Page 84 of Just for a Taste

I froze in place, brow raised.

He let out a shy chuckle, hand returning to the nape of his neck. “It may be silly, but I enjoy honoring the traditions of this place. While in Rome, you know?”

I gave an understanding nod and tried not to make it obvious that my attention was mostly focused on the ice cream sinking into espresso. To my relief, his explanation was quick enough. “There’s a single coffee bean hidden in the whipped cream, and you’re meant to eat it first.”

As he wiped down the tables around me, I dug into it and quickly found the aforementioned bean.

“Hmm,” I replied, popping it into my mouth. “Like the plastic baby in a king cake.”

Though still preoccupied with cleaning, I could see the man make a strange face. I realized it did sound rather unusual if you hadn’t done the tradition before. Warmth crept over my cheeks. I chased the bitter bean with two heaping spoonfuls of ice cream. Beyond being a stranger, this was a friend of Basilio’s. Did it really matter what he thought?

I shoveled down the ice cream and drank the espresso, savoring every bite and sip. It had been a good ten minutes at that point, but instead of feeling energized, I just felt . . . foggy. That was when it hit me.

This was a friend of Basilio’s.

Even ten minutes later, the bitterness of the bean still lingered on the back of my tongue, but it didn’t taste like the acidity of a coffee bean. I picked up the drink to examine it closer, then widened my eyes. “Oh—oh no.”

On the napkin he had set my drink on, in the halo of condensation, was a quickly scrawled,Sorry.

I turned to see the man, but he had already vanished, and everything was already beginning to feel dreamlike.

As the whirring of an electrical vehicle grew near, an overwhelming heaviness passed over me. With all my effort, I peeled my eyelids apart with my fingers, but even my arms struggled to remain upright. I cursed to myself aloud and pushed up against the table, hoping against all odds that I could take advantage of the last spurt of adrenaline to run away. But even the screeching of the chair right under me sounded distant, and the sight of the silver car pulling up beside me looked blurred. I couldn’t tell if the lines darting across my vision and tingling of my arm were some benzo-riddled hallucinations or a sudden torrent of rain.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

The world tilted, and the streetlights transformed into diagonal lines as I fell. I never hit the ground.

Chapter 46: M’odi, e trema

The concrete floor was chilly beneath me, yet warm enough to tell me I had been lying on it for a while. I was on my side, arms tied tightly to my side, shoulders aching against the hard floor. There were two men before me.

Even in the dim lighting, I recognized the first man instantly. Who else could those gleaming, crimson eyes and broad, fanged smile belong to but Barone Basilio de’ Medici?

Unlike the pristine grooming he’d undertaken during our first meeting, the nobleman looked unusually disheveled. His long hair was mussed, there was dirt along his jaw, and he wore a muddy button-down instead of the suit I had originally seen him in. Despite the mess, he still looked just as composed as when we had first met, if not more so.

To his side was a stranger in somber dress and visage. He stood behind Basilio and to the side, an elegant shadow.

“Who—” I began to ask, then stopped. I knew the answer.

The man was broad-shouldered and glowing with health, despite his age. He was a normal Italian through-and-through, sun-kissed even in the shadows, with curly salt-and-pepper hair. There was something I recognized about his high cheekbones, his defined Cupid’s bow, and most of all, the look in his hazel eyes. Utterly dead and yet intensely ablaze. Zeno’s father.

He folded his arms behind his back and bowed slightly at me, and the dim light glanced across a scar—a thin, silvery streak where his lips had been split down the middle at one point. I fought against the ropes harshly as his leather shoe appeared at my nose, but they did not give in the slightest. I wriggled desperately, then gave in as Basilio sat me up and propped me against the wall, clutching my cheeks in his grimy hands.

I squirmed out from his grasp and pulled my face back as far as I could in those ropes.

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded, holding back tears. “I thought we could talk this over!”

Basilio sighed, straightened, and tilted his head to the side with a genuine frown. “Talk? Don’t be ridiculous. I undid the existence of yourritus sanguinous, you know. I pulled every string I needed to pull, and not a soul has spoken your name since that night. Company stocks have been unaltered. But I still know.”

I didn’t say anything, just glared and pretended his words didn’t feel like daggers in my chest.

With a small sigh and shake of his head, Basilio continued, “I won’t lie to you, Signorina Bowling. Beyond protecting the Medici name, this may not be personal to Uncle Vincenzo—” he paused and pointed at the man at his side “—but it’s personal to me. You made me break promises, and more importantly, you’ve stolen someone dear to me.”

“Why are you telling me all this? Aren’t you wasting your breath when you’re just going to kill me?”

He laughed a genuine, mirthful laugh and shot a glance at Zeno's father. “Oh, Cora. If we wanted you dead, you would be. But Zeno would find out that hiseverythingisnothing, and I assume the worst for him.”

“Then what do you plan on doing to me?” I asked, squirming again. The ropes burned against my arm, which made me want to squirm even more. But of course, the rational side of me knew there wasn’t a point, so I instead opted to glare as hard as I could.

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