He watched her face, needing to see if she loved his home the way he did. It would be her home, theirs—where they would raise their children. He had studied the layout carefully before purchasing the property, making certain, as Stefano had drilled into all of them, that if they did have families, they could protect their wives and children from any harm from every direction. He had done just that.
There had been a long-standing feud hundreds of years earlier in Sicily between the Ferraro family and the Saldi family. In the territory where both families resided, the Saldis were the unspoken leaders and the ruling crime family. In spite of the fact that they always had an uneasy truce, the Saldi family had asked the Ferraro family to merge with them, and the Ferraro family had refused.
The Saldis often aided the people in the territory against the crimes committed on them by the local government, but then the price could be bloody or steep and the Ferraros would aid them. The Saldis didn’t like the interference. When the invitation to join forces was refused, the Saldis sent their soldiers to kill every man, woman and child in the Ferraro family. Only a few escaped, going “underground.” They fled the country, disappearing into other countries around the world. Those who managed to escape were mainly shadow riders. They vowed such a thing would never happen to any family member again, and rules were put into place and they began to grow in numbers. As they did, the Ferraros grew even more vigilant.
He watched as Nicoletta stood in the drive, hands on her hips, looking up at the high-pitched roof that was much more than a roof. The entire covering of the house was really an art piece and a fortress at the same time. The architect had built the rooftop to be a lookout, a place he could go to see the city and the surrounding hillsides from every direction.
The owner could set his high-powered telescope up to study the stars, something one couldn’t do in Chicago. He could land his helicopter right on the center of the roof when he needed to, yet the landing place was invisible from nearly every conceivable direction. That was what had given Taviano the idea to have the rooftop be more than the art piece the architect had designed it to be.
There were gables and cathedral ceilings, dormers and rounded turrets that rose into the sky like towers on each corner of the house, giving it the appearance of a castle. Those turrets effectively gave him places of cover when he might need them if he had to defend his home with a rifle. He had lights to shine around the yard to cast shadows in every direction, to give his family ways to disappear should they need it.
Nicoletta turned and looked at him and then back at the house. He walked up to her, standing close, but didn’t make the mistake of touching her.
“You live here? You bought this place?”
“I thought it was beautiful. I was looking for somewhere peaceful and wanted land. I didn’t expect the house. The roof alone intrigued me. Up there, at night, you can see the stars and they go on forever. You can’t see them in the city because the lights are too bright. Out here, there aren’t any lights. I bought up as much land as possible around me, just as Vittorio did. He actually was the one who gave me the idea. He can see the stars. I wanted to be able to do it as well. I’ve got an amazing telescope.”
He loved the telescope he had and hoped Nicoletta would become as passionate about stargazing as he was. He often went onto the roof and just spent time studying the various constellations. He particularly liked to look for new galaxies. That was one of the things he thought would intrigue Nicoletta and maybe help bind her closer to him. For now, it was the house he was counting on—the house and the surrounding woods. He hoped they would have the same effect on her they had on him—bringing her peace.
He waited, not pushing her to go inside. Vines crept up trellises and reached toward the closest bushes so that it was impossible to tell where the actual start of the plants surrounding most of the house was. The plants crept back toward the woods and then into the trees so that flowers adorned the trunks as if they were in a jungle setting. The original owner had managed to create a space close to the house that simulated a rain forest. Taviano knew that that alone was worth the price the man had asked. Looking at Nicoletta’s face, he knew he would have paid ten times the amount.