Page 82 of My Dark Ever After

“Cazzo,” I muttered, staring hard at the image of her father. “The woman on the train was Ginevra Pietra. The German said she looked like her mother, and if she looks anything like John Stone, né Mariano Giovanni Pietra, then it had to be her.”

“They wouldn’t hurt their own blood,” Carmine said, but he didn’t sound so sure.

Gaetano Pietra was of a school like my father’s.

Cold and ruthless as the edge of a blade.

“You don’t think she knew ...” Martina whispered like she could hardly stand to suggest the words.

“Assolutamente no,” I said, voice rough as I spoke through the weight of this new information. “She was not the kind to keep secrets, especially not after her father and I kept some egregious ones from her.”

“She could have been frightened to tell you.” Martina continued to speak gently, as if that would soften the blow of her implication.

“No. She did not know, and she did not enter into our lives as some kind of ruse to bring down the Romanos.” I shook my head. “I told Guinevere the other day a quote by Dante, ‘Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us. It is a gift.’ Maybe this was John Stone’s karma, that his daughter would find love in the country he hated because he never saw fit to tell her why he hated it. Maybe it was Guinevere’s destiny all along. She came to Italy to find herself, and in so many ways, she has. There was always this side of her that liked the darkness in me, that was called to it.”

“We all saw it,” Ludo agreed with a grunt. “But now she is with the wrong family, and we have to get her back.”

“The Venetian will expect me to show up at Pisa’s Piazza dei Miracoli on Saturday because he believes I love her enough to die for her.”

“Do you?” Carmine asked, head cocked.

The rest of mysoldati—my friends—peered at me in much the same way.

“Yes.” It was the truest truth I had ever uttered.

Would I die for Guinevere?

A hundred times over.

But I was not willing for either of us to die when we’d had so little of this life together. There were still things I wanted with her, things I had never hoped to dream of until she had appeared in my life like a fairy-tale mirage.

My worst nightmares and hers had come true with this kidnapping, but I would devote every moment of the rest of my life to making itup to her and wooing her to the dark side. Failure in either was not an option.

“I would die for her, but I will not play the sheep led so easily to slaughter. I am the wolf, the head of this family, andcapo dei capi. If the Venetian wants what is mine, he will have to try much harder to outsmart me, because blunt force trauma will not take me down.”

“So what is your plan?” Carm asked.

“First,” I said, as something outlandish started to form in my mind. “Nothing we speak of leaves this room. Not even to Leo. Let us hope Philippe was our only mole, but until we know for sure, our circle of trust is the four people in this room. I have an idea, but I have to admit, I am not sure it will work.”

“What is it?” Martina asked impatiently.

I sighed even though I knew this was the best course of action to get Guinevere back.

“I am going to call her father.”

They left me to make the phone call, going into the kitchen to eat and discuss how best to approach the Pietra castle near Pisa.

I sat in my chair, looking at the painting on the wall behind my desk, which I had purchased after Guinevere had left for Michigan. It was John Collier’s portrait of King Arthur’s Guinevere, crowned queen and resplendent with flowers riding a white horse. It appealed to me for many reasons, not least because the image depicted the scene in a legend where the queen is kidnapped, but her portrayal is of a serene, noble beauty ready to take on the world.

She reminded me of my Guinevere. The peace and stability she brought to my life, her elegance despite her youth, and the sincerity of her curious, insatiable mind.

I had taken to staring at it when I was lost in thought. The two framed photos on the desk I had of Guinevere and me together—onethe very same selfie she had kept back at her apartment in Michigan—were too hard to look at for long. Painful reminders, like an urn kept on a mantel.

I dialed the number Ludo had given me and listened to the monotonous ring, which had never sounded more portentous.

“Hello, John Stone speaking.”

His voice was stripped of Italy, flat and almost nasal like Midwest accents could be.