Page 63 of Iron Blade

The thought twisted in my stomach, as a new hatred for the woman formed where I had nursed nothing but the coolest indifference.

“Well, boy-” My father’s voice snapped me out of mentally carving out Cosima Durante’s tombstone, as he looked at me from behind his whisky glass. “It seems that they’re coming after us now. We must preempt them.”

Despite the threat of the Italians attacking a money source, going after Giovani Morelli was still an act of pure madness. A few skirmishes did not make a war, but this act would be a declaration of one.

Who knew how Eugenio Durante would react - he might bring our conflicts to the light. Or worse… to the courthouse.

“You will help him,” my father growled, his graying eyes turning towards Dairo.

I turned my head, staring at my cousin as he gave a somber nod. His blue eyes turned to me fast, with hesitance and fear, communicating without words that he understood everything that went through my mind in that moment.

I scoffed, as a poisonous thought entered my mind. A poisonous, treasonous thought that I wanted to banish as quickly as it appeared in my mind.

It would be the greatest favor my father could do me, and the rest of Green Fields Enterprises.

Chapter twenty-one

Tonight

Kira

The room buzzed with more patrons. The grand paintings on the walls were by a new artist who made a strange and ominous study about fate. The artist, Jorik Barkada, was an overnight success with evocative interpretations of fatalistic moments.

Juliet, taking poison over the body of her lover. Orpheus, the seconds before he looked over his shoulder, and Eurydice was yanked back into the underworld. Hector, kissing his infant son goodbye, before leaving the walls of Troy to confront Achilles. Ajax, receiving Hector’s sword, which he would use to take his life.

Each tragic reality was contrasted with the happiness that could have been, but never would.

Tragedy, at the heartbreaking moment of hope.

His technique was quite basic and almost sloppy. There was a messiness to it that was distinctly his own. It looked like his hands were shaking as he painted these pieces. But in the shakiness of the strokes was something special too - it was almost an unintentional fuzziness that gave the art a dreamlike quality.

The artist was dreaming of a happy ending that would never come to pass.

Tragic. Evocative. Beautiful.

“Don’t make me jealous, by admiring this painter more than me.” I had felt him before I heard him.

Maybe by only a second or so, but I knew it was him. His scent, his presence. The way he displaced everything in the room with his peculiar brand of magnetism.

I smiled to myself, not turning around to look at him, even as I felt his warmth creeping up from behind me.

Then a salacious thought came to my mind - did he like the view?

“Will you be a jealous husband?” I pursed my lips to hide my grin of happiness.

I had missed him while he was gone. Far more than I cared to admit.

“Very.” He chuckled. “Possessive too, and insatiable in bed.”

God, his words made my knees weak. “Will you let me work after we…?”

I let the rest of the question hang in the air. The question of marriage.

“Of course.”

I turned my head just a little, catching a glimpse of him in my peripheral vision. “Will you be faithful to me? I know a lot of rich men aren’t…”

He didn’t let me finish my thought. He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling my back to his chest, and leaning over my shoulder until his lips were at my cheek.

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