Page 69 of Vicious Heir

Life changed after the funeral.

Adriano was never exactly an emotionally available person. Mostly he loomed around the house and glared at me like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to rip my head off or shove his tongue in my mouth. And honestly, I was starting to enjoy it.

But now it’s like he pulls into himself even more. Half the time he doesn’t come to bed, and when he does, he’s in after I’m asleep and out before I’m awake. I catch glimpses of him around the house and only know he still lives with me when I find little pieces of evidence: a wet toothbrush, a pair of slacks thrown over the back of a chair, dirty dishes in the sink. That first week, he throws himself into clearing out his father’s rooms with a reckless obsession, almost to the point of self-harm.

“I’m worried about him,” Donatella tells me one afternoon. “He’s working too hard.”

“I agree, but I don’t know what I can do.”

“Maybe you can talk to him?” Her skinny eyebrows raise high. “I think he’d listen to you.”

I promise her I’ll try, but I know it’s pointless. When I finally do corner him in his office, he’s vague and dismissive, just keeps saying that he’s busy now that he’s officially in charge of the Famiglia.

I start to miss him.

It’s a weird feeling, missing someone that was never really mine to begin with. But there was something growing between us, and now it’s like that thing is either dead or frozen solid. I start making him espresso every day in my favorite teacups, just to let him know that I’m thinking of him. I place it down in his office and go pick it up again a few hours later.

Inevitably, the cups are empty, even when I didn’t know he was in the house.

I start picking up other little tasks. I organize his suits and lay them out for him in the morning. At first, I’m not sure he’ll like it that I’m dressing him, but soon the new suits disappear and the old suits take their place. I arrange for them to get dry cleaned and make sure everything’s perfect.

Some nights, I sneak into his office and leave drinks on his desk. I make him Manhattans, Old Fashioneds, even start experimenting with tequila. There’s always an empty glass, except when I go crazy with gin. He ignores those.

I start learning him from a distance.

The clothes he wears, the music he listens to, the books he reads. I cook his favorite dinner and even catch him eating it. There’s a strange smile on his face as he sits at his desk and carefully twirls some simple pasta with Bolognese onto a fork. My stomach thrills at the sight of him eating my dish, but I don’t go in and bother him.

A few nights after that, I find roses in our room. They’re left on top of my bureau with a little note.You’re a wonderful cook. A.

More gestures follow. A new pair of house slippers. A silk robe from Givenchy with my initials on the chest. Designer dresses, beautiful handmade hair clips, a whole avalanche of lotions, serums, and masks. One afternoon, I come downstairs and find a new teacup sitting on the kitchen counter. When I ask Donatella about it, she only smiles.

“That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

But I don’t know what anything means anymore.

A month passes, and I keep missing him. I see Kennedy a few times. She gets a new job working at a nearby veterinarian clinic. “God, I love dogs, but I can do without all the cats,” she complains, but at least she seems happy.

Even though I’m trying to find him in my own way, he’s somewhere else.

I catch him watering my plants on a quiet Sunday morning, and I swear I hear him whisper all their names. It shocks me that he knows them all. When I walk into the room, he makes an excuse and leaves me alone. I touch the wet soil just to make sure he was really there.

I know there’s a conflict going on outside the mansion, mostly because I hear snatches of conversation between the guards. Luca gets a black eye. One of the other young men has his hand wrapped in bandages. I hear them talk about guns, ammunition, ambushes, blood. There’s gossip about burned buildings, drive-by shootings, and vicious hand-to-hand battles. I don’t know if we’re winning. I’m not sure we even can.

Adriano is in the middle of it all, but it’s like I’m living with a ghost.

One night, I’m sitting outside with Donatella. We’ve gotten closer since the funeral. She’s smiling and on her second glass of wine, which means she’s starting to get a little loose. “I know you have stories about Adriano from when he was younger,” I press her, refilling her glass to the tippy top.

She sighs and gives me a sly look. “I know what you’re doing, pumping me full of wine so I’ll tell you his most embarrassing secrets.” She takes a sip to keep it from spilling. “But I’d do that without the alcohol, darling.”

There’s the time he got caught stealing a car and his father had to bail him out of trouble. And the time he broke into a bakery and stole six trash bags filled with fresh rolls, only to realize they’d all go bad in a few days anyway. He had to donate them to a homeless shelter. There was the street race and the many, many fights, and the guitar phase.

“You should’ve seen him,” she says, hand over her heart. “Fourteen years old, hair down to here—” She gestures at her eyes. “And singing theseawfulsongs. Don’t get me wrong, Adriano has a very wonderful singing voice, but the music.” She wrinkles her nose.

“Was it emo stuff? God, tell me he was into emo music.”

“Oh, it was all,my girlfriend is so mean, she cheated on me, she broke my heart into a million pieces, that kind of thing.”

I cover my mouth. “He was into emo!”

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