Page 95 of Brutal Legacy

“Unfitted?” I suggested.

She shook her head. “Stinky. You haven’t got anything else to wear?”

“I didn’t really have a chance to pack much.” I sighed and stepped away. That fact should’ve been embarrassing, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“Okay, well, leave it to me. Good luck with my brother, you’re going to need it.”

And with that, she rapped on the door and left without a backward glance.

The lock turning shut after her departure echoed around the room.

Someone broughtdinner to my door, and two armed men set it up at the table in the window. Neither of them looked directly at me the entire time. Once they’d left, the door was once again locked, and I fell on the food. I’d missed too many meals lately, and I barely paused for a breath as I inhaled the meal.

Pasta with basil and tomato. Simple. Perfect. It was so good, I nearly cried. It tasted like mynonna’spasta. I ate so fast that I nearly felt sick when it hit my stomach.

I sank back against the chair and stared at the moon rising in the dark sky. Tall trees reached for it, and stars sparkled. I hadn’t seen the stars in a decade. LA stars were the kind on Hollywood Boulevard, not in the sky.

I hadn’t met many of the Hollywood stars in person, either. All my dreams of designing my own line of clothes… of having a brand and a store… they all felt so far away now. All I had left of those childish fantasies were a few half-sewn designs that I didn’t even love. My clothes used to be bold. It was haute couture or go home. I’d been so audacious as a privileged little daddy’s girl in Castel Amaro.

Meeting Elio had changed all that. Not just the tragic end of our love story, but meeting him in general, had introduced me to another side of the world. It was one my father had protected me from. Funny how the roles had reversed now. I was penniless and had been living in a shitty apartment with a door that didn’t even lock and a loan shark paying unexpected visits to work out payment plans. And Elio? He was rich. I could tell by his clothes, the quiet expense of a man who only buys the best. Since I couldn’t picture Elio shopping, he probably had some underling go out and fill his closet periodically with black suits, black shirts, and black shoes.

Tommaso had trusted me with dressing him. When we’d first moved to LA, I’d gone to school, and he’d worked. We’d been comfortable then, I supposed, though I didn’t remember much. The grief had weighed me down. I didn’t manage to stay in school. I was too depressed and despondent. A few months had passed that way, until Tommaso started to see someone. He was a therapist. His name was Drew. I began counseling with him and slowly came back to the world.

I yawned, my jaw cracking.

Wandering through the past was exhausting. I just wanted to sleep and sleep, preferably before Elio got home and I had to work out how to act around him.

A niggle at the back of my mind reminded me of something important that I’d forgotten. I emptied my bag out on the bed. It was the one I’d had with me at work, the night the Ravellis had broken into the atelier and would have attacked me… if not for Elio showing up.

He’d taken my phone and wallet, of course, but I still had some of my things. Most importantly… I tugged open the broken lipstick tube, and there it was. The flash drive my father had sent me. I had no idea what was on it and no way to find out. Elio wasn’t exactly supplying me with a laptop. I tucked it back inside the lipstick case and put it in the inside flap of my bag.

I was so tired. So tired of running and being scared, and tired of feeling like my life was out of my control. I’d been feeling that way for a long, long time. Much longer than the last week or so. It had been years and years. Maybe even since the last time I saw Elio, when I’d been full of naive hope and love.

Elio coming into my life again was showing the differences in us starkly. An unforgiving light was beaming down on the choices we’d made to become the people we were. What had Giada said?He’s been through enough.What had Elio been through? I was more curious about that than whatever was on the flash drive.

I lay down and snuggled into the covers. The half-finished dresses hung in the front of the closet. A testament to how I had never managed to reach my dreams, but I’d never forgotten them, either.

I’d contemplated going back to school just when Tommaso’s family had found out that Drew was living with us. They’d cut him off. School was out of the question. I got a job making custom alterations, we downsized, and then Tommaso got sick.

He stopped work, I worked more hours, and my dreams were pinned away out of sight again as I slowly lost my best friend.

After, Drew had moved away to deal with his own grief, and I’d ended up just like I was when Elio had found me. My life had become a tragedy when Elio ran away, and it had never quite turned around.

Lately, I’d been drifting aimlessly; just surviving, not quite living. The days had been blurring into each other as I worked hard, ate cheap, and existed every single day.

Now, I was living again. I was feeling again.

Like it or not, Elio Santori had once again turned my life upside down.

Could I survive him a second time?

It looked like I was about to find out.

27

GEORGIA

Lightning flashed, and a boom of thunder broke over the house. Hot, wet air swept in from the open balcony. I rolled over in bed, pulling my nightgown off and tossing it away. The humid air was making my skin sticky. I felt feverish. I thought about the stables and wondered if Elio was sleeping out there or in the house.

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