Page 53 of Silent Snowfall

Chapter 16 – Rosetta

Someone was watching me.

I couldn’t see him. But it was real. There was no escaping the constant pulse of awareness skating over my skin. I tried to stay invisible—oh, saints above, I tried! I attempted to keep my back against the wall and gaze trained on the room to unmask the man breaking into our house, night after night.

But Nonna kept bringing me out of the safety of being a wallflower. “You’re beautiful and young, dolcezza mia. Enjoy this.”

“I don’t know anyone.” Not anymore. Sure, I’d spent enough summers visiting San Pietro Cove, and most of the holidays as a child had been here with my grandparents. But what I actually wanted to tell my grandmother was that I didn’t feel like I belonged. The last ten years, after peeing on that stick, my whole focus was being a good mom. I avoided obligations in favor of being present at home. I didn’t have a social battery for this, because I never charged it.

And it wasn’t like I had help to brave the world. If anything, my spouse had preferred I stayed the perfect housewife.

“Nonsense, they remember you,” Nonna tsked.

Her strong, capable hand wrapped around mine, and she pulled me to a group of laughing locals.

I cut a glance toward Don Ravello. His hands were empty as he held court over the friends gathered around him. There’d been no more funny business in the last fifteen minutes. I suspected that was because his target was already disposed of. Ivry Ravello’s fiancé turned green around the gills, rushed to the bathroom, and the happy couple left the party moments ago.

The poor thing.

Focusing on the don helped distract me from the feeling of being watched.

“Do you remember the Mid Summer’s Eve ball Maria threw here? Back in ’87?” Nonna asked her friends, a wistful note in her voice.

“That was the year the kids’ father married,” Signora Caputo sighed dreamily. “I miss Bree and Papa Lucianus.”

Nonna dipped her chin, nodding along. “Maria was quite the matchmaker, setting those two up. She would have had her grandchildren married by now.”

I shuddered at the idea of meddlesome matriarch arranging marriages. We didn’t live in the 1800s, but in the mob, alliances were for power and rarely love. I flicked a glance at Lucian Ravello. It would have served him right to have his grandma pick his bride. Maybe then he would think twice about poisoning someone at a Christmas party!

As if he could feel my attention, the don slid his gaze toward me.

I quickly dropped mine to my hands as my grandmother prattled about long ago days when this ballroom was filled with dancing and music.

“Don’t forget, Bree was one of the best,” Dante Ravello whispered.

Hushed, conspiratorial laughter vibrated through our group.

“How many times has Bree tried to kill Papa Lucian?” Signora Caputo teased. “How they’ve survived three decades of marriage! I had a hard enough time with an accountant. I couldn’t imagine being a hitman married to a hitwoman!”

“None of her recent attempts have been serious,” Nonna huffed indignantly. “They wouldn’t have retired to travel around the world if she was actually trying to kill her Lucian.”

I gulped. My parents certainly never tried to stab one another. But maybe that explained why the current Lucian was so bold to poison his cousin’s fiancé in public. With parents who expressed their love language through dangerous stunts, it was little wonder all three of the main Ravellos were the way they were. Drusilla, Giuseppe, and Lucianus—the Triumvirate. Three royal pains in the asses, just because it was their right to rule this little corner of the world.

And Lucian was by far the worst. The Killer King, a don just like his father, Papa Lucian, before him.

It was hard to believe I’d come willingly to his house. Of course, my grandma was his late grandma’s BFF, so that by proxy made me safe.

A shudder slid down my spine.

I hope.

“Who would Maria have picked for Lucian?” Dante hummed.

“That is none of your business,” Nonna snapped.

Her tone made me straighten. They were talking about the current Lucian, not his father. It was confusing to an outsider, but the reigning family of this town always named their first-born son and daughter after the founders. In the long history of Ravellos, there were too many Lucians and Drusillas to sort out, yet somehow the old timers kept the legacy straight.

“I’m going to step outside for a moment,” I murmured to my grandmother.