chin. “Yes, ma’am.”
I close the door and turn back to Diego. “How did you know that code?”
He shrugs, and I want to strangle him. I can feel the color draining from my face, and my hands are clammy, yet I’m shivering. My breathing turns shallow, and I’m suddenly uncomfortable and concerned with his presence. This man has chased me through a forest, and I’ve only ever been elated by the situation. He cornered me in my home, and I was thrilled by the challenge. Yet a simple date has rocked me to my very core. I’m frightened, and the last thing I want to do is show this man weakness.
“It’s human nature when selecting a password for people to choose something meaningful. It’s dangerous. Anyone who knows how to use a computer can discover any date important to you.” He speaks so easily, so nonchalantly. His simple statement of facts could be my undoing,Chicago’sundoing, and he throws the words around without consideration for what it all means.
I swallow audibly.
“Your wedding date was likely insignificant as it was arranged. Your brother’s birthday is your birthday, so I knew you wouldn’t be stupid enough to use that. From what I’ve gathered, you’re not close to your mother. You don’t have children or a pet. The onlyreallysignificant date in your life is the day your father died.”
I shake my head before I realize I’m doing it. “No.”
“Well, if it wasn’t your father, something else meaningful happened on that date.”
I’d always determined our secret wasn’t easily detectable. But the more I think about it, the more I have to be honest with myself. Grace Snow works for our organization, and a simple search would show her sister, Lucy, and I were in school together. A little more digging would unravel the fact that Lucy and I were as close as friends could be. Focusing on the date of my father’s death would also determine that Lucy was reported missing on or around that same day. No one has ever been stupid enough to question us outright, but what goal did Salvatore have by killing our father before he was of an age that would let him take power? Add that to the fact that Dino died only a few years later at my brother’s hand, and the world is happy to paint Salvatore as a ruthless villain willing to slaughter his own family for the throne. But sifting through the rumors would land you close to the truth, and that’s enough to fracture the very foundation of Salvatore’s and my reign and, more importantly, our lives.
I put a hand to my stomach. “I need you to leave.”
I’m offering him more insight into my psyche than I should. I should be agreeing with him. The date of my father’s deathissignificant, but not for the reasons he believes. But I’m frozen with fear, and I can’t think clearly. Empty noise reverberates through my ears. I can’t hear my thoughts.
“I saidleave.”
His eyes narrow, and he looks closer than he should. I want to yell at him to stop. I’m too panicked to close the doors of my deceit, and he has an open invitation to secrets that aren’t his to know. Especially because idiotically, for a split second, I wonder how freeing it would be to divulge my darkest secrets to someone who would offer them a sanctuary instead of using them to destroy me.
“You need to open the door for me,” he says quietly.
My hands shake as I input the code, bile tickling the very back of my throat with every number. With my thumb pushed against the screen, the locks sound like bullets as they disengage, and I close my eyes.
Diego opens the door and steps through, his body brushing against mine on his exit.
“Next time you come into my home uninvited, I will kill you.” My threat is veiled with trepidation, and I’m more uncertain of myself now than the day I murdered my father.
“I look forward to it.”
He strolls toward a motorcycle parked along the curb of my home. I watch as he climbs on the bike and secures his helmet before revving the engine and taking off down the street. I take a deep breath and turn to walk inside, stopping almost immediately.
My trampled rose bushes have been restored. Gone are the flattened thorns, torn leaves, and mutilated petals. The soil has been replaced to avoid planting new buds in old dirt. He not only cleaned up the mess, but he did enough research to know how to grow fresh roses. A bag of fertilizer sits beside my door, not yet opened but ready for when the new buds bloom.
