Salvatore(60)

“This is Rainey’s signature cake.” Not bothering with the fork, I picked up the fat chunk I’d sliced for myself and bit into it. “God, it’s delicious.”

“I’m going to get fat,” Lucia said through her mouthful.

“I’ll make sure you get enough exercise.”

She glanced at me from the corner of her eye, then returned her attention to the cake on her plate in her lap.

“We need to talk about last night.”

“I thought we had.”

“About what you overheard.”

Her wary gaze met mine. “She’s my sister, Salvatore.”

“Jacob was very afraid, Lucia. If Isabella had anything to do with that, I think it’s important I know.”

She rubbed her face with both hands then pushed her fingers into her hair and pulled at the roots. “I don’t know, Salvatore. What happened to that little boy, what Dominic did, was cruel. I hope to God my sister wasn’t involved in anything like that. The Izzy I knew wouldn’t be. She’d never hurt a child. And I know he wasn’t physically hurt, but taking him without his mom knowing? Freaking her out like that, and scaring the little boy? I just—”

She looked away and shook her head. When she turned back to me, her eyes glistened with tears.

“Thing is, I don’t know her anymore. I’ve shut everyone out for so long that I don’t even know who I am anymore. I thought this was black-and-white. I hated the Benedetti family. Period. But my sister involved in or even possibly orchestrating something like the kidnapping of a child?”

She shook her head again, her face lined with worry.

“She’s a mother herself. How…what’s happened to us?”

“Too much hate. Too much power,” I said. “Too much of a lust for blood and vengeance. War never makes friends out of enemies. The opposite. It solidifies that hate. The war between Benedetti and DeMarco may have been fought in our fathers’ time, but we inherit the hate, the bad blood. It doesn’t just go away. It carries down generation to generation.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“You have every right to.”

“I don’t. You’re not like them, Salvatore.”

But I was. I had killed. I had taken. I had lived off blood money. I’d shed that very blood with my own two hands. Standing up to my father after whipping Lucia, though, and then today—walking away, not giving a shit about what he thought—was I changing? Was I finally growing out of my father’s shadow and casting my own?

And would mine be as dark as his?

“I asked Roman to run a paternity test on Effie, Lucia.”

“I don’t want to know.”

She started to stand but then realized she couldn’t without my help. Which was precisely why I’d laid her on one of the lounge chairs rather than sitting her on a chair.

I touched her arm. “You have to know.”

She closed her eyes and reopened them after a minute but remained silent, waiting.

“Luke isn’t her father.”

From the look on her face, I had the feeling she knew that.

“She carries DNA from my family.” Christ, was I saying this out loud?

A tear rolled down each of Lucia’s cheeks, and I knew she knew.

“They’re testing Dominic’s DNA now. We’ll know for sure soon whether Dominic Benedetti fathered Effie DeMarco.”

It was a long moment before she spoke. I didn’t know how Lucia would take what I told her. On the one hand, she’d seen enough evidence to suspect the truth. She’d seen it herself before I told it. On the other hand, Isabella was still her sister, and I was still the enemy’s son. I was her keeper. The man who’d signed a contract, claiming ownership of her.

“What do you want out of this, Salvatore? When all is said and done, what do you want?”

I’d been straddling the seat and now… I lay back and looked out across the pool toward the forest. It was so quiet here. So still. So peaceful.

I turned back to her. “I want to live a quiet life. I don’t want to look over my shoulder at every turn. I don’t want to see an enemy in every set of eyes I meet, every hand I shake. I want the people I love to be safe. I want them be happy.” Strange. Six months ago, I would have added ‘I want my brother to be alive’ into that list, but something had shifted. Somehow, I’d come to accept that he was gone. Not the cruelty or the unfairness of the act, but the knowledge that he was gone. And that my life lay here.

She cleared her throat and blinked her pretty, innocent eyes, casting them somewhere in the space between us. I didn’t take my eyes off her.

Lucia was all the innocence in my life.