Page 3 of The Lies We Tell

“If you go back, I’ll go with you,” Maeve said into the long stretch of silence.

“You’ll fucking what?” Roarke demanded.

“I’ve been talking to Grandda about taking a break before he makes me marry someone.”

“Now you’re getting married?” Roarke snapped.

“Not yet.” Maeve sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “But he wants me to. Soon. I could hold him off a year at least, spend some much-needed time away from Ireland, if I was helping you settle in and carry out your plans for Sicily.”

She looked up at him, her eyes sweeping beyond him to Roarke and her brother before settling back on his face. “He would agree if it was to help you. Let me help you, Matteo.”

He had plans for Sicily—to bring down the families that had so often tried and failed to wipe out the Bianchi name. Plans that would be impossible to execute without the support of his brothers and sister. And what reason did Dom, Luca, and Carina have to help him? He’d abandoned them.

But he couldn’t say the idea didn’t appeal to him. To go back, cut the families that had tried to use them and push them out down to size, and sit on Sicily’s throne.

He’d been able to do so much on his own these last few years. The opportunities were limitless with the wealth and power the island of Sicily would provide with all five territories under his control.

It was a move his father had always been too weak and too unambitious to take. But the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to do it, the more he wanted to hear people whisper the Bianchi name with reverence instead of disrespect.

“Did the article say when services were being held?”

Maeve gave him a small smile. “Five days. I guess you better start packing. Il Signore.”

Chapter One

8 months later

“He’s mine to deal with. And I know you have him.”

Matteo looked around at the opulent room decorated in dark greens and browns. It felt out of place in the seaside Sicilian villa. A room more suited to a mountain hunting lodge somewhere in Europe.

He’d been in a room like this before, but in Germany. A sprawling mansion in Hesse that could only be called a castle with its spearing towers and winding gardens. The man who owned it wore tweed jackets with leather elbow patches and smoked a pipe.

To this day, the smell of tobacco reminded Matteo of the ten million euro deal he’d closed for drugs and laundered money. They’d shaken on it, and then Matteo had been invited for dinner with the neighbors. Elegant, old-money families who didn’t know the man who’d purchased and restored the crumbling eighteenth-century manor was trafficking drugs and women right under their noses.

“Why would I be hiding one of Gallo’s men?” Antonetti replied, pulling Matteo back to the present.

“That is an excellent question. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because he’s been helping you poke your nose where it doesn’t belong. I don’t recall you being such a risk taker before. You surprise me.”

Salvatore Antonetti remained reclined in his antique desk chair, but his temper was evident in the way he gripped the leather arms with white knuckles. Antonetti might never admit it, but Matteo was getting to him. The realization made Matteo smile.

Of all the Dons on this island, Antonetti required the most effort to take down. He was very well-connected across Europe. He had a lot of contacts ready and willing to back him against a play for power. But so did Matteo.

He’d spent years building up to this moment. His connections were just as strong, his bank accounts just as full. And he wanted this more than Antonetti wanted to keep him from it.

“Nothing about the way you’ve handled any of this business on the island has surprised me,” Antonetti sneered. “You’re as inadequate as your father was.”

Matteo’s laugh was cold and derisive. “I’m not interested in your opinion of me. I only want Gallo’s henchman. He’s of no use to you anymore. He’ll never be able to help you find whatever it is you’ve been looking for. No matter how much money you throw at him.”

“You say that with such confidence,” Antonetti replied. “How do you know I don’t have what I need already?”

“Because if you did, you wouldn’t have agreed to meet with me."

Antonetti’s lip curled back over his teeth. He didn’t like being outsmarted and definitely not by a man young enough to be his son. Something that gave Matteo great satisfaction.

“I don’t know what’s more pathetic. That you think you’ve got the upper hand or that you think you can take me down.”

Matteo’s grin was razor-sharp. “Underestimating me was Gallo’s mistake too. I’d hate to see you make the same one. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

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