Page 60 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince
This was always Luca’s domain, the wing he kept reserved for guests who mattered more than the rest.
The gravel feels too loud under my steps.
I keep my pace brisk as I cut through the main house, avoiding the drawing rooms, the family corridors, any hallway that mightput me face to face with someone asking for an explanation I’m not ready to give.
I tell myself I’m heading to my suite.
That I’ll lock the door, pour a drink, and sleep until tomorrow forces my hand again.
But then I hear laughter, faint and high, curling around the marble arches of the southern wing.
The kind that belongs to children still drunk on their own joy, untouched by caution or restraint.
I stop.
I don’t mean to.
My feet move before I’ve made a decision, steering me past the main stairwell, down the corridor lined with frosted glass and gilded sconces, toward the suite Luca ordered to be prepared.
The doors to the courtyard are slightly ajar.
Through the opening, I catch a flash of movement.
A blur of pink and green darting through the hedges.
I push the door open fully.
There, under the drooping branches of the olive tree, two little girls are chasing each other in dizzying circles.
One clutches a crooked stick with ribbons tied to the end, waving it like a wand.
The other holds a small basket brimming with grass, feathers, and what looks like crumbled petals.
Their shoes are off.
Their dresses are wrinkled.
They look perfectly at home, as if this estate has always belonged to them.
It hits me in the ribs, hard and fast, how much I don’t know.
What they like, how they laugh, who they think they are in a world full of men who would use them without blinking.
One of them sees me.
She slows, tapping her sister on the shoulder.
They both turn.
Big eyes, dark lashes, curls wild around their faces.
My throat dries.
I can’t move.
"Are you one of Nonna Valentina’s friends?" the girl with the basket asks, frowning a little.
"No," I answer quietly.
