His answer should have brought relief, but with no intonation, I could not tell how to interpret it. I did not know if he meant, no, not yet, or not ever or he had already tried it and did not prefer marriage.

  Not sure how to reply, I waited with the phone pressed to my ear, but he said nothing more.

  For a long moment, all I heard was the same low background noise I had heard last night.

  The silence stretching, the sun up and shining through my open window, I became uncomfortable. “Are you still on your plane?”

  “I’m back on my plane,” he corrected as I heard ice clinking in a glass. “Do you know your silence has a sound?”

  Heat flushed my cheeks. “No, I did not.” Should I ask what it sounded like? Did I want to know?

  He told me anyway. “It sounds like thoughts, Principessa.”

  Listening to his voice, I stared as the slight breeze shifted the curtains, then touched my face. He was on a metal plane rushing through impossible wind. I was wrapped in a soft blanket being gentled by a morning breeze. Our differences were vast.

  I had to ask. “What do thoughts sound like?”

  The ice clinked again. “What I was just listening to.” He inhaled deeply before letting it out slow. “So tell me, Sancia Sophafina Vincenzo Santoro, what thoughts were you having about me just now?”

  Bolting upright, shock robbed me of all breath.

  If it were not for my already tight grip on the phone, I would have dropped it.

  Vincenzo?

  Vincenzo?

  I had heard whisperings from the house staff over the years. I knew there were three powerful famiglias in Sicily. I even knew the names of those famiglias, surnames no one dared to say out loud. Except on rare occasion, I had heard them whispered in fear by the house staff. But I had never, ever, had someone call me by one of those names.

  Forcing myself to speak past my suddenly dry throat, I asked. “Wh-what did you call me?”

  For a single heartbeat, he said nothing.

  Then he twisted my already upside-down world. “No one’s told you.”

  It was not a question.

  It was a statement.

  My entire life played on a quick reel. My sheltered existence, never having gone to school, no friends, never being taken anywhere except the two houses, no talk of any other relatives—oh dear God. “Told me what?”

  The stranger, the man with a gun, the one who had been reluctant to tell me his own name but had given me a cell phone—he destroyed the last of my reality as I knew it. “Your mother’s maiden name was Vincenzo. She was Don Vincenzo’s daughter.”

  No.

  No.

  He was lying.

  “You are lying,” I accused.

  “What reason would I have to lie about that, bella?” His voice, his tone, they turned soft. Too soft. “Why do you think your father and I both call you Principessa?”

  “I am Sancia Sophafina Santoro,” I uselessly declared as tears welled.

  “You’re also a Vincenzo by blood,” he stated authoritatively.

  “Papà would not lie to me.” Oh God. Would he?

  “I’m not saying he did.” Erico paused. Then his soft voice came back again. “Did you ever ask about your mother’s famiglia?”

  “Do not use that voice.” I did not like it. “I do not need your false sympathy or lies. I had no reason to ask about my mamma. She was an only child. Papà is an only child. There was nothing to ask about. Me and Papà, we are each other’s only living family.” We had to be. Papà had said so, and no one with those violent famiglia’s names had ever come to the house. I had to believe in what Papà had told me. This was my life. I was living it. Erico did not know. He was a stranger. He did not know Papà like I knew Papà. He did not know my father could not possibly be one of those terrible men from one of those criminal famiglias.

  Papà was the president of a bank.

  He had a prominent and important job. He had a position of understandable power. Papà always said we should never flaunt who we were to anyone because of his position. He had said it was safer that way. He had sounded nothing except reasonable when he had said it.

  “Bella—”

  “No. I am not discussing this anymore. You do not know what you are talking about. You do not know.” But a part of me, a small part I did not want to listen to, was asking the very question he had of me. Why did he and Papà call me Principessa? How had a stranger known to call me that the moment he met me if there had not been some truth to it?

  Suddenly, I was questioning it.

  I was questioning everything Papà had ever said to me.

  “I know a lot of things, Principessa,” Erico countered vaguely.

  In that moment, I did not know if I hated him or Papà. “You do not know my name,” I uselessly argued.

  His inhale was deep and slow, but his exhale was slower. Then his voice came through the line as if he were tired and no longer censoring his words or his tone but merely listing facts. “I know your name. I know you bite your bottom lip when you’re nervous. I know you draw like a trained artist because you have little else to do besides worry about your sick father. I know you’re honest to a fault, and I know you wanted more of an answer from me than a simple no when you asked if I was married.”

  Stunned, I was momentarily distracted. “How do you know that last part?”

  “Like I said, your silence has the sound of your thoughts.”

  “You cannot possibly hear what I am thinking.” What if I was truly a Vincenzo?

  “No, but I can infer.”

  “How?” Would anything in my life change if I were a descendant of one of those famiglias? Had Papà been hiding me my whole life? Could I stay hidden after he was gone?

  “You won’t like my answer, Principessa. Is your father awake?”

  “I do not know, and if I did, I would not be handing him the phone.” Not now. Not after what he had called me. I needed to speak with Papà first.

  “Principessa—”

  “No. Do not call me that right now. And why will I not like your answer?” So what if Papà had omitted Mamma’s maiden name to me? If what Erico had said were true, was Papà wrong for protecting me my whole life? Was Erico or those men last night a part of that protection? Papà had said that when the time came, he would leave my financial security in the hands of someone he trusted.

  Erico countered my question with one of his own. “How do you not know if your father is awake?”

  Did Papà trust those two men he had dinner with last night? Did he trust Erico? Was this what he needed to speak to me about today?

  “I am not dressed or out of bed yet,” I admitted, suddenly feeling guilty for not yet having checked on Papà.

  “Gesù Cristo.” Low and gravelly, the holy name intended as a curse grated past his rough voice and filled my head before spreading through my body without permission. “You’re killing me, bella.”

  My cheeks flushed, chill bumps raced across my skin and it suddenly struck me.

  What did a name actually matter, especially if no one or just a few people knew?

  I was me.

  Papà was Papà.

  No letters strung together, true or false, would change Papà’s diagnosis. Being angry or upset by a piece of history that had been withheld from me would not save my father. Blaming a mysterious-eyed stranger who had no part in who I was or was not, a man who had given me a phone and said it was for my protection—it was not right to hold him accountable. He had no part in this.

  If anything, he had been the one person who had told me.

  Suddenly exhausted, I rested back on the pillows. “I am sorry.”

  “Go wake your father and hand him the phone, Principessa. Do it now before this conversation takes a turn you’re not prepared for.”

  Not expecting his sharp response or commanding tone, my inhale was involuntary, and I apologized again. “I am sorry, but I cannot do that.”

  “Quit apologizing and get your father, Principessa.”

  My throat went dry, and my skin tingled. I said nothing.

  His exhale was as rough as his voice had become. “Do it, and I’ll answer your previous question.”

  I bit my bottom lip before I realized what I was doing and quickly released it. “The one you said I will not like the answer to?”

  “Yes.”

  I tried to tell myself that whatever he had to say, it could not be much worse than what he had already said, but my heart was racing, and I was feeling things I had never felt before that had nothing to do with the name he had called me and everything to do with his rough, commanding tone.

  My thoughts splintering, my stomach fluttering, my nerves prickling, I forced myself to think through a response. “I will go check on Papà after I am dressed. Once I make sure the cook has gotten him some breakfast and after I see how he is doing, I will make a decision.”

  “Still killing me, Principessa.”

  “I do not know what that means.” My entire existence now skewed, my body hungry with a craving I had never felt before hearing his rough voice, maybe I did know. A little.

  His dark voice came through the line. “I know.”

  “You are very cryptic,” I accused.

  “You are deceivingly headstrong.”

  “I am protective of Papà.”

  “It should be the other way around.”

  “It is.”

  “Is it?” he challenged.

  I no longer knew.

  Before this man had used what he believed to be my full name and said it like it was both acceptable to say and a title, I would have vehemently protected Papà against any attack on his character or protection of me.

  But now I did not know what to think.

  And that frightened me.

  It frightened me so much that I desperately reached for a subject change. “How old are you?”

  He did not look that much older age-wise than I was, but in experience, we were worlds apart. Which made me wonder all over again why he had given me the cell phone. I was also now wondering why he had insinuated Papà was not protective of me.

  “Nice subject change, Principessa. I’m taking note of your second habit when you get nervous, but word of advice?” He did not wait for me to reply. “Never show your hand when something makes you uncomfortable. It’ll only entice a predator.”

  Predator? “I did not mean—”

  “I know what you meant. I’m twenty-six. Go check on your father, eat some breakfast, then text me. Nni videmu, bella.” He hung up.

  For a long moment, I stared at the phone.

  Then I slipped it under the mattress and stood, pausing to look out the open window.

  Taking in the deceptively cheerful, bright day as the Sicilian sun shone down on the lemon and olive trees in the orchards, I looked beyond the villa.

  “Vincenzo,” I whispered.

  The balmy breeze whispered back the only secret it had.

  It would be a warm day.

  Retrieving a sundress, I headed for the shower.

  Erico

  Gesù Cristo, she didn’t fucking know who she was.

  I wasn’t sure if I should commend Santoro for keeping her in the dark or kill him for not warning her.

  At best, she was a kidnap victim waiting to happen from rival famiglias. At worst a disposable threat to the Vincenzos if they thought she had knowledge of Santoro’s money laundering. They’d eliminate her the second Santoro was dead.

  Either way, it only made me more determined to stop Giancarlo. Our famiglia’s violent reputation was public knowledge, but what Giancarlo did to women behind closed doors wasn’t. If Santoro was trading his secrets to secure his daughter’s protection after he was dead, there was only one way to make Sancia untouchable to the other famiglias.

  Giancarlo had to marry her.

  No fucking way was I going to let that happen.

  One, he wasn’t getting his hands on her, and two, no matter how Giancarlo spun it—an unprecedented merger of two Cosa Nostra famiglias, a united, unstoppable force of the criminal underworld—it didn’t matter. There was no undoing of centuries of bloodshed and vendettas.

  Whatever Giancarlo was planning with Santoro, it was going to cause chaos. Giancarlo mainlined that shit, but I didn’t. Chaos led to war, and war would be a fight to the death over drugs, arms, territories and every other illegal activity the famiglias had monetized.

  I may have been pulling the trigger since I was seven, but I didn’t give a fuck about omertà, loyalty or the goddamn famiglias.

  I wasn’t going down this way.

  Not because of Giancarlo’s bullshit, and neither was she.

  That left two options.

  One I’d thought about for years, the other I’d never considered until a barefoot brunette with innocent doe eyes stared right at me and fucking blushed.

  That was the moment she’d sealed her fate.

  I was a Mantovani.

  I was Cosa Nostra.

  Women did two things around me. They ran in fear or tried to fuck me. The former were smart, the latter weren’t. I’d never cared either way.

  Then Sancia Santoro had walked down a flight of stairs.

  No woman had ever looked at me the way she had. Innocent, shy, demure, but with open curiosity and unguarded honesty, she had no damn clue who or what I was.

  That shit was fucking with me.

  She wasn’t just untouched, she was untouched by my world. She was also too goddamn young and innocent for me, but my cock didn’t care.

  Shaking my head, I scrolled to my contacts and made a call.

  Four rings and Giancarlo’s cell went to voice mail.

  Hanging up, I immediately called back. The signal for him to pick the fuck up.

  One ring and it was answered by Alonzo, his Consigliere and our cousin. “How was New York?”

  “How the fuck do you think?” Useless asshole. He never got his hands dirty. “Where’s Giancarlo?”

  “Don is busy. What do you need?”

  Alonzo knew the fucking drill. After every assignment, per Giancarlo’s standing orders, I checked in, and I checked in with Giancarlo only. Before last night, I wouldn’t have questioned Giancarlo being too busy to take my call.

  In general, I’d never questioned shit.

  I was the trigger.

  That was the job my father had assigned me before I was old enough to read. The late, great Enzo Mantovani, Don of the Mantovani famiglia, until he ate a bullet while getting his dick sucked by one of his mistresses in his private jet on the tarmac in Palermo. The dumb fuck couldn’t even wait until his soldiers got him into his bulletproof ride before he’d dropped his pants.

  Now it looked like Giancarlo wasn’t making any better choices than our father had. Add in the fact that he wasn’t taking my call after he’d sent me to New York on his bullshit urgent mission after I’d warned him off Sancia, and my suspicions hit a new level.

  Out of patience, I issued Alonzo an order. “I don’t care what the hell Giancarlo’s doing. Put my brother on the fucking phone.” Consigliere or not, I wasn’t taking Alonzo’s shit. I outranked him.

  “Like I said, Don’s busy,” Alonzo shot back.

  “He has five minutes to call me back. Pass the message along or my next bullet will have your name on it,” I warned, not giving a fuck that he was a blood relative.

  “Don’t threat—”

  I hung up on Alonzo and called Ademaro.

  Same as with Giancarlo, his cell went to voice mail.

  I redialed.

  Four rings and it was answered, but not by Ademaro.

  Caio, my youngest brother, let loose with his usual mocking disdain. “In case your first unanswered call wasn’t enough of a clue, Maro’s busy.”

  “Remind me to beat your ass when I get home. Where the fuck are Giancarlo and Ademaro?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You answered Ademaro’s phone. He can’t be far. Lift your head and look two fucking feet past you and tell me what’s going on.”

  “I am looking, asshole. No one’s here. I came into the kitchen for breakfast. The staff’s gone, but food’s been left out. I was about to help myself. Then you lit up Maro’s phone that was sitting here on the counter. Since you called twice, I answered. You’re welcome. Now I’m hanging up to eat.”

  “You hang up on me and not only will I beat your ass when I get back, I’ll confiscate all your Ferraris.” Caio cared about two things—cars and women. The latter was a distant second to the adrenaline rushes he got from driving too goddamn fast. When he wasn’t on the racetrack, he fucked women to fill the void.

  Caio chuckled. “Then I’ll buy new ones.”

  “Not if I tell Giancarlo about your last accident.” The one he’d called me from a month ago in a panic. The idiot had wrapped his new Ferrari around a tree and killed some blonde in the passenger seat in the process. He’d walked away, and I’d cleaned up the mess, including anonymously paying off the woman’s father.

  But we both knew the warning Giancarlo had given him.

  Any more fuckups and Caio would be cut off financially, which would be equivalent to death for him. Caio had only been a kid when our father died. Between the house staff, me and Ademaro, we’d gotten him into adulthood, but that was about all we’d done. Left mostly on his own, by fifteen he’d found cars. Personally, I was fucking glad it wasn’t drugs because there had been a shitload of them around since Giancarlo became Don.

  Alarm coated Caio’s tone. “You wouldn’t. You know what Carlo said.”

  “I know what the fuck he’ll do to you if he hears you call him Carlo.” Giancarlo hated nicknames more than he hated not being called Don.

  Caio chuckled again, but this time it was from nervousness. “Yeah. Maybe you shouldn’t tell him that either.”

  Cristo, the Principessa was getting in my head. I made another promise. “Tell me where Giancarlo and Ademaro are, and I won’t say shit.”

  “I don’t know, but Alonzo’s standing guard outside father’s office, and he has Giancarlo’s phone.”

  “Christ.” Briefly closing my eyes, I exhaled for patience. “It’s not our father’s office anymore, Caio. Enzo’s dead. You know that.”

 

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