Page 23 of My Dark Ever After

That was the connection we were looking for.

“So it was the Grecos who sent a man into my house,” I said darkly, fury moving hot and slow like lava beneath my skin. It was hard to harness that power until the right moment, until the right people were in my vicinity, so I could unleash all that volcanic rage to the ultimate consequence.

Leo frowned. “Are we really going to base our conclusions on something so tenuous? I want to eviscerate the people who threatened us just as much as you do, but going to school with someone is not exactly telling.Cazzo, Raffa, you and I went to school with two judges and one of the heads of the DIA. Doesn’t mean they are corrupt.”

One of them was. The money I had funneled to him had bought him a charming mansion in Mallorca last year.

But Leo had a point, as he usually did.

“Besides, we both know the Pietra family has a much better reason to want you dead than the Grecos do,” he added.

“Look into it further,” I told Ludo. “In the meantime, Carmine, set up a meeting with the Albanians. I want to talk to someone in the Shqiptarë inner circle about their dealings with the Grecos. See what they know.”

“On it,” he agreed. “Renzo and Martina are waiting for you at the palazzo. They have some more things to go over. Martina heard a rumor about the Pietras, but she said she wouldn’t tell anyone but you.”

“I’ll leave after dinner,” I said, then caught sight of Leo’s face. “What is it?”

“You just got here,fratello. Your family misses you. At least stay the night. If you need someone to go to Firenze tonight, let it be me. You are tired and much missed.”

A wan smile claimed my mouth as I stepped forward to a clap a hand to Leo’s shoulder. “You are a good man, Leo di Conte.”

“And you,” he told me. “Stay and see your woman settled and your family happy. I’ll go see Martina.”

I nodded my thanks, squeezing his shoulder. “Could you also be eager to leave to see that woman you are sleeping with?”

Leo blinked. “How the hell did you know?”

A shrug. “I recognize the look of a man in love, maybe. Tell me, what is her name? When do we meet her?”

His mouth twisted, but he rubbed his hand over it after to massage out the kink. “Not yet. Soon, though. We are still ... figuring things out.”

“Tell me about it,” I said dryly, my own smile just as mangled.

From the kitchen, an explosion of laughter. Even amid the tangle of sound, I could parse out Guinevere’s lovely laugh.

It made me ache to hold her. To eat that happiness off her tongue.

I had missed the taste of it.

“Ragazzi,” Mamma called. “Dinner is served!”

If Guinevere was overwhelmed by the chaos of a Romano dinner, especially after running for her life yesterday, you could not tell. She laughed with Lando, Carlotta’s husband, about the first time she tried a tripe sandwich with me at the Mercato Centrale and asked Emiliano questions about how to hunt boar, given that we were eating a pasta sauce made from one of his successes. She fielded questions from my eager sisters as if she was used to holding court, evading the more invasive inquiries by offering an interesting story or asking her own questions. Luckily, the heavy sweep of her dark hair hid the bullet graze over her temple, or else I was sure we would have faced a furious barrage of questions about how I could have let Guinevere get hurt.

I already felt enough guilt and grief as it stood.

The candles lit amid the various platters of food on the table cast her in sepia tones that made her seem otherworldly, transcendent. My fingers itched to test her skin, feel if it was flushed and real against my own. I wanted to brush out that long, dark hair until it shone and braid it back away from her face before folding her into fresh sheets and tasting every inch of her to see if it was as ambrosial as I remembered.

I would have settled, though, for a single glance from those long-lashed doe eyes.

Instead, she spent the entire three-hour repast smiling and engaging with everyone who was not me.

She had cast a spell over the table, even Leo, who regarded her with solemn eyes, that odd quirk in his mouth that said he was reluctantly enchanted.

“She’s lovely,” Mamma told me when some of us started to clear away the dessert plates and empty glasses.

Leo was popping the cork on a dessert wine that he insisted Guinevere sample, and Zacheo was asleep in Carlotta’s lap, drooling on her dress. It was a tableau I had been a part of countless times, but never with Guinevere at its heart, shining brighter than any of the candles on the table or stars winking above us in the clear night sky.

“Yes,” I agreed as I carried the plates inside to the kitchen, where Stacci and Ludo were washing up.