Page 29 of Ruthless Vow
Zio Pietro finds me one afternoon.
He’s been meeting with Dante, but he pauses at the threshold, watching me work. Late sixties, maybe, with silver threading through his dark hair and lines carved deep around his eyes. But he stands like a man who hasn’t forgotten how to fight.
“I was there, you know. When Salvatore made the arrangement with your father.” He leans against the frame. “You and your sister were in the garden. Elena was doing cartwheels. You were sitting under a tree with a book.”
I don’t remember that day. But it sounds right. Elena, center stage. Me, disappearing into pages.
“Salvatore watched you through the window.” Pietro’s mouth curves. The hard lines around his eyes ease. “Said you reminded him of Lucia. The way she’d disappear into a book and forget the world existed.”
My throat closes. Lucia. The woman in the photograph. The woman Nonna Rosa speaks of like a saint.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Most people don’t.” He pushes off the frame. “But I thought you should.”
He leaves before I can ask why. Before I can ask what it means that a dead man saw me when no one else bothered to look.
I sit with the ledgers cooling under my hands, turning his words over.
My fingers press flat against the open pages.
The touches start small.
His hand on my lower back when we pass in the hall. Brief. Proprietary. Gone before I can react, but my skin holds the memory for hours. I find myself pressing my palm against my spine later, trying to recapture the warmth.
His fingers brushing mine when he hands me a file. An accident, maybe. Except his eyes hold mine too long, and his pupils blow wide before the blankness slides back into place.
My name in his mouth now. Cassia. Lower. Slower. Like he’s tasting it, rolling the syllables across his tongue before releasing them.
My father said my name like an afterthought. Dante says it like a discovery.
I catch him watching sometimes. I’ll look up from the numbers and find his gaze on my hands, my neck, the curve of my shoulder. He looks away when I notice.
Not fast enough.
One night, a cup appears at my elbow. Coffee. Steam curling. That woodsy scent I’ve started dreaming about.
He’s turning away, but his hand lingers on my shoulder. Warmth bleeding through my blouse, sinking into muscle, spreading down my spine like honey.
Our eyes meet.
The compound has gone to sleep. Just us and the lamplight and the silence that hums between us like a live wire.
Neither of us speaks. What is there to say?
Then he’s gone. Footsteps fading down the hall.
I take a sip. Creamer. Two sugars. The way I drink it.
He learned. Without asking. Somewhere in the chaos of ledgers and shell companies and midnight hours, he learned how I take my coffee.
Don’t hope. Don’t hope. Don’t.
Too late.
A soldier reports to Dante while I’m working. Young. Sharp features. Nervous hands. Delivering news about a shipment delay.
His gaze drifts to me between sentences. Lingers on my chest. Tracks down my body with casual entitlement, like I’m inventory to be assessed.
