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“It’s alright,” I tell them. “I’ll see you later.”
They hold my gaze for another few seconds before giving me a nod. I nod back and then follow Andrea down the path and towards his car.
The ride away from Blackwater is a silent one. If Andrea has been told not to share anything before I arrive, there is no point in asking. So I just sit there, watching the fields and woods flash past the window until they’re replaced by grand buildings.
Andrea stops at the security checks, just like all cars need to do, before we arrive at the main mansion. He parks right outside the path leading up to the front door, and then walks around the car and opens the door for me.
“He’s in his study,” Andrea says as I climb out.
I nod. Without another word, I start up towards the door while Andrea returns to the car. The engine hums as he starts it and then drives away to park it properly. I run my gaze over the immaculate garden and then up over the elegant three-story mansion made of dark wood.
How many years has it been now since the last time I was here? I used to come here all the time when I was younger. But since that night when my parents were murdered, I have only been here less than a handful of times.
Seeing it again opens an empty pit inside my chest. This used to be a second home to me, and now I feel as if I’m a stranger, looking in through the windows and seeing someone else’s life instead of my own.
I smother that terribly detached feeling and draw in a deep breath as I close the final distance to the door. It’s opened by one of the household staff. She nods at me as I stride inside.
The inside of the house makes me feel even worse.
It’s gorgeous, full of dark wooden furniture and paintings and historical objects that make it feel as if someone has just plucked the whole building from the rolling hills of Italy and dropped it here. It makes memories crash over me. Wonderful memories that are now tainted with death and destruction. Memories that now feel like a part of someone else’s life.
I block out all those emotions and instead keep my spine straight and my chin raised as I stop in front of the polished wooden door to the main study upstairs. After drawing in a bracing breath, I raise my fist and knock.
“Yes,” a strong voice comes through the door.
And just hearing it almost shatters my composure again. I take an extra second to pull myself together once more before I open the door and step inside.
The study is just as I remember it. Dark wooden bookshelves line the entire wall next to the door, and two leather armchairs are positioned by the hearth on the left wall. Straight ahead, red light from the setting sun spills in from the windows and illuminates the grand desk in front of them. And the man sitting at it as well.
Federico Morelli, patriarch of the Morelli family and leader of the biggest and the most influential and dangerous mafia family in this entire state, is seated on the ornate chair behind the desk as if it were a throne. As always, he is wearing an impeccable bespoke suit. His once dark brown hair is now peppered with gray, but his brown eyes have lost none of their sharpness.
They light up, which is a very rare occurrence, when his gaze finds mine.
“Enrico,” he says in that familiar rumbling voice.
A small smile lifts my lips. “Hello, Grandfather.”
The chair scrapes against the dark wooden floorboards as he stands up and rounds the desk. Another pang of warmth mixed with pain and emptiness sears through my chest as he places his hands on my shoulders and gives them a squeeze.
“How are you, my boy?” he asks, his eyes searching my face. “You look troubled.”
Federico Morelli has always been terrifyingly perceptive and shrewd, so I grew up with a grandfather who could read my emotions better than my parents. I got better at hiding things from him over the years, but I have apparently lost some of that edge now. Since I don’t want to admit what I’m really feeling when I’m back in this house, I go with a version of the truth.
“I’m just worried,” I say, trying to read answers in his eyes too. “No one is supposed to know that I’m alive, so we can’t be seen meeting like this. It’s the reason why I have been living with the Hunters for the past six years, after all. So the fact that you brought me here like this must mean that something big has happened.”
“They’re back,” he says. “Word through the underworld is that the people who murdered Riccardo and Elsa have finally resurfaced.”
My heart jerks in my chest. Both at hearing the names of my parents and also at realizing that my grandfather knows about Isabella. Thankfully though, I’m too stunned to reply, because when he keeps speaking, it becomes clear that he in fact doesn’t.
“They have somehow figured out that you’re still alive,” he says, and he squeezes my shoulders a little harder. “And word is that they’re now hellbent on finding you and finishing the job.”
Indecision flashes through me. I know that I should probably tell him that I have already met one of them. But I just can’t bring myself to do it. In fact, I can’t even make up my own mind about how I feel about Isabella.
On the one hand, I kind of hate her and I should want to kill her on sight because of the part she played in my parents’ murder. But on the other hand, I’m also grateful to her for sparing my life. And I don’t know what to do about those conflicting emotions. All I know is that I need answers. From her.
“How close are they?” I ask, because I need to say something else, otherwise I will change my mind and confess that I have already found one of them.
“As far as we know, they’re not in the state.” He releases my shoulders but keeps holding my gaze with serious eyes. “Yet.”
