Page 78 of My Dark Fairy Tale
The ground between us seemed to shake with thunder, the air static with impending lightning. One strike and it would be over, but both of us held precariously still, unwilling to concede victory to the other.
“Does she know the truth?” Pucci asked softly, still trying to lure me into striking him so he would have a reason to cuff me.
“She knows the truth about me,” I said, and it felt honest because it was mostly true.
Guinevere might be missing huge chapters of my life’s work, but she understood the underlying principles and themes of my identity better than people closer to me who had known me my entire life. She could see the duality in me and accepted it. I just had to believe that she wouldn’t care how deep that darkness went if she ever had occasion to find out.
“This is a simple breaking and entering case.” Martina stepped forward to draw his attention, squeezing my arm in a silent gesture to take Guinevere out of there. “Why don’t we focus on that instead of a ghost story, hmm?”
I left the deputy chief in Martina’s capable hands and went to Guinevere, who was talking with a local officer and Signora Verga. Herexpression was one of relief when I slid an arm around her waist and accepted her weight against my side.
She gestured limply at the cop. “Apparently, I can’t take any of my things yet because it’s a crime scene, but he said that nothing was taken.” She snorted. “Probably because I had nothing of value to take. Though some of the purses and shoes you bought me could have been sold secondhand for a decent amount of money.” I rubbed her frown away with my thumb. “Anyway, I gave my brief statement about being at the party, and they said they would contact me. Can we go home now?”
I fought a smile because it was inappropriate given the circumstances, but the sound ofhomein her mouth was almost as pretty as her moans in the Boboli Gardens.
Instead, I kissed her temple. “Certo, andiamo, cerbiatta.”
Before we cleared the door, I turned to look at Verga, whose small eyes were wet and red. It went against my usual character to offer aid, but British Raffa would not have thought twice about helping.
“Guinevere is breaking her lease. I will pay the rest of the month and have someone here on Monday to install a better security system for the foyer.”
Signora Verga gaped at me, but when Guinevere giggled softly, the sound stirred her enough that she waved her handkerchief at me in thanks before pressing it to her leaking eyes.
“That was very nice of you,” Guinevere murmured as she pressed more and more of her weight into me while we walked down the stairs and out to the car. “Sweet, some might say.”
“Quiet, you. You are obviously in shock,” I mocked, flicking her lightly on the nose before helping her into the car.
I thought she had fallen asleep on the way to my house when she suddenly murmured, “Just my luck, someone breaking into my place. Much more my speed than literally running into my Italian dream man.”
When I looked over at her at the next red light, she was asleep, mouth open and soft with sleep. I carried her inside when we arrived, hushing Renzo when he greeted us so that I could get her situated in my bedroom. She was limp as a doll and heavy while I took off her ruined dress and settled her under the covers.
I leaned over to kiss her forehead and murmured my truth into her ear so that it might affect her dreams. “I never expected to run into my dream American girl. Now that I have, I am not sure I will be able to let you go.”
Chapter Seventeen
Raffa
Everyone gathered in the study while Guinevere slept. We waited until Martina arrived to begin, but the atmosphere after I briefed them on the situation crackled with tension, and everyone was palpably on edge.
“I need to know why this happened,” I began slowly, so the anger bubbling lava hot in my gut would not spill onto the people who did not deserve it. “Did Pucci overstep and send someone to break into her place to find something on me, even knowing it would not be admissible in court? Did this San Marco lion-bullshit enemy decide to threaten Guinevere to get to me? Or was this truly a random break-in and the timing is insanely coincidental?”
“The Grecos have ties to Venice,” Carmine admitted, shifting forward in his chair to run a weary hand over his face. “Angela Greco was married off to the Tancredi family there, and her mother was originally from Murano.”
“Fuck,” Renzo and I said simultaneously.
“Ludo, have you found out who the Albanians are using in Livorno now? My bet is on the Grecos or Pietras because they both have access to the coast around the area.” I flipped the stone wolf figurine in my hand as I spoke, unable to get the image of the wooden lion with the wolf pup in its mouth out of my head.
Seeing it induced a vivid nightmare of Guinevere just as limp and cold in the arms of my enemies.
Why did that image tear through me? Not with a clean slice but in a great sundering, as if I were being ripped in two. I had known her for three weeks.Three weeks.
But what weight did time hold over the human heart?
Because despite having spent the last four years believing that I had become a machine, more metal than bone, I felt alive and completely defenseless sitting in that chair, knowing that my actions could bear consequences for this woman.
This woman I wanted to shield at any cost and keep at my side for ...
Well, for much longer than the three weeks we had left together.
