Page 75 of Of Beauty, Brains, & Bravery

“Really? Is this the time for that?”

“Put her on the phone,” my dad said, and I pressed my lips together.

“Elisabetta, your mom wants to speak to you.”

“She does?” Elisabetta looked slightly taken aback.

“She does.”

I handed her the phone, trying not to burst into anger. It wasn’t anyone in the room’s fault what had happened.

“Hey, Mom, I’m fine. Everyone’s fine. Nothing happened to me. No one did anything to me. I know you think I should be at school, but school wasn’t working out. Remember, I told you we were reading that book,War and Peace?” She paused. “Well, no, I’m not saying it to distract you, Mom. I’m just saying that I think that I want to…” She paused and rolled her eyes. Then, she mouthed, “I’m sorry,” to me, and I just shook my head.

What the fuck was Luisa talking about to Elisabetta? That was more important than me figuring out what was going on and why my dad had not been more surprised that Tommasso Romano had gone to war with us. Tommasso was our consigliere. He was pretty much the most important person in our famiglia who was not a member of the actual family. Something was going on here, and I didn’t understand what it was.

Elisabetta was mumbling something on the phone, and I could see Imogen looking thoughtful as she stared at her.

“Sorry,” she said, handing me the phone back. “Here.”

I stared at the screen. It was dead.

“So, I guess Dad’s not going to be any help.”

I stared at Alessandro. “Did you really expect he would be?”

“We need to find Tommasso Romano,” I said. “There’s something bigger going on here that we don’t know about.”

“I agree,” Alessandro said. “Nothing’s adding up, and,” he said, “how did Tommasso know that we were going to kidnap Callie?”

He stared at me, and I stared at him and shook my head. “I don’t know.” I pressed my lips together. “But we need to find Tommasso, and we need to take him down.”

“You do realize that’s probably what he wants,” Gia said.

I stared at her for a couple of seconds. “What do you mean?”

“If he’s taken Callie, it’s because he wants to get to you. Right?”

“Right, I suppose.” I shrugged.

“And if he wants to get to you and draw you out, then that’s exactly what you’re doing by going to him.”

“Then I guess today is his fucking lucky day because I’m on my way and he’ll be lucky if he survives.”

29

Callie

“Antonio, open the door,” I said, sounding frantic. “Stop playing games with me. Please, Antonio, open the door.” I started banging my fists against the door. “I hate you,” I screamed. “Antonio, please just open the door. Let me out. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I’ll tell my father whatever you want. You can speak to him. You can deal with this. Just stop doing this to me.” I could still hear the sounds of the lullaby. What the fuck was going on? Was he playing a recording next door just to play with my mind? “Antonio,” I screamed louder and louder. I was sobbing now. It had all been too much for me. I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was. I couldn’t deal with it. Then all the lights in the room went out. My heart stopped. “Antonio?” I questioned. I could hear footsteps outside the door. “Antonio.” But whoever was there didn’t open the door, and they didn’t come in. I took a couple of steps back. I looked around. I needed something to hit him with.

I didn’t care if I knocked him out dead. I just needed to get out of here. I took a couple of steps back, and then I remembered the golden candelabras on the mantlepiece. I walked over and grabbed one in my hand. I could hear someone playing with the locks. I stood there frozen. I didn’t know what to do. The door opened, but I couldn’t see anything. Something dropped, and then the door closed back again quickly. “Antonio,” I screamed, running to the door. “Please don’t do this to me. Please. You know I can’t deal with this. I can’t. Please, if any part of you ever liked me, you’ll let me out, Antonio, please,” I said over and over, but he didn’t open the door again. The lights flickered back on, and I blinked and looked around. Antonio or whoever had opened the door dropped a brown box onto the floor. I bit down on my lower lip. I wanted to know what was inside, but I was scared to find out. What if it was another horse’s head, a dog’s, a cat’s, or even a rat’s head?

What if it was a bunch of cockroaches or spiders or snakes? I couldn’t deal with that. I didn’t want to know, but my curiosity got the better of me. I walked over to the box and picked it up. I held it gingerly, waiting to see if something was moving inside. It wasn’t. I carried the box over to the table and placed it down. I bent my head to the box and sniffed. It smelled normal, not like a rotting carcass of meat. I knew I needed to open the box. I needed to see what was inside. Maybe there’d be a key or something or, I didn’t know, a way to get out, though that was wishful thinking. If Antonio wanted me to escape, he would’ve just left the door open. I took a deep breath and opened the box. Inside was an envelope. “That’s it?” I exclaimed, lifting it up. I stared at the front. It just said, “For you.”

“Am I you?” I muttered out loud. I assumed I was you, but why didn’t he just put my name?

I opened the envelope and then stared at the piece of paper. My name wasn’t on it. Instead, there was a lot of writing typed up on what appeared to be a typewriter. I read it out loud quickly to see what it said. “‘Once upon a midnight dreary,’” I said, my mind flickering with a memory of something. I started over again. “‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.’” I stopped. Where did I know that from? “Focus, Callie, continue reading.” I knew I was going crazy, speaking to myself, but I couldn’t stop it. I continued reading. “‘Over many a quaint and curious glory of forgotten lore.’”

“No, Callie, that says, ‘curious volume,’ not ‘curious glory,’” I chastised myself. I wasn’t sure where I’d gotten glory from. “Where do I know this from?” I bit down on my lower lip and quickly read the rest of the verse to see if that would help. I read the line aloud, “‘Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore.’”

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