Page 63

Magpie turned to Nonno and smiled at him.

His eyes softened and he nodded at her in a way that was reserved for her.

It was a smile that clearly stated, whatever makes you happy, my wildflower, shall be, or the rest of the world would have hell to pay.

Nothing made Luca Leone Fausti happy unless it made his wife happy.

That seemed true for all of Luca Fausti’s direct descendants.

Magpie turned back to Sistine, their hands still locked.

“Oooh, knock me to my knees! That smile you have. And those eyes!” My grandmother looked at me.

“No wonder you were a goner, my handsome grandson, Mari ano . No longer our Casanova Prince. He’s found his ravishing Italian a princess.

Sistine is why you’ve been walking a straight line.

Well, as straight as a Fausti can get it, due to the nature of things. ”

I greeted my grandmother with a kiss on her cheek, and she beamed at me, but her eyes grew dim when she noticed the look on my face. She probably recognized what was going on inside of me. A raging fucking war.

Marciano came in behind me. In front of our grandfather, his entire demeanor changed.

He was all business, just as the rest of us were.

He greeted my grandmother the same way I did, and after she kissed his cheek, she wiped the lipstick stain from his skin.

We both greeted our mamma, our aunts, Hannah and Bianca, then we shook our grandfather’s hand, followed by our father, then our uncles.

Angelo and Atta entered the house.

Same protocol.

I noticed the way Sistine and Atta moved closer to each other right before we left. Their hands locked, and it was as if they were finding strength in each other. Magpie chirped away in their ears as my grandfather led the men out of the house and toward the lines of SUVs.

“Your father, your uncle, and Angelo will ride with me,” he said to me, his face set in stone. “You will drive.” He enjoyed my driving. He compared it to his racing days back in the day.

He was briefed in greater detail on the way to the snake barn.

My old man stared ahead, his eyes hard on the shape in the distance. I was standing on one side of him, Marciano on the other. Matteo wasn’t set to arrive until the day before the wedding. He was taking care of family business in Italy.

My brothers and I ran an investment company together. We did damn well for ourselves. Not only did we make good investments for clients outside of the Fausti family, we also invested for our family. We brought the Fausti family, as far as money and dues, up to speed with the times.

“The fuck?” Rio appeared beside me, narrowing his eyes against the snake barn.

The fuck was spot on. There was something fucking sinister?—

“There’s something fucking sinister—”my old man shivered as he spoke my words aloud “—about this place.”

“Mamma’s feelings are rubbing off on you, Papà,” Marciano said almost absentmindedly.

All our eyes were in the distance, on the barn, watching it like it might come alive and wield snakes at us.

Papà made a harumph noise at Marciano. Mamma was vocal about what she felt, but we often felt Papà was touched too, even if through the connection he shared with mamma. If he was, she would be the only one he would tell, confirming it.

It didn’t take a “feeling” person to feel the chill around the snake barn.

It almost felt like the area around it was degrees colder than anywhere else on the land.

Inside, it might be a degree above hell—hell itself.

Or it would be once we walked into it and sent those motherfuckers back to where they came from.

Nonno stepped out of the car, a pride of men behind him, and we walked toward the barn together.

“The snakes that were found have been contained,” Donato said. “However, there could be some left that Elio, and his wrangler team, could not find. We must be vigilant in this place.”

“The men have been warned,” my grandfather said, and there was no question mark at the end of the sentence. Donato had to always be ten steps ahead.

Donato answered him respectfully, confirming that every man had been warned.

We were, all things considered, walking into a landmine that could potentially end up being fatal for one of us if we didn’t hear or see what could be underfoot. My grandfather was known for walking through a hail of bullets. Snakes underfoot didn’t slow him down either. None of us slowed down.

I was expecting the snake barn to have hay spread out over the floor, that was how Sistine had described it, but Elio and his team had cleared it out. Probably as a measure to wrangle as many snakes as possible.

Even for a man who worked with serpents, studying them and extracting venom to make antivenom, Elio had told Donato that he was shocked by the number of snakes the dead man had collected over the years.

After the debacles at the other barn, we’d burned it down. Not before Elio showed up and collected as many snakes as he could. That was why Rattler and his brothers were covered in soot and ash. They stole our gas. We burned down their fun house.

That was only a warning.

None of those boys would see the outside of the snake barn again. None of them were getting out of this alive.

My grandfather rolled his sleeves up after he handed Donato his jacket.

Donato opened the door for him, and he entered like he fucking owned the place.

We followed behind him. Remo had easily found the brothers after our meeting outside of the diner.

All he had to do was follow the blood trail, which led to the emergency room.

The stupid motherfuckers went to get stitched up.

Waste of fucking time.

We were only going to tear them apart again.

Voices echoed inside of my head like haunting ghosts:

Dead bitch.

I don’t trust you to truthfully translate what he’s saying.

I rolled my shoulders, beyond ready for what was to come.

“What? They sent the Italian equivalent of Moses to come after us?” one of the brothers said when my grandfather looked them over.

“Shut up, Bob!” Rattler almost snarled at him.

“This—” my grandfather lifted a hand at them, speaking in Italian “—this is our enemies.” He shook his head, disgusted. He leaned down, came face to face with the asshole Bob who had opened his mouth.

When Nonno was in his face, Bob’s eyes widened. He tried to move his head as far back from Nonno’s as possible. He couldn’t. He was set against the wall, just as my wife and her cousin had been positioned.

That was why I needed specifics. The dead men would suffer unaccountable times more than my wife and her cousin had.

A commotion was suddenly at the door. Jack rushed through it, two of our men on each side of him.

He had a slash across his face that bled freely.

A man was escorted in behind him. He looked to be close to seven feet tall, built like a bull, until you got to his thin legs.

He wore an old leather cowboy hat, trench coat, and boots.

His eyes were ice blue. A scar marred the left one.

No doubt the man was related to the brothers—their father. Ash Green.

“Jack needs medical attention,” I said to no one in particular. “He’s on blood thinners.”

My grandfather nodded at this, gave one of the men instructions to escort the old man to the hospital, even though he was around my Nonno’s age.

As the solider walked Jack out, Jack told me he had come to warn us about Ash, but Ash had gotten to him first. We’d taken Jack and Dolly to the Watt Ranch earlier, expecting the dead men to strike back after what we’d done to their barn.

If they came looking for trouble at the Watt Ranch, they would have found Fausti soldiers. It was more of a trap.

“Dolly will be all right at the ranch,” I said.

He nodded. “She’s in good hands.”

Before I could turn back to where the men surrounded Ash, fire seemed to lash against my back, and if I hadn’t been so solid on my feet, I would have gone over. I knew instantly my back had been split open. Blood and sweat instantly made the fire rage higher.

In nothing but seconds, my old man had Ash by the throat, smashing his back against the wall.

“My son,” I heard him say in a voice so cold, it almost seemed like the reason the man’s eyes were ice blue.

Ash’s Indiana Jones style whip had been dropped when my old man had hit him. He had slashed me with it. It had been hanging on the wall. Ash was quicker than he looked and had a chance to grab it.

Marciano whistled through his teeth when he saw the mark it had made, but he said nothing. We shared blood. He knew me. The fire was nothing but a dull reminder in the background. I’d gotten the slash in honor of my woman.

The wound would heal. The scar left behind would be a reminder to the world of the lengths I’d go to to see my wife safe. It would be a reminder to my wife of how I would mark every inch of my skin for her.

My grandfather moved next to my father. I heard the words he said in our shared language. “Remember, my son, a pig’s life for a pig’s life.”

I would have looked at my brother, lifted my eyebrows—I had no fucking clue what my grandfather had meant, but my father seemed to know. My old man let Ash go, and he slid down the wall some before he made an animalistic noise and forced himself to his feet.

Ash was sweating. It ran down his face in fast-running rivers.

He removed his hat, his thinning hair sticking straight up, and flung it to the floor.

His eyes glanced down, almost surprised the hay was gone.

I wondered whether his sons, after they had had enough of the abuse, had started collecting snakes to keep the most dangerous one out—him.

“You are standing as a man,” my father said, giving him a little space, removing his jacket, handing it to Donato, and rolling up his sleeves.

“Oh fuck,” Marciano whispered in my ear.

“Touch one of papa’s cubs…fuck around and find out,” Rio said.