Page 101 of My Dark Fairy Tale
I could not speak, muted by that ever-closing noose.
“He was going to ask her to stay,” Martina murmured, her hand soft against my forearm.
“This is why I never could.” The words almost wheezed out of me, wrung from my air-deprived lungs. “She has already survived so much. I will not ask her to survive this.”
“Whoever the fuck San Marco is, we will find them eventually,” Renzo swore. “We have suffered worse fools than these. The Pietras are a shell of what they once were before we broke them apart for taking Aldo. Eight Greco members are rotting, awaiting prosecution from the DIA, because they dared to turn against us. We will end this poetic motherfucker’s threat too.”
“Yes,” I agreed on a hiss as fury worked fingers under the rope around my throat and pulled it loose.
I let the dark joy of violence fill my blood and bring me back from the brink of panic. Il Gentiluomo was a figure spoken about in whispers in dark corners and back alleys. A man so monstrous he had becomelegend. For a brief moment, I forgot that monster was me, having spent too long in human skin around Guinevere.
But there was no future where I was not both, and there was no future where I could live with Guinevere suffering the consequences of my choices.
“Talk to Annella. Get the name of the decorator or the florist and discover who the fuck sent these,” I ordered as the cool mantle of numb cruelty settled back around my shoulders. “Find me the man, find me the messenger, I do not care. Just find me someone to kill for this.”
Renzo and Carmine both nodded before taking off back up the stairs to do my bidding.
“Raffa,” Martina tried, voice soft, hand still on my arm though I was numb to it.
“Not now. The party is over. Wrap it up without causing alarm in the next hour. I do not want anyone outside the family in this house after that.”
The idea of people I did not trust farther than I could throw them being in the same city, let alone under the same roof as Guinevere, filled me with primal rage.
Martina hesitated a moment before her posture changed, shoulders tightening, spine straightening to her normal military bearing. “Yes, boss.”
“Nothing touches her,” I ground out. “Not so much as a bee stings her in the next forty-eight hours before she is gone. Understood?”
She nodded.
I went to find my woman and install her for the rest of the night within arm’s reach of my side. In a way, I was glad for the rage flaming in my rib cage. It almost overwhelmed the crushing grief at my heart.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Guinevere
The party was a massive success.
It was incredible to have our friends under one roof for the festivities, eating delicious food and talking about things I never had as a university student. Philosophy, literature, the importance of cultural celebrations like the Feast of San Lorenzo each year, and the relationship Italians had with their food. It wasenriching. All of it. Rich, verdant earth to dig my roots into so I could suck up all the nutrients of this place and these people before I had to leave.
IfI had to leave.
Raffa was aloof for the first half of the party, but he spent the last two hours with me, a hand around my low back sewing me into his side. He spoke to my friends in slow, patient Italian so they could understand him, and even indulged Fergus in a debate about the Italian football league.
At one point, Greta had leaned into me and whispered, “Good job, Guinevere. He is an Italian dream.”
Now everyone had gone, leaving only the mainstays in the palazzo. Servio and Annella were already at work cleaning the space even though it was after midnight, but they refused to go to bed before it was done.
I would have liked them to join us, but it was enough to have the others.
They were gathered in a loose knot in the study, speaking quietly, when I found them after setting everything up for my Perseids tradition, but they went quiet as soon as I entered.
For some reason, I was nervous, hands wringing together, damp fingers tangling. Maybe because I was homesick twice over, for the family I had back in Michigan that wasn’t speaking to me and the family I’d made here that I had an uncertain future with.
“Back home, my family spends most of the summer at our cabin in Gun Lake,” I explained in Italian, because it was natural now after weeks of practice. “During the meteor shower, we lay in the grass together and make wishes on shooting stars.”
I could feel Raffa’s gaze on me like warm hands, sliding over my face and body possessively. His look said, “I love you.” It said, “You are my shooting star.”
“Will you come and lay with me on the terrace and make a wish with me?” I asked softly, feeling slightly childish but pushing past the embarrassment because I knew how to do that better now.
