I remembered that smell from playing games with the boys out in the grounds. I remembered it when we read books in the library. I remembered it when I hugged Luca and pressed my nose into his shirt.
I clamped my eyes shut and turned my face into my pillow. I couldn’t think about him that way. The boy I loved with all my heart wasn’t the same person as the hardened mobster who threatened my family and me. That man who gave me the ultimatum to pretend to date him—he was a monster, plain and simple.
Nothing in his eyes or voice or manner left me in any doubt that he would carry out that threat. He said it with such sadistic pleasure. He liked making me scared of him. He enjoyed holding the power of life and death over me and the people I loved.
I could never care about someone like that. I had to stop thinking about loving him when we were children. That boy was long dead, if he ever existed at all.
That smell assaulted my senses at every turn. It kept driving the three of them into my brain no matter how hard I tried to get away from it.
I felt the same way about Dante and Dominic. Those memories were no dream. I knew that now. They were all too real.
Countless memories of love and play and close connection with each of them bombarded me without relent. One memory followed another in a seamless flood of emotion. Each of them held a special place in my heart. I never wanted to lose that feeling of love and happiness and safety.
They made me feel so safe… as though nothing could ever harm me. How could they turn into these fiends in a few short years? How could they grow up to be so… so evil?
That smell permeated the memory of my dad killing the twin’s father. Even his name came back to me. Lorenzo. Lorenzo Luciano. I knew him only too well. I just didn’t remember him until now. How could I betray his memory like this?
He was more than just another loyal foot soldier in the Fortino crime family. He was Don Antonio Fortino’s brother-in-law. Lorenzo married Antonio’s sister, Marta. The twins were Luca’s cousins. That was why they lived together at Archhurst.
I didn’t remember seeing or sensing anything going on between Marta and my dad, but maybe I was too young to notice. Their affair must have rankled the family at least as much as my dad selling the family to the FBI… And then my dad killed her too.
Tears sprang to my eyes. I grieved the loss of my father—the father I thought I had. That man I loved was nothing but a facade. It was nothing but an act my father played to cover up who he really was. He was a traitor and a killer all along.
I couldn’t stay here. I had to get away from them. I couldn’t pretend to date Luca or anyone else.
I swung my legs out of bed and tiptoed to the door to listen. No one was out there now, and when I peeked into the corridor, I found it deserted. The whole house was asleep.
I retreated into my bedroom and shut the door without a sound. I hurried over to the double doors and slipped out onto the balcony.
Archhurst spread out before me under the stars. Fountains tinkled in the distance, and a complete map of the estate snapped into my mind. I remembered every inch of it. I had covered all of it with the boys a thousand times.
I hopped over the wall and landed in the flowerbeds. I broke into a run, making for the back wall. A long avenue ran the length of the estate beyond that wall. That avenue led back to Boston. I could follow it and find somewhere to call the police.
I charged across the terrace, down the wide lawn, and plunged into the trees beyond. I dashed down winding paths. Just a little farther…
I broke out of the trees. The wall rose directly in front of me. I just had to figure out a way to climb over it. I approached it and rested both hands against it, trying to find a foot or handhold.
I remembered looking over this wall with the boys. How did we get up that high?
“Are you going somewhere?”
I whipped around with my heart in my mouth as Luca sauntered out of the trees. I cringed to get away from him and ended up bumping into the wall. Damn it. How did he find me?
“Not a very sophisticated escape plan if you ask me,” he breezed. “I knew you’d come down here. Is this the best you can come up with?”
My fear switched to anger. “You can’t keep me here. You won’t get away with this.”
He inched a few steps closer. “I don’t have to keep you here. You’ll stay of your own free will. You wouldn’t want to think you were responsible for your parents’ death.”
His threat made me even more enraged. “How do I know they aren’t already dead? You hate my dad so much. Why don’t you just kill him and be done with it?”
“Because…” He halted right in front of me and lowered his voice to a deadly purr. “Then I wouldn’t get so much pleasure out of watching you squirm.”
I felt myself squirming under his direct, unwavering scrutiny, and it made me even madder. I wanted to be anywhere in the world as long as it was far away from him.
I bolted to one side, but he moved faster. In a fraction of a second, he lunged for me, pinned me in place, and the cold steel of a blade touched my throat. Not even that could overcome my revulsion and fury at him.
I wrenched sideways to break away. He snatched my wrist and slammed it against the wall above my head. I tried to shove him away, but he wrestled my other arm upward and locked both my wrists together.