Page 72 of My Dark Ever After

“Did you find what you wanted?” he asked me as we walked down to the parked car together.

I was surprised because Philippe was not the kind to make idle conversation. Like most of the othersoldatiat the villa, he was there to protect and serve, not to socialize. Only the core four, Leo, Renzo, Carmine, and Martina, seemed to hold a higher standing, doing as they wanted and interacting with the family as if they were key components of it.

“I wouldn’t say I wanted to find it, but yes,” I said with a little smile as he beeped open the door of the Maserati Levante and held the door for me to get inside.

When he took his place in the driver’s seat, he peered at me in the reflection of the rearview mirror. “What did you discover?”

I frowned, but answered smoothly. “I was curious about my ancestry. Apparently, I am distantly related to Petrarch.”

Most likely, I wasn’t, but Petrarch’s real surname was Petracco, which was a derivative of Pietra.

“You look like them,” he surprised me by saying.

“Excuse me?”

Philippe smiled, a slightly goofy grin because it was crooked and he had a chip in his front left tooth. “You look like the Pietras.”

A shiver ran down my spine like a needle point.

“How do you know the Pietras?” I asked calmly, even though there was no way he should have known I was related to them. He hadn’t been with me in the archives, and no one else knew.

“My boss does some work with them,” he explained with a shrug.

Which could have been a fair thing to say, but his wording was strange.

Hisboss.

Why not just say Raffa did work with them?

Unless his boss was someone else entirely.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked, because I knew the city well enough to realize we were not heading south, back over the Arno to the building where Raffa was having his meeting with the Albanians, but north.

“The train station. Boss said to meet him and the others there since you took so long. They’re already done and waiting for us.”

“Va bene,” I murmured, slipping my phone out of my pocket so I could text Raffa to confirm.

In the right-hand corner, a small symbol denoted I didn’t have service.

Impossible.

We weren’t in the countryside but in the cosmopolitan hub of Florence.

Unless ... unless Philippe had done something to the reception in the car?

Porco dio, this was not looking good.

I searched the back of the car for anything I could use to defend myself if I had to and found absolutely nothing. Trying to leash thepanic daring to break free and run rampant through my body, I focused on the best course of action.

Act calm, like I was as stupid as he clearly thought I was.

“I can’t wait to get back to the villa,” I said mildly. “I could sleep for a week. Grape harvesting is hard labor.”

Philippe smiled that crooked grin, and I was shocked by the lack of malice in the expression. How could he betray Raffa and take me toward some no-doubt-horrible end and look so ... amicable?

“Saw you dancing with Leo. I basically grew up with him. He’s a good guy. Better than most of the rest of us.”

“I could say the same thing about Raffa,” I said carefully, just to test his reaction.