Page 25 of Playing the Sicilian's Game of Revenge

When she spoke again, her tone was still quiet, careful. He did not like how close it sounded to pity.

“You say her family, but if they were hers, they are yours too.”

Teo shook his head before he realized she couldn’t see him. “They did not know I existed. They live in northern Italy. To them, my mother was long dead before she died—and I inconsequential.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Since he was not—he had not left any possibility for some silly reunion. Why should they care for him or about him? Too many years passed, too much... Dante in him. He’d felt they’d be happier not knowing he existed. “When I spoke to them, I did not mention who I was or what exactly I was after. They do not know my mother had a son. They did not need to.”

“But—”

“No buts, Saverina. This is not a fairy tale.” He refused to believe in such things. “For thirty years they did not know of my existence. They thought my mother simply turned away from them. Best for everyone if that does not change. That is the end of this discussion.”

“You don’t think they’d want to know their family didn’t turn away from them? That they have more family? A piece of her?”

A piece of her. That twisted inside of him like shrapnel. But she was no longer here. There were no pieces left. “That is the end of this discussion, Saverina,” he growled.

There was a considering silence, and he thought she’d let it go. Thought she’d listen. He should have known better.

“It’s painful for you,” she said softly. She even reached out and touched his arm. Initiating touch even though it was against her rules. This was not public because the driver was separated from them by the screen. This touch was not an act.

He blamed his surprise over that for not stopping her before she said the rest.

“But pain is not such a bad thing, Teo. Dealing with your pain and grief often leads to beautiful things on the other side.”

There was no other side of the loss of his mother. There was only revenge. He pulled his arm away from her touch. “I do not know what this is, Saverina, but I will never give you what you want.”

She inhaled sharply, jerked her hand back, and scooted into her little corner where he couldn’t see her expression even in the passing lights. “I feel sorry for you, Teo,” she murmured, her voice icy now.

“You should not. I soon will have everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“No, you won’t. You will get your revenge, we will get our revenge, but then your whole life will stretch out in front of you, and then what?”

“I will enjoy it.”

She laughed. Bitterly. “You wouldn’t know how. You isolate yourself from anything and everything that might be enjoyable. You refuse to look at all the hurts you’ve been dealt. You think pushing them away will make them go away, but trust me, they won’t. The hurts linger until you deal with them.”

It was his turn for a bitter laugh. “You’ll have to excuse me, principessa, if I do not take a pampered heiress’s word on hurts and grief.”

He thought that harshness would shut her up. Perhaps he was even desperate for it to.

“That might hurt my feelings if it were true, Teo. But you know my story. You know it has not all been pampering and easy. Which leads me to believe you’re nothing more than a lion with a thorn in its paw. Roaring and lashing out because of your own pain.”

“I haven’t begun to roar and lash out, bedda.”

She only made a considering sound, and they spent the rest of the drive in silence. But he could not fully erase her words, her experience from his mind. And that was unforgiveable.

CHAPTER TEN

SAVERINA COULD HAVE kept arguing with him, but he would only build walls there. Where it hurt and he didn’t even realize it. So blinded by his revenge—by this thing that he thought took the grief away.

But the grief never went away. Whether you loved a parent or not. There was always grief—whether they were gone or whether they’d never been what they should have been. She wished this understanding would help harden her heart to him, but all it did was soften it.

He was a grown man with the world at his fingertips, and she’d been a young, confused girl working through her grief. But the real difference between them was even in the absence of her parents—both when they’d been alive and after they’d died, after Rocca had died—she’d had her family. Not just Lorenzo, but all her many brothers and sisters who’d looked after one another, made sure they were all okay.

Teo had no one.

But pushing at him would make it impossible to ever get that through to him. Maybe it was a pipe dream to think if she was careful, she might be able to help him. The way she and her siblings had once helped Lorenzo realize that loving Brianna was a gift—not a punishment.

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