Echo, p.2
Echo, page 2
Sighing at the loss of another day, I paused with a horrible thought as I pulled out the chair from my desk.
Was counting down days making Papà sicker?
Was I cursing his longevity by quantifying it?
Guilt crested, then washed through me so thoroughly, my legs became weak. Taking the seat, my thoughts berated me.
I was cutting my father’s life short by deeming days as lost instead of a gift. I needed to stop that. I needed to—
The telltale, distant crunch of tires on gravel sounded.
A moment later, a sleek, black Mercedes SUV with heavily tinted windows pulled up to the front steps and stopped right in my line of sight.
Leaning back from my desk, I briefly thought of shutting the window and pulling the drapes. But I had not yet turned on any lights in my room, so I would not be visible—not unless someone really looked.
Staring at the SUV, my hand automatically going to the closest pencil, I opened my sketchbook to a new page and readied myself.
For what, I did not know, but same as everything else about today, this felt… different.
No doors had opened yet. The engine was still on. I could not see any passengers, and the dark lines of the large vehicle looked more sinister than expensive, as if it had its own breath, and that breath was as angry as a bull.
Then the engine cut off, the driver’s door opened, and a man stepped out.
I gasped.
Inky black hair, square jaw, muscles straining the sleeves of his shirt, he stood at the open door as he scanned the entire courtyard.
Staring at the most beautiful man I had ever seen, I dropped my pencil and grabbed charcoal. Desperate to capture his image, my hand began to move across the page.
Then he took off his shirt.
The charcoal fell from my fingers, and I pushed back in my chair.
His gaze immediately cut to my exact window on the second story as his fierce stare wrapped around my throat and gripped my heart, stealing all my air.
Shirtless, a gun at his waist, his body sculpted by the gods, he did not move.
He stared.
A moment that dissected my entire life passed.
Then he flicked his wrist and became a symphony of controlled motion.
Pushing his impossibly strong arms through the sleeves of a new shirt, kicking his door shut, deftly doing up the buttons, he rounded the front of the SUV.
By the time he opened first the rear, then the front passenger doors, his shirt was neatly tucked in, he had scanned the courtyard again twice, and his right hand was resting on his gun.
He said something I could not hear to someone in the front seat that I could not see, then he lifted his chin.
Simultaneously, as if it were choreographed, two men got out of the front and rear passenger seats. With their heads down, they walked to the portico and disappeared from my line of sight.
Glancing up toward my window, the muscled man closed the SUV’s doors.
Then he followed his passengers.
I did not know who looked more sinister, the Mercedes or its driver.
Erico
Scanning the courtyard, wondering who the fuck lived here, irritated as hell Giancarlo hadn’t given me time to change at the estate, I took my shirt off and tossed it in the back seat.
A scraping sound faintly echoed, and I looked up.
Open window, dark room, the silhouette of a woman with long hair. I didn’t know if I was looking at a ghost or an angel.
Either way, she didn’t move, and darkened, open windows were perfect sniper positions.
Giancarlo glanced at me from the front passenger seat. “Problem?”
Not answering him, my reflexes primed, I stared another moment at the open window, waiting.
The woman still didn’t move.
Shaking out the clean shirt and shoving my arms through it, I kicked the driver’s door shut. Scanning the courtyard again, I strode to the passenger side and opened first Ademaro’s then Giancarlo’s door.
“Whose villa is this?” I demanded of Giancarlo.
“No one you need to concern yourself with.” Not making eye contact, he straightened his tie. “Clear?”
“Yeah.” Except for some woman in a window, no fucking security anywhere, an unmanned gate at the bottom of the driveway, and the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere. I tipped my chin. “Let’s move.”
“Ademaro, come,” Giancarlo ordered.
I glanced at my other brother as he got out of the back seat. Three years younger than Giancarlo and eight years older than me, Ademaro was never a talker, but he’d been especially quiet tonight.
Closing both passenger doors of the G-Wagon after Giancarlo and Ademaro got out, I glanced again at the open second-story window.
Nothing.
Catching up to my brothers under the protection of the covered front entrance, I glanced at Ademaro. “You haven’t said two fucking words since we got in the car,” I accused. “What’s going on?”
His voice quieter than both mine and Giancarlo’s, his expression unreadable, he looked at me, and for a split second, I thought I saw the same damn resignation I felt every day. “When have you ever known me to be talkative?”
The past few months, the fucker had been plenty talkative, just not to us. When he thought Giancarlo wasn’t watching, he took calls out back by the pool. “You really want me to answer that?”
“You really want me to ask why Consigliere had to bring you a clean shirt?” he countered.
Fucker. “If you think you can do my job better, have at it.” I’d like to see him try.
“Have at mine,” Ademaro replied dryly, not missing a beat.
“I can hit a target at twenty-three-hundred meters. How fucking hard can writing numbers in a column be?”
Turning on us, Giancarlo issued an irate command under his breath. “Silenzio!” His glare fell on me. “Do your job. Patrol, guard, make sure we are not interrupted.” He looked at Ademaro. “Ready?”
“Si.”
“Andiamo.” Giancarlo glanced back at me. “Secure the courtyard, then wait in the foyer.” Opening the front door, he walked into the villa like he owned the place.
Ademaro followed.
Cursing under my breath, I stepped back from the portico to look up at the open window.
No ghost. No angel.
Dusk gone, only half a moon, the night was dark as shit. For a second, I wondered if I’d actually seen a woman or if paranoia and too many years of pulling the trigger were finally catching up to me. Maybe it was this place. It was so damn quiet, it was fucking unnatural.
Dismissing my thoughts, I walked the perimeter of the courtyard and circled the garage, taking note of the single vehicle—a late-model Maserati Quattroporte. Expensive when it was new, well kept, but nothing worthy of Giancarlo’s level of secrecy.
Heading back to the front of the villa, I glanced up again at the window.
The curtains had moved.
Now partially closed, they obscured half the view into the room.
Pulling out my cell, I sent Giancarlo a text.
Me: Location?
Giancarlo: Why?
Me: You want me to do my job or scratch my ass?
Giancarlo: Downstairs dining room. Busy.
I didn’t give a damn if he was meeting with the Pope.
Me: Who’s on premises?
Giancarlo: I said I was busy.
Asshole.
Me: Headcount?
Giancarlo: Everyone is accounted for.
Me: Not an answer.
Giancarlo: Fine. Shoot anyone armed who comes through the gate or front door. I am conducting business. Do not disrupt me again unless we need to evacuate.
Not leave. Evacuate.
Cristo.
Mentally shaking my head, I eyed the two sidelight windows flanking the front door and checked the line of sight to the driveway and gate. Then I looked back up at the open window and thought about it.
Enter the villa, go upstairs, find out who the fuck was there.
Find the woman.
Then ask her why the hell she was hiding in the dark. Except those weren’t my orders, and no matter how off shit felt about this whole setup, I wasn’t here to investigate. I was reinforcement.
Glorified guard duty.
Fucking Giancarlo. Any asshole soldier we had could’ve done this bullshit. Unless….
I looked up at the window again.
Two things made Giancarlo cagey. Money and women.
This villa wasn’t small, but it wasn’t old money. Not the kind that would make Giancarlo salivate.
Staring at the open window, I waited.
A breeze hit the curtains, but nothing else inside the room moved.
I gave it another thirty seconds.
Then I told myself to drop it because I didn’t need the complication. Except something about that single glimpse of the woman, and knowing Giancarlo’s predilections, wasn’t sitting right with me. In fact, it was starting to piss me off, and I didn’t get pissed.
I wasn’t the fucking emotional quotient of this famiglia.
I was the trigger.
“Just the goddamn trigger,” I muttered, forcing myself to look away from the window before doing one more perimeter check of the courtyard. Then, using a closed fist so I didn’t leave prints, I pushed open the front door and walked in.
Double-height entry hall, marble floors, library to my left, hallway and stairs straight ahead, reception room to my right. Sparse furniture, old-looking art, rich but not opulent. Everything I saw reconfirmed my previous assessment—money, but not the kind that would make Giancarlo nut himself.
Fuck.
Leaving the front door cracked for both the barrel of my Glock and a quick exit, I moved to the wall just right of the south sidelight. Angling so I could see the courtyard, the interior stairs and the hallway I presumed led to a dining room, by the sounds of it, I took up a watch position.
Leaning a shoulder against the window frame, I drew my Glock and sighted down the driveway.
Then I glanced up the stairs.
Cursing under my breath and lowering my arm but not holstering my piece, I settled in to wait for whatever bad shit was about to go down.
Sancia
As I hid behind the curtain I had pulled partway closed, my hand flew across the paper.
Desperately trying to capture every sinuous movement of his muscles while he walked around the courtyard, I was still drawing him when he disappeared under the portico and I heard him come inside the house.
My breath caught, and my hand stilled.
But my heart leapt into an even faster pounding rhythm that beat so hard, I could feel it in my ears and my throat.
The man with the impossibly big muscles and gun was downstairs, below my very bedroom.
The thought was so shocking I was on my feet before I registered what my body was doing.
What was I doing?
Standing, moving, going downstairs to demand that he leave, to ask his name?
Rooted in place by indecision, I glanced at my sketchbook.
Then I was no longer thinking.
I was drawing.
Bracing the sketchbook against my chest, filling in the broader details before I picked up a pencil and sharpened every one of his features, I drew and I fantasized.
It was not until my very last stroke of pencil across paper that it struck me.
I had not been thinking of Papà.
I was not worrying about his illness, the days or my time with him. I was not wondering what would become of my future once he was gone, or fretting about how and when to ask him what I was to do without him. My entire life for two years had been nothing except worry and Papà.
Guilt squeezed at my conscience as I stared at the only thing that had completely distracted me from Papà in my entire life, and I knew it before I could push the thought away.
I could not keep this.
Raw, wild, and untamed yet full of dark, controlled movement, it was the best drawing I had ever done, but it felt… dangerous.
The man in the image felt dangerous.
And the longer I stared, the more that feeling grew.
With suddenly unsteady hands, I carefully tore the paper from my sketchbook and reached for the can of setting spray. Giving the drawing a once-over with the fixative, waving it to dry it faster, I desperately looked around my room for any sort of reason.
Except I did not find reason.
Temptation mocking me, my book sat on my nightstand as the perfect excuse, and reason fell through the last of my resolve like water through a sieve.
I should have immediately destroyed the drawing. Burn it. Draw over it. Dispose of it in the bathroom. But as I held the single sheet of paper and stared at a man who was both imposing and so handsome he took my breath, I knew I would do none of those things.
I was going to give the man his drawing.
Every warning of Papà’s over the years filled my head and, rationally, I knew they were full of merit. I was not worldly or formally educated, but I was not completely ignorant either. Papà had money, and that alone made me vulnerable. Not to mention, I had heard the hushed whispers about the famiglias of Sicily from the house staff over the years. I had secretly listened to their frightening stories of violent men with guns who were called soldiers but wore no uniforms. I knew the term they all gave organized crime. I knew you were never supposed to say the word aloud.
But this was my home, Papà was a banker who did not associate with any of those men, and I was almost of legal age.
I could give a man a piece of paper.
Just because he had a gun did not mean he was dangerous to me.
Papà had hired bodyguards with guns before. Papà even had guns himself. I had seen them in his desk and in his nightstand drawer. He had said they were merely a precautionary measure of protection because he had money in the house. It made sense. Papà was sensible. I was not frightened by a man who had a gun.
But I was afraid of this drawing.
Before I could talk myself out of this, or admit that I wanted to see the mysterious man’s unusual eyes up close just once so I could remember them forever, I grabbed the book.
Carefully slipping the drawing between the pages, I turned toward the door and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
My simple summer dress from last season covered my shoulders, but it was neither stylish nor sophisticated. My long, dark brown hair had not been trimmed in two years. My face was void of any blush or mascara, and suddenly, I was not seeing myself as Papà’s daughter.
Consumed with a man I had only just laid eyes on tonight, I was comparing my worth to every pretty woman I had ever seen and realizing I was not them.
I was not a woman at all.
Not yet. Not technically.
Wishing for the first time that I knew more about makeup and clothes and how to style my hair than I did about classic literature and art, I opened the book and stared at my drawing.
I was no match for the image of the shirtless man staring back at me as he stood at the open door of his SUV with a gun at his waist.
Maybe I was no match for any man.
Papà never talked about me marrying one day, let alone what would happen to me once he—I could not even think the thought.
Inhaling sharply, I closed the book and forced down my reality as I glanced out the window at the dark SUV that sat like a silent beast waiting for its prey, and I wondered. What would it be like inside? How would the seats feel? What would it smell like?
What would its owner smell like?
Closing my eyes, imagining sitting in the imposing vehicle, envisioning his strong arms as he drove, I wondered what his voice would sound like beyond the deep tones I had heard from my window.
That last thought was my final undoing.
Clutching the book to my chest, my heart beating to the tune of a thousand drums, I grasped the door handle and slowly turned, but then I stopped to listen.
No Papà. No Vittorio. No voices at all.
Slipping out of my ballet flats, making as little sound as possible, I tiptoed down the stairs.
Erico
Scanning the driveway for the tenth time, I heard it.
Footsteps.
Light as hell, but I still heard them.
My fingers tensing on my Glock, I turned my head, and there she was.
Her hand on the banister, one foot poised to take the next step down, she froze. With huge brown eyes and waves of thick, dark hair covering her shoulders and half her back, she looked at me with equal parts stunned shock and curiosity.
No shoes, no makeup, no pretense.
Gesù Cristo, she was fucking beautiful.
She was also young as hell, and she definitely wasn’t a ghost.
She was a goddamn angel.
A stunning, untouched, unsullied angel who was blushing at me.
“Mystery solved,” I muttered.
Quiet, soft, and so damn innocent, she spoke. “I am sorry?”
“You are?” I demanded, my hand still on my Glock.
Fair for a Sicilian, color flamed her cheeks, and I got her voice again. “Sancia.”
Sancia.
I fucking repeated it. Out loud. “Sancia.” Latin. Sacred. Cristo. Now I suspected why the hell my brother was being a cagey prick, and rage I didn’t know I was capable of flooded my veins.
Tentative, she took a halted step, then another. One more and she stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “What is your name?”
I purposely ignored her question. “How old are you?”
Whatever the hell her age was, if my brother was here to use her in some bullshit power move, I made a vow right then and there.
I was going to stop it.
She was too goddamn young and innocent for Giancarlo’s scheming, let alone his proclivities. Hell, she was too innocent for any of us Mantovani brothers, Caio included. Our world would chew her up and spit her out.
Lines formed between her eyes like I’d asked the last thing she was expecting. “You want to know my age?”
