Page 16 of The Secrets We Keep

She paused in the doorway, and when he said nothing, she gave him a tight smile and stepped into the hall, closing the door softly behind her. Leading Maeve on for several months was something he was going to have to feel bad about later. Once he figured out what he was going to do about Sienna.

Dropping into his chair, he ran a cursory records search in Italy for Sienna Gallo. There was her boarding school education in Milan. She’d hated that school and the nuns that ran it. Then her university education in Rome. She’d leveraged her low-ranking position in the Gallo organization to get her parents to agree to an education. The perfect way for her to be an asset to the family.

There was the occasional society page mention of her being seen at clubs and on the arms of sons of prominent men at social functions. She’d seriously dated an ambassador’s son at university. Not surprising considering how well-connected her uncle was.

But then it was nothing but newspaper stories about her family’s murder, speculation on who could have done it and why. The police ultimately arrested and convicted members of a known small-time gang who liked to cover up their crimes with arson.

It had never sat well with him. The whole thing had always seemed like a hit. But it wasn’t as if his father had given him leave to investigate. He regretted not digging into it more then. Maybe he would have been able to find her. Even though he wasn’t sure how.

He didn’t have access to resources like this one three years ago, and even if he had, she’d ceased to exist. There was no other mention of Sienna Gallo after the night of her twenty-second birthday. Not even when he ran a broader search in Europe. Wherever she’d gone, she’d become someone else when she got there.

Tapping his fingers on the edge of the desk, he brought up a new search window. She was renting an apartment. Apartments meant paperwork. He plugged in the approximate location of her building until he found the one he wanted and brought up leasing records.

An old building from the late 1800s renovated into apartments in the last five years. There weren’t many units in the building, and he scanned until he found records for the four apartments on the fourth floor.

Two couples, a single man, and one Anna Marino. The name didn’t suit her. Not even with her fake blond hair and blue eyes. She’d never be anyone but Sienna to him.

He ran another search using the alias, which proved to be a treasure trove of information. There were similar schooling records for similar time frames but different schools than the ones she actually went to. There was a childhood background, but it was shallow, enough to make her look like a real person but not enough to give you too deep a glimpse into who she was.

It had information for parents who were missionaries and said she moved around Europe a lot and spoke four languages. She did speak four languages, but only because she liked to learn them. As far as he knew, she’d never lived outside Italy before she decided to run.

He sifted through all the information, zeroing in on the last three years. Three weeks after Sienna’s twenty-second birthday, Anna Marino showed up near Berlin, renting first a room in a boarding house-type place and then, a few months later, a little cottage.

She worked remotely in IT for a German engineering firm making good money. And then, true to her word, a little over a week ago, she left Germany and created a paper trail moving south to Sicily. Where now she was living in Catania and working at…Gallo Industries?

His eyes narrowed on the screen. Son of a fucking bitch. There was only one reason she’d get a job right under her uncle’s nose, hiding in plain sight. She suspected Gallo of murdering her family.

Luca certainly wouldn’t put it past the fucker. The man was ruthless in the pursuit of what he wanted. That’s why waging this war against him required a precise strategy and operating ten steps ahead. Something they couldn’t do if Sienna started picking Gallos off one by one. Or wiping them out all in one go the way her family had been eradicated.

Fuck. He couldn’t leave her to her own devices now, couldn’t wait for her to seek her revenge and leave Sicily. Because if he was right and she was here to kill her uncle and his family as payback, then her goals clashed directly with theirs.

Logging out of the program and clearing his keystrokes, he glanced at his watch. It would be late by the time he made it across the island to Catania, but he had to talk to her. He needed to know what her plans were to make sure they didn’t interfere with what they had in store for Gallo.

He wouldn’t ask her to abandon whatever plans she’d come to carry out. He couldn’t. But he needed to make sure his family didn’t get screwed in the process.

Chapter Nine

Pushing her muscles through one last punishing flight of stairs, she exited onto her floor and followed the narrow hallway to the other end and into her apartment. She’d left all the lights burning out of habit, a silly bit of comfort to chase away the shadows and the demons hiding in them.

Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, she pressed it against her forehead and carried it into the bathroom. She twisted the nozzle for the shower and tested the temperature with her fingers.

At some point, she was going to have to make use of that incredible tub. But she’d pushed herself extra hard at the gym tonight, and if she slipped in there now, she’d probably fall asleep and drown.

Carefully removing her contacts and depositing them into the case, she stripped out of her shorts and sports bra. She avoided looking at herself in the mirror before stepping under the spray, closing her eyes, and tilting her head back, running her fingers through her long hair to wet it.

She’d considered cutting it off instead of letting it swing almost to her waist more than a few times. It would certainly make it easier to maintain, cheaper too. But every time she reached for a pair of scissors, something stopped her. More accurately, Luca and the memory of how he’d liked to play with it stopped her.

Gliding his fingers through it when they were wrapped around each other, fisting his hands in it when he kissed her, pulling her head back to expose her neck for his lips or arch her back with his cock inside her. Some days, when she looked in the mirror and hardly recognized herself, it was the only thing that felt like a tangible tether to who she used to be.

She was rinsing conditioner out of her hair when a dull thudding resonated through the apartment. Was someone really playing music that loud at this hour? The banging suddenly stopped, and she frowned, reaching for the bar of soap and lathering it in her palms. She was running the suds over her stomach when the thudding resumed, then stopped a second time.

Shutting off the water, she listened for the sound again. There it was. Definitely not music. Someone pounding on a door. Her door. She rolled her eyes. Probably some drunk asshole with the wrong apartment.

Squeezing the excess water out of her hair, she quickly wrapped herself in a towel, prepared to tell the guy to take a fucking hike before he woke up the entire building. Peering through the peephole, she jumped back when Luca raised his fist to pound on the door a fourth time.

Opening it, she gripped the lapel of his suit jacket and yanked him inside, slamming the door behind him.

“Jesus Christ, Luca. Do you know what time it is?” She checked the peephole again to make sure no one poked their head out at Luca’s late-night wake-up call. “What the fuck are you doing here?”