Page 14

The rest of the ride was quiet, except for the men giving us directions through the speakers. They were relaying whichever direction Sistine went in.

When our ending destination started closing in, a grin came to my face. A country music festival. A bunch of artists from America were playing. She had a ticket.

It was never easy for us to blend in in a crowd.

We were tall men with wide shoulders. My brother was like a fucking tank.

But it was good to have a crowd. Safer for Sistine and easier for me to keep distance between us.

And even though it was my heart vs. my feet, I kept them planted.

I was so fucking curious to know how she was going to act when she didn’t think I was around.

My eyes narrowed when a woman, who seemed to be about her age, met up with her.

They hugged and then found a spot to watch the concert.

Sistine set her backpack by her feet, and after she unraveled her braid, her hair falling around her in a wavy halo, she unzipped her bag and set a black cowboy hat on her head.

My hand came to my heart. It seemed like my flesh and bones had disappeared, and my palm was the only thing keeping it inside.

Marciano nudged me with his elbow. “You still breathing, brother?”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. I couldn’t find my breath.

He grinned and, lifting the birra Remo had bought for him, howled into the air when it was announced the first artist would be taking the stage shortly.

Remo leaned in close and spoke in my ear over the noise, loud enough for me to hear. “Bosco Cornaro. He has just arrived with another man. Bosco is moving toward Sistine and Anselma . My intel tells me his family is close with the jewelers. We believe Anselma invited the two men.”

My arms crossed and my jaw clenched. My muscles tightened.

The vein in my forehead started to swell.

Rio had briefed me on all aspects of Sistine’s life that were known to the public.

The man Remo was talking about, Bosco, was a family friend.

Sistine’s father was considering him as a husband for his talented daughter.

His family supplied our jewelers with precious metals. It would be a good match on paper.

That unfamiliar heat rose in my heart and spread throughout my veins. I was a fucking volcano ready to erupt. It wasn’t his reaction to her I anticipated. It was her reaction to seeing him.

The two boys walked up. Sistine’s friend, Anselma, didn’t seem surprised but was excited.

She jumped up and down, clapping her hands, and wrapped her arms around both boys.

Sistine smiled, but her face was mostly neutral, except when the two walked off to grab a drink.

She gave her friend an aggravated look, squeezing her arm.

Seemed like Sistine was complaining to her.

The two women went back and forth. Sistine wasn’t happy, while Anselma seemed to be pleading her case.

Right before the two boys came back, Sistine blew out an aggravated breath and turned toward the stage.

Sistine refused to budge from her spot when the boy her father was considering for an arranged marriage—my jaw tightened even at the thought—came back.

It seemed like he wanted to get between Sistine and the friend.

Instead, he took the opposite side of her while his friend took the opposite side of Sistine’s friend.

The two boys were making bookends out of them.

I felt my brother’s stare on my face. He knew I was in a fucking cage, and I might tear my own leg off to slip out of it.

Was this fucking punishment for all the times I grinned at the lovesick men who seemed fucking high on something they couldn’t touch or breathe in? I never had an aversion to romance. It ran through my blood. But love. Love was a different story all together.

I was in it—deep inside its pages already.

It felt like I blinked and somehow—here I stood.

I could barely see straight.

All I could see was how close the boy’s body was to hers. How he kept flexing his fingers. Thinking about reaching out and grabbing her hand.

Then one of the headlining artists walked out.

The crowd went wild.

Sistine included. She clapped, whistled with two fingers in her mouth, and then punched the air around her. She accidentally punched lover boy, and she didn’t even seem to realize, or she didn’t care. She started to sing along to the song.

The men around me were already grinning at how she had punched lover boy, but Marciano was laughing his ass off—all raspy and shit—at the timing of the opening song.

“Your theme song! She’s your problem now.” Marciano roared with laughter. “And Spicy Sissy is getting down to it something fierce.” He mimicked her. “Hell yeah!”

Sistine was. She was singing the song as hard as the singer was.

She was creating hand motions to the lyrics.

She didn’t care that lover boy was looking at her like he’d never seen her before, still rubbing his head where she’d whacked him on it.

Or that her friend was looking at her, trying to connect over the song.

Or that she was singing louder than anyone around her. She was having a fucking blast.

Looking at her from a distance, there was no doubt—she was in her own world. Only her and the music.

And Marciano had hit the truth on the head.

Sistine had been somebody else’s problem— now she’s mine .

The thought made me fucking giddy.

I turned my baseball hat around to make sure I was seeing all of her.

Not missing a second. I grinned at how much fun she was having.

She’d even gotten lover boy to give her a wide birth because she kept slapping him when her hands would do whatever the fuck they wanted.

Still no apologies. He’d been warned when she’d first hit him, and she wasn’t going to squeeze into a small space when this was her thing.

What else made me fucking giddy?

When she wasn’t waving her arms around, she’d grab for the Annie pendant. I wondered if she wished I was next to her. She’d grab me instead and have fun while in my arms. She’d sway, singing all the songs to me. It was such a girlie thing to do, and suddenly, I fucking wanted it.

I wanted all of it.

All of her.

A group of girls danced their way in front of us. We could see over their heads, but their bodies were getting closer and closer. Scottish by the sound of their accents. The one in front of me turned some and winked at me. I didn’t acknowledge the move.

Marciano wasn’t reciprocating either. He was pumping his arms and hands over their heads.

Angelo was laughing so hard, sounding just like his old man, that it didn’t seem like he could breathe.

Probably at how Marciano was getting in his own groove.

Remo was taking the women’s grinds in stride.

All business, but occasionally, it seemed like he’d get curious and look at their asses.

A scent I recognized seemed to suddenly surround me.

Lavender. My sister. When I turned to look, she was dancing through the crowd, her husband’s hand in hers.

He’d twirl her every so often. The sight of her made me grin.

She was wearing a floral dress with cowgirl boots.

Rio looked like he was falling even harder for her.

He’d always loved her. I knew he always would. He’d live for my sister. Die for her.

My eyes went to Sistine.

Yeah, I fucking got it.

I still didn’t know what they were doing here, though. Maybe this was date day for them. They were sticklers for keeping date night.

Mia danced up to us, Rio’s hand still around hers. My brother and I kissed Mia on her cheek, then Angelo did. Remo nodded. Then we all shook Rio’s hand.

“Date day?” I asked.

Mia beamed up at me. “Yes! When RiRi told me where two of my brothers were headed, I had to come!”

“It had nothing to do with getting to know Sistine either. Only the music.” My brother-in-law grinned.

Mia rolled her eyes, then stood on her toes, placing a kiss on his lips. Then we all turned forward, getting back to business. The girls in front of us were backing up, getting closer, though, and I could tell Mia was getting irritated.

My sister tapped one of them on the shoulder. The girl whipped her head around. Mia smiled at her, but it wasn’t all that friendly. My sister had an even temper, but piss her off, and her maiden name came out full force.

“As much as I’m enjoying you and your friend’s dance moves, I didn’t pay to watch you sing, so, if you’d please…

” She made a shooing motion with her hand.

Then my sister, who had a lot of Fausti blood pumping through her veins, turned back to the stage—as if the girls had already moved out of sight in her head.

Fuck me.

They moved.

I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t fuck with my sister when she took that tone or got that look in her green eyes either.

The scorching day waned into a tepid evening, the orange Italian sun starting to set and turn the world a citrus color before darkness swallowed it whole.

At this point, this was the fifth artist, and she was crooning out a romantic love song.

Sistine was still going strong. The hat was still on her head, but I could tell her hair was even wavier.

Her skin had been touched by the sun, such a beautiful olive tint, and a thin sheen of sweat seemed to make her glow.

This song, she seemed to hold on to the pendant even tighter, swaying, singing the romantic ballad back to the artist.

I was so enthralled by her. So enraptured.

Ensnared. I could’ve sworn I felt the heat of her skin, how she’d melt into me, making the apple, pear, rose, citrus and leather scent of her cling to me even harder, and a yearning that had started in my heart made it to my gut.

Like I’d hit the biggest fucking dip in the road, and my heart was in my stomach.

The feeling was so fucking strong, goosebumps scattered on my arms in the heat.

The only reason I tore my eyes away from her was because I felt a familiar pair of eyes on my face. My sister. She was watching me.

I lifted my eyebrows at her.

She lifted hers, too, but where mine were raised in questioning, hers were raised in knowing.

You know what they say? she signed to me. Our younger brother, Maestro, was hearing impaired, and we all knew sign language.

I’m sure you’re going to tell me , I signed back.

She laughed. The harder they play, the harder they fall. And you, my racing brother, have fallen. Hard.

I turned my face away from hers. We both knew the truth, even if I wasn’t ready to discuss it yet.

Rio squeezed my shoulder, then whistled when the singer announced that her next song would be the last. It was late.

The stars had scattered over our heads. I wondered if Sistine was going to take the train back to Venice, or if she was going to stay with her friend.

I started to think about the logistics and how this was all going to go down when my sister grabbed my arm and squeezed.

She had a far-off look in her eyes. The same look mamma sometimes got when something was about to happen.

“Mia,” I whispered.

I didn’t even wait for her to look at me.

I started plowing my way through the crowd.

A guy I didn’t fucking know had pushed his way through the crowd and was coming up behind Sistine.

He went to wrap his arms around her. To attack her or dance with her, either way—he was a dead man.

But before I could reach him, a loud whistle rent the air.

He must have heard it. He turned his body toward the noise, and when he did, an arrow went straight through his heart.

His eyes grew wide, and when he looked down, he did so in shock. His knees hit the ground before his body did. It took a few seconds for shock to roll through the crowd. When it did, pandemonium broke out. I reached Sistine just in time to stop her from being trampled.

She went to shove me off before she realized it was me. “Casanova,” she barely got out, her eyes frantic.

I said nothing as I checked her over, fucking frantic myself.

She was whole. Not hurt. My breath came easier.

My men and the men who belonged to her family surrounded us.

Rio held my sister close to his side. No one was going to fuck with her.

Marciano stood between Rio and my sister and me and Sistine, his face hard and his muscles straining against his shirt. He was ready to battle.

“We stay here,” Remo ordered. “Allow the crowd to break around us.”

“The arrow!” Sistine’s friend shouted toward Remo. “Someone is shooting arrows!”

The friend was panicked. Her eyes wide. Pupils dilated. Flight or fright, fright was her response. Sistine looked at me with pleading eyes. I nodded at the friend and then at Remo. Without hesitation, he took her by the waist and pulled her to his side.

“I will not allow any harm to come to you,” he spoke to her in Italian.

One of our men broke through the crowd and handed Remo a piece of paper.

It had been pinned to the arrow and was saturated with the dead guy’s blood.

Seemed Iggy was here too. He’d signed off on the note.

He’d been watching and didn’t like the guy coming up behind Sistine while she was dancing, or that was what we all deduced.

It had one word written on it with his name signed below it.

Mine.

“Does this mean…” Sistine took a deep breath. “The love letters are truly from him?”

I said nothing as my fingers dug into the fabric of her dress. She didn’t try to pull away from me. She only stared at my face.

“I’d say so,” my sister whispered, looking around, her eyes frantic too.

“Mia,” Rio said, her name holding a question mark at the end.

My sister’s eyes were too far in the distance.

“Mia,” I repeated, and she knew I wasn’t fucking around.

She nodded. “We need to get out of here. I don’t have a good feeling about this. I didn’t feel it before, but, ah, I feel it now.”

We sheltered the women as we left—no place feeling safe until we were in our cars and headed in another direction.