Page 117 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince

Later, after stories and a tray of warm milk and honey fetched silently by one of the night staff, we sit at the long dining table under the veranda, eating simple food in our nightclothes.

The light is golden.

The laughter is low.

I can barely taste anything on the plate, not because the food is bland but because this peace is so sharp it steals the rest of my senses.

Dante carves meat for the girls without speaking.

I pour a second glass of wine I won’t drink.

Arietta makes a face when her sister drops rice into the sauce.

It is normal.

It is perfect.

It is heartbreaking.

I go to bed with them after, one girl on either side of me, small hands tangled in the sleeves of my nightgown.

Dante kisses my forehead before returning to the master suite.

I think he does it so I can pretend this is what it would look like if there were no war waiting beyond the gate.

I let him.

Sleep comes in waves, and somewhere in the tide of it, I dream of my father’s study.

The old scent of ink and ash.

The map he used to keep hidden behind the false panel.

And the seal I was never allowed to break.

When I wake, it is still early.

Dante is already gone. The girls are dressed and out the door with their nanny before I’ve even tied the sash on my robe.

I eat toast I don't want.

I reread the same page of a book four times without comprehension.

I wait until the house feels still again.

Until the men are in meetings and the women are at their tasks.

Then I get out of the Salvatore home and take a taxi to the old Rossi estate.

My chest clenches when we reach and I get down after paying the driver.

The Rossi crest is still carved above the gate—weatherworn, flaking at the edges.

The lion we used for public eyes, flanked by olive branches.

My father called it ornamental.

Renato looks the same. "Ma’am, to what do we owe the?—"