Page 33 of The Last Vendetta

“Yes. To discuss the drug trade arrangement he’d started to plan with Luka. It’ll be a good first step to taking over that project.”

Great. I nodded, masking my sarcasm and lack of enthusiasm. The last thing I wanted to do was sit down and have a conversation with that hotheaded asshole. I didn’t look forward to listening to the prick who thought he could have any right to Giulia.

But who was I to judge or get mad?

She wasn’t mine.

No matter how much I wanted her to be.

No matter how perfectly she seemed to fit and belong with me, not as a needy, clinging wife to order around and knock up.

But as a partner. A friend. As something more, and definitely something I never could have anticipated finding in my enemy.

As my other half.

11

GIULIA

Giulia

Iwasn’t sure if Renzo took my intel to heart. He had to believe me, that there was a connection between his brother’s death and my father’s. They’d died so close together and so similarly that it couldn’t be a coincidence. I’d never really believed in those, anyway.

I lacked another chance to sneak away and meet up with him again.

Half of the urgency to see him was to check whether I was going crazy, if I was imagining this pull to want to be near him all the time. The other half of my wish to approach him was for answers.

I understood that he wanted to find Luka’s killer. But now, it was irrevocably tied to me, too. Because if someone killed my father and attempted to murder my mother as a means of taking over the Acardi name, and me, I wanted to be prepared.

“I’m telling you,” Uncle Dario insisted after I saw my sisters to bed. He sipped his drink in the library then shook his head. Bags lined under his eyes. Bloodshot and tired, he looked three times his age, and I felt terrible that he felt so stuck about our circumstances.

He couldn’t be the head of our bloodline. After his injuries, he had to accept the fact that he’d never have children, and as such, the Acardi name would die out with him. I knew he was frustrated. I saw it every time he spoke with my father or mother about important matters. He’d been pushed back, delegated as a useless Family member, but right now, in this week after Father died, he’d been a sounding board for me.

Mother stayed in her room. She had been cleared and discharged from the hospital, but other than the watered down funeral for Father, she complained of headaches and needing to stay in bed.

Which left me with Uncle Dario to figure out how to move forward.

Except, he remained lodged at square one, refusing to reconsider who could’ve killed Father.

“Renzo Bernardi killed Rocco,” he insisted.

“I don’t agree.” I crossed my arms.

He narrowed his eyes, tracking me as I paced. “Why?”

I glanced at him. “What do you mean, why?”

“He’s no friend of yours.”

I resisted a cringe. False.

“You don’t know him.”

Again, I fought the urge to show my feelings about that remark. I want to know everything about him. The little I’d been treated to so far rocked my world. He could both make me explode with pleasure and just be there and comfort me without any expectations in return.

“Neither do you,” I shot back. “The only reason you’re fixated on accusing him as Father’s killer is because you overheard Giovanni Bernardi ask him to avenge Luka. He didn’t tell him to specifically kill Father, did he?”

Uncle Dario smirked. “No.” He knew he’d been jumping to conclusions and thinking he heard something that hadn’t actually been said. “But they hate us. The Bernardis have always been our enemies and always will.”

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