Page 9 of The Secrets We Keep

She’d never told another living soul this story before. Only documented it in the pages of her notebooks. She hardly knew where to begin or what to expect from him once he knew.

“I assume you read about what happened to my family.”

“The papers said someone broke in during a birthday party and started shooting. Your birthday party.” His voice was thick with emotion, but his expression was unreadable.

“That was true.” She took a deep breath. “We were eating dinner. One minute everything was fine, and the next minute it was chaos. Someone rang the doorbell, and my brother got up to answer it. There was a gunshot, and then…”

She forced the tremble from her voice, taking another drink to ease the tightness in her throat. “There were so many of them. Papa, my brothers, they barely had time to draw weapons before they were cut down. We tried to get to the kids, get them out the back. But more men came in through the kitchen.”

Her hands started shaking, and she set the bottle on the counter before she dropped it. “The kids were screaming, crying, running. Rina made it to the door with the twins, but the next time I looked up, she was on the floor. Blood,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “There was so much blood.”

Unable to look at him, she kept her eyes fixed on the shiny silver surface of the refrigerator and the reflection of the marina. “I tried to grab Pietro. Marcello’s youngest. And then pain exploded in my shoulder. More pain in my side.” Sienna cupped her hand over the ugly scar on her stomach.

“Someone came to stand over me, so I held my breath and played dead. He fired, but he didn’t hit me. It was Pietro. H-he shrieked when he died.”

Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest, Pietro’s face swimming into her vision. She still heard the sound of him dying in her nightmares. A noise she’d never be able to wash out, no matter how many times she punished herself for not doing more to save him.

“I lay there listening to pleading, crying, boots stomping around, and more gunshots. Then car doors slamming and squealing tires. I don’t know how long it was, I think I might have passed out, but then I smelled smoke. When I opened my eyes, the room was filled with it. I could barely see faces. Except for Pietro’s…”

“How did you get out?”

She jumped at the sound of his voice. Her eyes darted in his direction, where he stood perfectly still by the door, watching her intently. “I had to crawl”—she swallowed a sob and waited a beat—“over their bodies. I was afraid whoever attacked us might be watching the house to make sure no one got out. But I figured if they were, I’d be dead either way, and I didn’t want to burn alive.”

When he took a step forward, the urge to go to him was overwhelming. The desire to feel his arms around her, to hear him whisper comforting words in her ear, was something she thought she’d exorcised a long time ago.

“Rina was in the way of the door. Her and the twins. I couldn’t move them to get out, and the fire had already consumed the front of the house. So I broke a window and half climbed, half fell out of it. I cut myself on a piece of glass.”

She wrapped her fingers around her throat, tracing the long, thin scar.

“Where did you go?” His voice was soft, strained, and he took another step forward.

“My father had a safe house no one knew about. A bunker, really. I laid low there for a bit. Patched myself up and tried to figure out what to do next.”

“Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you let me help you? I would have helped you, Sienna,” Luca said, a note of desperation in his voice.

“I didn’t know who I could trust.”

“You suspected me?” His tone was an accusation.

“No.” She shook her head. “Not you. Never you, Luca. But your father? Romano? Their alliance was new then. I didn’t know how strong it was. The men wore masks; they didn’t speak. I had no idea who they were or why they were killing us. I needed to get out.”

She had an idea, though, and plenty of time to think about it while she recovered.

“Where did you go?” he asked after a long pause. “How did you manage it?”

“My father always kept money at his safe houses. Once I dug the bullets out of my body and sewed myself up, I waited three days to make sure I didn’t have an infection. Then I took every bit of money I could find, more than I was expecting, a few supplies, and I went north.”

“I went to your funeral.” His voice was quiet. “There were so many bodies. They buried each family together. I guess since you were unmarried, they decided to bury you with your parents. I stood in the back so no one noticed me. I watched…” His breath hitched, and her heart squeezed in her chest. “I watched them lower your casket into the ground. If it wasn’t you in there, who was it?”

She’d wondered the same thing when she read stories of her funeral. Probably a maid, but she had no way of confirming. “I don’t know,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry, Luca.”

“You’re dead. I grieved for you. And you didn’t even trust me enough to let me help you.”

She bit into the soft flesh of her cheek to hold back the tears, wrapping her arms tight around her. Every second of every one of the three days she spent in her father’s bunker recuperating enough to run, she’d thought about going to him.

She dreamed about tumbling into his arms and hearing him whisper that everything would be okay, that he would fix it, make it right. That nothing bad would ever happen to her again.

Of course he had no part in what happened to her family. She’d never even entertained the thought. But trust was scarce in those days, and as much as she loved him, no one knew about their relationship.

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