Page 54 of Silent Snowfall

Nonna cut me a look, eyes narrowing. I wasn’t feigning distress, but standing around to chit-chat in this toasty room was getting to me. Or rather, being watched by some unknown force was getting to me.

“I’ll be right back,” I promised.

“Dinner will be served soon,” she reminded me.

I gave her a quick nod and scooted away.

The front parlor was equally as warm as the grand ballroom. Plus, it was occupied. As I scooted past the parlor door, rapid, lyrical strains of Italian floated from the space. I quickened my steps, but not before I overheard Giuseppe Ravello and his cousin Camillo talking about not finding someone. They’d scoured the town, but there was no trace of the target. Whoever they were hunting hadn’t gone back to Il Colosseo. It made me sick. In a town run by organized crime, no one was safe from the mob’s focus.

Pushing out the front door, an icy blast of night air stole my breath. I immediately wrapped my arms around my body and drank in the blistering cold.

“The boys and I are safer here than anywhere,” I reminded myself.

I might not like the fact that a powerful family had ruled these parts for generations, but even I had to admit they fiercely protected the town. And so what if they were psychopaths like their parents before them? They didn’t let evil roam the streets.

Which meant if Giuseppe and Camillo were looking for someone, that person probably shouldn’t be in town.

“And there was probably a good reason the don got rid of Ivry and her fiancé,” I begrudgingly reasoned. I might not know Lucian except in passing, but a Made Man wouldn’t hurt his own family.

I just…. I shuddered. I didn’t want anything to happen to my boys. The thing about the mob was that it had a code of honor. That might be a dark oath that defied the legal system, but they didn’t let anarchist violence rule like a gang or corporation might.

No, if I was being honest, even if we could move, it wouldn’t be better. And that was the real problem. I hadn’t chosen to come to the Cove. There’d been nowhere else to go. I wasn’t given the chance to weigh the pros and cons. We’d been displaced, and that made me uneasy about this place when I never had an actual reason to dislike it.

I looked over the snow-covered pasture and the forest buried in white. The handful of times I’d come to Raven Manor, I always thought this house would be so much fun to grow up in. Deep in the New Jersey countryside, there were fields and haunts to explore. The house was grand and full of hidden nooks and crannies.

We could have an epic game of hide-and-seek here.

I rubbed my chest, pushing at the intangible ache as though I could make it vanish. We were comfortable at Nonna’s, but as the boys grew? It would be cramped.

“If only we’d bought her old house when she offered,” I sighed, rubbing my arms to stave off winters brutal caress. “But, no, Andy said he would rather die than move away from New York.”

Idiot.

He’d gone and done just that.

“Miss?” A polished voice shattered the tangled moment.

I spun around and faced the maid hovering behind the front door. “Oh, yes, sorry! I should have closed that.”

She shook her head. “It’s no problem! I know how hot it is inside.”

“Someone said the thermostat was broken,” I said with a smile.

“We don’t know how that happened.” The maid nodded and held out her hand. “This is for you. Stay out here as long as you want.”

I stared at the envelope in her fingers. I knew exactly what that was even before my brain registered the tight scrawl of my name across the front.

“You can take it, you know,” the maid urged with a light laugh. “It won’t bite.”

I shook myself, faked a big bright smile, and snatched the cream-colored envelope. “Thank you so much! Um, who…who gave it to you?”

Her professional mask fell back in place. “I’m not at liberty to disclose, Miss.”

My smile flattened. “Of course, I won’t push. I know how the code of secrecy works around here.”

“Thanks,” she breathed and her smile crept back. “I’ll keep the door cracked.”

With that, she closed the thick wooden barrier part way and disappeared.