Page 144 of Forsaking All Others

He was a bastard, but his words lingered as I walked the opposite way toward my car and the answers waiting for me at Edgemont House.

Dario was awake when I stalked up the stairs to his bedroom.

Fiammetta was beside his bed with Cerberus curled across her feet, in that room for the very first time.

It burned in me to see her pulled up to his side in a chair, forearms leaned onto the bedspread with his hand in hers.

Until her gaze lifted to mine and a warm, if tremulous, smile claimed her mouth.

“Hey, Ghost,” she said softly.

I ignored the others in the room, walking directly to her side and sliding a hand under her heavy hair to grip her neck in a tight hold, fingers digging into her strong pulse point. With my other, I placed a hand on Cerberus’s head as he sat up and leaned heavily into both Fia’s leg and mine.

Only then, feeling like a united front, did I look at my brother, hooked up to an IV and scowling at his doctor.

“Stop fussing,” he demanded of Dr. Valenti. “I’m fine.”

“The stump of your ear is infected and could result in permanent hearing loss,” the doctor explained calmly, used to his grouchy ways and the fact we both existed.

He had been the one to bring me back to life at nine years old and monitor me through recovery. He was still the one I called when jobs went bad and I needed medical attention.

When I was a boy, I used to wish Dr. Valenti was my dad instead of Lando.

“You’ve lost two fingers, and the wounds aren’t clean. Not to mention you are severely dehydrated and malnourished,” he continued unflappably. “You’ll lay still, rest, and let me work my magic.”

“You know I am the capo here,” my brother reminded him in a rough voice that sounded incredibly sore.

“Mmm,” the doctor hummed, ignoring him to continue to swab at Dario’s maimed ear.

Having lost that battle, Dario turned to me, his eyes sweeping over the way I held Fia and how she leaned just slightly back into my hand, before settling on mine.

Sometimes it even took me by surprise, our almost exact likeness. The texture of our eyes was different, the way we held our mouths and our bodies, and Dario was double jointed where I was not. I’d been born left handed but was forced to adopt my right hand as the dominant one when Lando trained me to be his stand-in.

Otherwise, even I couldn’t tell us apart in photos.

“Tell us what happened,” I encouraged.

Dario drew in a deep breath, wincing as it probably ached in his broken ribs, and then proceeded to tell us the whole story.

“Someone had been sending threats about Fiammetta for a while,” he began. “Along with the general chaos that kept cropping up, it was obvious someone was gathering their pieces to make a serious move against us. It occurred to me that the Sicilians could be behind it.”

His gaze shuttled down to Fia, who pursed her lips before saying dryly, “Because they could have found out you and Lando were the ones behind the murder of Vincenzo, Ricco, and Beppe Cavallaro?”

Dario and I both stilled.

Her laugh was hollow. “I found out recently, but don’t bother to deny it. It makes sense.”

I squeezed her neck until she looked up at me, reading the apprehension in my expression.

“You shot them as Lo Spettro,” she said quietly. “You killed them without thought.”

“I think about them now,” I admitted, just as muted. “Theirs might be the only deaths I’ve ever regretted.”

She bit her lip, then nodded. “It still hurts.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I am sorry, even though I was a different man six years ago, just on the verge of beginning the long process of coming back to life.”

Because of you, I thought but didn’t say.