Page 39 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 1-4

Some part of him had known that since he’d seen the surveillance photos of her.

What he could not understand was why, knowing that he had already made such a mess, he had only made it worse since she’d come here. He had prided himself on his militant moderation in all things since his university days. Grazia’s death had taught him that emotions were foolish, dangerous, and could be used as weapons.

Worse, his intensity was as poisonous as his father’s dark pleasures, and came to the same end.

He did not drink to excess. He did not carouse. He had kept all of these extreme behaviors locked down tight, until Dioni.

Even now, he could not account for his own behavior.

And much later, after he made certain that Apostolis and Jolie were settled for the night in one of the many guest suites, he found himself wandering the halls of the castle as had long been his habit.

He knew every brick. Every stone. He had taken every bit of it apart and put it back together as if performing an exorcism and yet he still couldn’t seem to come to terms with what this place meant. What it was to him.

Who he would become if he stayed here. Who he had already become because hehadstayed here.

And now, worse, he was already worried about what this place would do to his son.

Not to mention the woman who could not seem to understand her own danger.

He found himself down in the old ballroom again, though it seemed much emptier than he recalled it. He could not remember it being used for years. Not since his father was still alive, and had bullied half of Sicily into appearing at the lavish parties he had used as traps for the unwary, all games of dominance and spite.

Now, all he could see was Dioni, dancing by herself and holding her hands on the baby belly before her, making up her own music as she went.

And all he could think about was his best friend in the entire world and the look on his face when he’d said that he knew Alceu would not hurt her.

Apostolis had truly believed that. The same way Dioni had seemed to mean it when she’d said he was a good and honorable man.

How could they not see the rot within? When so much of it had already gotten out?

Alceu let out a breath and when he turned to go, he was unsurprised to find his mother standing there, staring at him with her usual malevolence. Sometimes he thought she tracked him through the castle, looking for opportunities to offload her bile on him.

He wanted to laugh, to ward her off the way Dioni did. He wanted to make some joke about her creeping around at night, though the only thing that came to mind was the possibility he knew was already whispered about in the villages—that Marcella Vaccaro was some kind of vampire.

But somehow the hilarity wouldn’t come tonight. No jokes. No laughter.

No attempt at a lighthearted smile.

Alceu was far too raw.

“I knew it would come to this,” Marcella seethed at him, shaking her head so that her jet-black hair slithered about like a premonition. “You can’t escape your blood, Alceu. It isinsideof you. It makes you who you are—no better than your father. In some ways, I expect you are much worse. Giuseppe never pretended to be anything but rotted straight through.” She smirked. “You think you’re a good man, do you not? There is nothing more dangerous.”

He looked away from her, toward the ghost of Dioni on the smooth, gleaming floor. To the gleam of the chandeliers above, picking up light where there was none, a lot like she always did.

Maybe he was rotted well enough, because everything in himhurt.

“Everyone thinks that I renovated this place out of some innate sense of love,” he told his mother. “Or some regard for the family legacy, at the very least. They think that I consider this castle some kind of jewel, and set myself to polishing it.” He laughed then, though it was a bitter sound. “But the truth is, I hated it. I still hate it. Yet I made certain that I put my fingerprints on every single stone, every single corner, every cornice and buttress. So that it was no longer a monument to our history. So that I could make it mine, and then get rid of it, one way or the other.”

“Burn it to the ground,” Marcella challenged him. “Go ahead. You will still be you, Alceu.”

“Still the better bargain between the two of us, Mother.”

She let out a laugh to rival his. “You think that I married your father like this? Like the harpy you see before you now?”

She came closer, and then she was too close. She reached out and put her hand on his arm, and he let her. Maybe he needed to look down and see her talons. Maybe he needed to recall exactly what had happened to him and how she had hastened it all along.

Maybe it was pretending he could control his memories that had led him here, because if he hadn’t, would he have allowed all this to happen?

If he hadn’t, would he have known enough to walk out of that wedding breakfast at the Hotel Andromeda? Alone?

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