Page 55 of Brutal Husband

“What’s what?”

I flatten myself against the carpet and reach under the cabinet until my fingers touch something small, cold, and flexible, and draw it out.

I turn it over in my hands, frowning. It’s a tartan hair barrette. I think I—

I gasp in shock.

No.

Please don’t let this be what I think it is. But the more I examine the hair clip, the more certain I am. I cover my mouth in horror.

Nero gets up from the desk and comes over to me. “What’s that you’ve found?”

Tears well in my eyes. I didn’t want to believe it was true, but I already had all the answers I needed at my wedding. How could I have been so willfully blind?

Memories flood back to me of that night, so fast that they hit me like a tidal wave. Splintered sentences and flashes of Luca’s face, and then whole conversations. I remember the rain and the blood and the tears.

I remembereverything.

Nero grasps me by the elbows and pulls me to my feet. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

Nero and Luca ran the same business and wore the same clothes. Twin brothers who shared everything including courting the same woman. Did Nero know what his brother was up to?

My skin crawls at the thought, and I pull myself out of his arms.

“I remember everything, and I know what happened to Luca.” I hold up the hair barrette for Nero to see. “But I want the truth from you first. You’re going to tell me everything about you and Luca and what went on behind my back, and you’re going to tell me who killed Paul Shields.”

18

Nero

Before the wedding

“He was rude and cold to me, Mom. I can’t marry a man like that.”

I stand in the shadows outside the Bianchi residence, listening to Rieta arguing with her mother. I proposed to her, and she agreed to marry me, but she changed her mind in a matter of days. There’s a bottle of milk in my fridge that lasted longer than the diamond ring on Rieta’s finger. And I was feeling so damned pleased with myself for getting the job done quickly.

There are other women in this city who would be thrilled to bear the Lombardi name. I’m good-looking. I’m charming. My money is even more charming. I could be engaged again by this weekend to a different woman, which is no doubt the sensiblecourse of action. Better to start from scratch than try to persuade a woman who angrily rejected me in front of her entire family.

A shrill voice emanates from within the house. “You ungrateful little bitch. I’ll teach you to talk back to me.” Giulia Bianchi, and from the sounds of things, she’s not taking the broken engagement well.

Rieta’s voice is suddenly tearful and afraid, and she sounds like she’s in pain. “Mom, let go, please. Mom, no!”

Alarm shoots through me, and I raise my head at the sound of Rieta’s terrified pleading. What the hell is going on in there? I move around the house until I get a view of mother and daughter through a window. Giulia has Rieta by the hair, and she’s dragging the stumbling young woman down the hallway. She opens a doorway into darkness, and shoves Rieta inside.

Rieta’s cry of despair is cut short as Giulia slams the door in her face. I can see Giulia’s profile, and there’s a nasty smile on her face that makes my blood run cold.

“You can stay in there and think about what you’ve done, Rieta. An obnoxious, disobedient child must be punished.”

I watch in disbelief as Giulia walks away, glowing with self-satisfaction and pleasure, while Rieta continues to scream and beg and pound on the door. The sound of her terror goes deep inside me and rattles me to my core. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone, human or animal, cry out in so much terror.

I move along the house to another window so I can watch Giulia as she calmly stacks the dishwasher, puts leftovers into the refrigerator, and wipes down the counters. She doesn’t try to drown out Rieta’s sobbing with music or the television. It’s as if she wants to listen to her daughter’s misery. A few minutes later, she snaps off the downstairs lights and heads upstairs to bed.

Rieta starts screaming again, even louder this time. Her throat sounds hoarse, and every scream must feel like torture to her, but she doesn’t stop.

Anger sweeps over me. I can’t leave her like this.

Because Giulia was distracted by punishing her daughter, she’s left one of the windows unlocked. I climb through and stride down the hallway to the basement door. The key is in the lock, and I turn it and yank the door open.

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