Page 126 of Sinner's Vows

“Consider it done. I’ll send you a screenshot when I’ve received the confirmation, and I’ll double-check, you know, just in case.”

“Good, thank you.” Benedict will deliver. I’ve one less thing to worry about. “We need to head out to the convent.”

“Yep, keep us posted, will you?” Matteo says.

I nod and ring off.

“That wasn’t so bad,” I say to Ariana as I close my laptop and take hold of her hand.

“Poor Matteo. He looked a bit shell-shocked. At least, I’ve had a few more days to get used to the idea.”

“You’re a Scalera now.” Not in name yet, but soon. “By the time we’re back in Boston, he would’ve adjusted.”

She nods as I stand.

“Ready for a short drive?”

“Yes.”

She stands, and my gaze flows down her perfect body.

“You look lovely, sweetheart.” I’m not sure where she got the suitcase full of clothes from, but she’s wearing a beautiful summer’s dress that fits her like a glove, and in this soft shade of blue, it only illuminates her eyes.

“Portia got busy online and gave Arturo directions as he hit some upscale shopping mall in Boston.”

“Those two,” I say with a smile as I lead her out of the room to where Gus is waiting in the corridor, printouts of Mom’s journals in hand. “I really hope they have time to be together again, at least as a family, if not as more, if that’s what they want.”

It’s been quietly killing me that the Don would have pulled such a fucked-up power move on one of his men, but it was par for the course in the oldIl Consiglio.

We’re quiet as we drive up into the small town, its medieval cobbled streets getting narrower and narrower as we go higher. My pulse beats faster, my stomach twisting tight. To think this moment could somehow be too big for me. I’m relieved to have Ariana by my side, to see me through the next couple of hours.

We’re only here for a preliminary meeting with the Reverend Mother, and hopefully, we’ll get to meet Gabriella. If all goes according to plan, she’ll leave the convent with us tomorrow.

The driver pulls up at the convent’s gate, and we clamber out. It takes us a minute to get clearance through the intercom, and then we’re inside, Ariana holding my hand, Gus and another bodyguard making up the rear. A nun meets us half a minute later and guides us through the courtyard and up the stairs to the second floor and the Reverend Mother’s office.

She’s waiting for us, seated at her desk, indicating we should come in and take a seat. She’s an older woman, maybe in her mid-fifties—the same age Mom would have been now if she’d lived—and dressed in full nun regalia.

As I sit down, I hold out the printouts with Mom’s handwriting, her secrets, out for the world to see and dissect.

“That’s all, Sister Maria,” the Reverend Mother says as she reaches for the copies and gives them a swift glance.

The door closes behind us seconds later, but now the Reverend Mother takes her time to go through my paperwork. Eventually, she looks up and searches my face, and I read her eyes as she takes me in. She’s putting a face to a face she knows from somewhere else. Only the smallest twitch to her lips tells me something has triggered her, and then she slips a photo from a Bible laying to the side on her desk.

“You look just like your father,” she says as she holds the photo out to me.

I glance at Ariana, but her eyes are on the copy of the wedding photo that was hidden with Mom’s journals.

“How did you know my mother?” I ask, taken aback that the Reverend Mother would have one of these photos.

“We were best friends, grew up together in Napoli. Impoverished to a point where we were basically living on the streets. The day I got placed in a church orphanage was the day Bianca disappeared. I never knew what happened to her, but somehow, years down the line, she found me, and we reconnected. Seems she knew where I went, and then I learned what happened to her—” She breaks off, pursing her lips as tears glaze her eyes. “She was a very brave woman,” the Reverend Mother says as she opens a desk drawer and pulls a stack of letters from it. “I think these would be better for you to keep. It’s the last connection I had with Bianca and explains how I got to find and look after Gabriella until her brothers came for her.”

The stack of letters is like a window to a past life, just like Mom’s journals. Here is more of Mom, more than we’d ever think we’d have of her. I’d need to be alone with them to digest the contents once the time is right.

“My sister?” I ask, anxious now to get eyes on Gabriella.

“She’s here.” The Reverend Mother picks up her old desk phone and dials, and after a short conversation, puts the phone on its hook again.

A knock follows, and now that the moment is here, I cling to Ariana’s hand as we stand and turn toward the door.

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