Page 52

Mariano

T he truck bounced along the path leading back to our cabin.

The storm had done some damage, but not a lot.

Enough to knock some branches down and leave gullies in places that were run down by time and elements.

One tree had been struck by lightning, half of it hanging to the ground, a black char mark scenting the air—burning wood and watery ash.

I wiped a hand down my face, replaying the morning with my wife. She might not be afraid of spiders, or much else, but she sure the fuck was afraid of storms and snakes. Not wary. Fucking terrified.

Before we left for the main house, where Atta was waiting, my wife made me check the entire house for snakes. She eyed me while I did, almost frantic about telling me to be careful.

“Why the fuck would a snake be in our cabin?” One I hadn’t found before when I’d checked it for hideaways. I made sure all the nooks and crannies where wildlife was likely to take refuge were clear after I’d first taken my wife to our cabin.

“I do not know,” she barely got out. “Perhaps because it is old and has holes where it should not. The storm scared them inside.”

No, she was scared inside.

After all was clear, again, I took her to her cousin. Family would soon be arriving for the wedding, including my grandfather, which had a lot of people anxious. Say-his-name-more-than-once-and-he’ll-appear kind of anxious.

Nonno wasn’t to be fucked with, no doubt, but it all came down to knowing how to act around a man such as Luca Leone Fausti.

A man had to know what kind of man he was.

His principles. What he believed in. Then set them against his own principles and beliefs and either find a way to meet him in the middle or be prepared to fight him.

If I found my principles or beliefs didn’t align with his, or we couldn’t agree to disagree respectfully, I would be prepared to challenge him.

But that was where we agreed. Where we were alike.

We understood that about each other. Over the years, when I could realize it, I realized that was where my old man and grandfather could come to terms with each other too.

We were men who stood on what we believed. If those principles or beliefs were challenged, we rose with our proverbial swords in hand and were prepared to challenge whoever attempted to run over our lines.

I had never been interested in running the family, like Matteo or Padrino were. I was content to claim the family name, share in the belief that what made us Faustis was the ability to balance ruthlessness and romance, two sides balancing on the edge of a sword.

However, where Matteo always kept himself inside of the lines, I thrived in the shadows—somewhere between right and wrong.

Most people looked at my brother and saw three men—Marzio Fausti, Luca Fausti, and Rocco Fausti, even if physically, my older brother resembled our old man too.

When they looked at me, they saw my father.

Neither of us were ever prepared to run the family. And even though I’d earned the Casanova nickname amongst my family, my world also called me Outlaw. If it came to me or mine, there was no fucking law that could stop me from avenging me or mine.

All this to say…the women of the Watt family would be charmed by Nonno, and I had no doubt he wouldn’t approve of Ty. He was a good man and could tell a hell of a good story.

I demanded to know the story my wife wasn’t telling me. Between the man she saw the night before and the fear of snakes, my gut told me the two were connected, which brought me back to the man everyone called Rattler.

It wouldn’t be long before he and his brothers found out the ranch was in the good and no one was going to steal it from the Watt family.

I parked the truck on the side of our cabin and got out. The sun was high, though the weather was crisp. The ground was soaking wet, and my boots squished in the mud. I gave a wide birth around our window, careful to check for any foot tracks while I checked out the area.

The weather could have washed any prints away, or the morning sun could have preserved them.

No tracks were visible where I was walking.

This area was mostly trees and fauna debris.

Closer to the cabin, where the roof shaded the ground closest to the foundation, there was a dirt line. No grass grew wild there.

I bent down, my eyes going straight to the footprints in the mud, water sitting in them. They were made by boots, from the way the tracks sat, and deep. Like the motherfucker had been standing in the same spot for an extended period of time.

We were too far out for it to be an accidental finding. Whoever this motherfucker was, he was here for a fucking reason.

My wife.

My wife.

A cold breeze swept by, touching my neck, making the hair there stand up.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, calling Remo.

I briefed him on the situation, making him aware that something more was going on—someone had been standing outside of my window, too fucking close to my wife.

I also reminded him that his life depended on hers. She lost one hair. He’d be bald.

I called my wife after I hung up with Remo.

“ Marito ,” she answered.

“How important is this girlie party that’s planned for Atta?”

“Girlie party?” She laughed, then it sounded like she was moving through the house, and a door shut behind her. “It is important,” she whispered, and her voice echoed like she was in the bathroom. “You only get married once—to a Fausti.”

That made me grin. “You didn’t want a girlie party.”

“I did not have time for one.”

“You want one?”

“Ah,” she breathed. “Not exactly. You are the party, Mariano Fausti. However, I am not in charge of this party. It was Willa’s idea. She said all women deserved to celebrate before the hitching, and it would be fun for Atta.”

The hitching. I almost laughed at that. But the fucking footprints on the side of our house had my muscles tight.

“This bar is reserved,” I said, confirming what Remo had been told from Willa, Atta’s friend.

“Willa told Remo this.” She exhaled. “The men will be smoking cigars and drinking?”

She sounded suspicious.

“What else would we be doing?”

She blew out a heavy breath. “Boobs and dancing. Ah, I forget the name of what the women are called who do this.”

I wasn’t falling into that fucking trap. We both knew what they were called. Strippers. If I said the word, I’d be acknowledging them. I might have been the Casanova Prince, but I had a mamma, Magpie, and a sister. I knew the fuck better.

“You have my permission to rip my balls off if that’s the truth.”

“I do not need permission for this, Mariano Fausti. I am your wife. What is yours is mine.”

Yeah, she fucking was my wife. She knew it too, as a queen would know her king was married to her. She was the ruler. Not him.

This time I laughed. Then I sobered up. “You don’t leave the bar. You don’t move without Remo shadowing you.”

And what I wasn’t saying: fuck drinking and cigars .

I’d be at the bar that was reserved for the girlie party, even if I kept to the shadows.

There was too much interest in the Watt land, and something my wife and her cousin was keeping from me and my cousin.

I didn’t trust anyone to keep my wife safe but me.

She was mine. I might not deserve her, but fuck if anyone else could love—for lack of a better word—her more than me.

“Mariano?”

“Who?”

She laughed quietly and made an owl sound. Hoo hoo-hoo. “ Marito mio .”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

She laughed a little more and it made me grin. “I was just checking you were still on the line.”

“Always, Annie.”

She sighed. “I never imagined it could be this way, between anyone, between us , and I do not understand all of this yet, perhaps I never will, but…I miss you so much already I can barely breathe.”

I sighed. “Yeah, me too.” I would have gone to get her, as my heart, the wild fucking thing, was demanding I do, but she was safe with her family and my men. I had personal business to attend to.

“All right,” she whispered. “I should be getting back. Willa is doing a tutorial on how we will style our hairs for the wedding. I do not want my cousin to think I am ignoring her party.”

Hairs. That made me grin. She was so fucking cute, it broke my heart. I rubbed a hand over it and then shook my head.

“My Annie?”

“Yes?”

“Take care of my heart while we’re apart.”

She cleared her throat. “Always, as you say,” she whispered. She sighed and hung up.

When the line went dead, it felt like my air supply did the same.

Fuck me sideways.

Sighing, I stood, my eyes still on the footprints, but someone stood behind me. Someone stealthy enough to have snuck up on me if I hadn’t scented his cologne in the air.

I turned and faced my brother.

Marciano stood behind me with his arms crossed and his legs somewhat apart.

He was dressed in all black. T-shirt, jeans, and leather boots.

He had enough gold jewelry on—chain with the Fausti lion insignia, signet ring, and gold watch with diamonds—to call all the ferrets of the forest over, a band of shiny thieves, or to call the lightning to him if another storm hit.

My brother could ride a horse, but he was better in the ring or in the water. He’d inherited our old man’s lungs when it came to holding his breath. And he was the only son of Brando and Scarlett to ever throw a fucking fit when he was a kid.

It seemed like he was about to throw another one.

I braced myself.

He charged me like a bull. When he hit, our arms locked. My brother was a strong motherfucker, but when I braced myself for his hit, he couldn’t move me.

He was fucking furious, like I kicked his trained ferret, his gold in its tiny thieving paws and all.