Page 22 of My Dark Ever After

“Carm!” Guinevere exclaimed, leaning forward to place a hand on his shoulder and grin at him in the rearview mirror. “I didn’t know you were driving. I’m sorry I was ignoring you.”

“You’ve had a rough day,” he allowed, eyes sparkling as he raised a hand to place it over hers before pulling to a stop in front of the house. “It is about to be more exhausting after you meet the Romano women. I was happy to let you rest.”

“Well, I am happy to see you,” she admitted, though a shadow crossed her expression, and she dropped her hand from his shoulder. “Even if we are more strangers than friends.”

Before he could respond, Guinevere was opening her door and slipping outside.

I looked at Carmine, who winced and shrugged. “It’s going to take time, boss.”

Fortunately, time was one thing I seemed to have, given we had no leads on who was provoking the Pietra and Greco clans into turning against us.

“What do you say, Maximo—should we enter the fray?” I asked my five-year-old nephew.

“No,” he declared imperiously. “I think Carmine, you, and me should go have a boys’ night. You can take me for gelato in the piazza.”

I laughed, swinging him into my arms as I got out of the car. “I promise we will have a boys’ night soon, but I think your mother and aunties would be very angry with me if I left without even saying hello.”

He pouted, but also shook his head. “They’re kind of demanding like that.”

I was still laughing when I stopped beside Guinevere where she was frozen at the side of the car, hugging herself as if it was cold. Without thinking, I placed an arm around her shoulders, balancing Maxi on my other hip as I led us toward my waiting family.

“Ciao, mamma.” I greeted my mother first, stepping away from Guinevere to kiss her on both cheeks and then doing the same down the line of sisters waiting for me. When I hit Leo and Ludo, I exchanged back-slapping hugs. “You saw fit to create a welcome committee, I see.”

“We were eager to meet your American friend,” Carlotta said with a sly smile. “I’ve been very jealous that Delfina got to meet her and we didn’t.”

“I told you, it was a coincidence,” Delfina said with a roll of her eyes before stepping up to Guinevere. She grabbed her by the shoulders and pressed a kiss to each cheek. “Hello again, friend. It is nice to see you.”

Whatever frostiness Guinevere had dredged up for me, she could not do the same for my sister. My fawn was a naturally warm, open woman with a big heart who had spent most of her life feeling lonely and shuttered away. It was no wonder she yearned for connection, and something in my chest ached at seeing the way she flushed and smiled shyly under Delfina’s attention.

“Ciao di nuovo,” she said in Italian.

My sister’s grin almost split her face in two. I knelt to deal with my swarm of nephews and an enthusiastically barking Aio, keeping an eye on them as she led Guinevere up to meet the family. Even though part of me yearned to do the introductions myself, I knew it would only make things more awkward. I had called ahead to tell my family I was bringing a female guest to visit, and Stacci, who had been the one to answer, had crowed with delight when I confirmed it was “my American girl.” There was no doubt they would treat her kindly, with the kind of overenthusiastic warmth characteristic of the female Romanos.

“Che bella,” my mother exclaimed, opening her arms wide for a hug. “Vieni.”

Guinevere hesitantly stepped into the circle of her embrace and then laughed breathlessly when Mamma squeezed her tight.

“Welcome to Villa Romano,” Mamma pronounced, punctuating the words with a kiss to each cheek. “We are very happy to have you.”

Dinner at the villa was always a production. Guinevere seemed almost in a daze as my mother and sisters press-ganged her into helping in the kitchen, placing her before a crate of melons and prosciutto to make the antipasti and then shuffling her to the other end of the kitchen to cut the homemade bread Mamma made each day.

A happy daze, though.

I watched through the archway in the dining room as Leo, Ludo, and Carmine updated me on developments in the last two days.

“The Grecos and Pietras aren’t really working together,” Carmine was telling me. “Apparently, they both have issues, but Alfonso Greco and Gaetano Pietra hate each other.”

“Who told you that?” Leo asked, updating his notes on his tablet.

Carmine glowered at Leo. A level of professional competitiveness would always exist between them. Leo was my oldest friend, and his father had been my father’s consigliere, but Carmine and Renzo had been with me in London. They knew the man I was now in ways Leo did not.

“Does it matter? It is from a reputable source.”

“It does not matter,” I agreed. “What does is finding out who sent the funeral chrysanthemums and the assassin. Tell me we have a lead on that.”

“I got something,” Ludo grunted, raising his hand like we were in a classroom. It was a gesture that would have endeared him to Guinevere even more. She had once told me that she found Ludo—the best hackerin the Italian Mafia—adorable. “You remember Angela Greco was married to a Tancredi? Well, Iacopone Basti, the assassin? He’s listed as going to school every year until graduation with Mario Tancredi.”

Tombola!