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“I was wrong to. It was always you for Giovanni, Nera. You should know that.”
She waved her hand. “This isn’t about me. Or even Giovanni; not really. You thought it would be best for him, that it would add strength to his position. But you never considered it for yourself?”
Antonio turned away from her, leaning on the kitchen island and staring at the empty archway. “What are you trying to figure out, Nera?”
She sighed, moving things around before picking up one of the kitchen knives and slicing through the fruit. It would be tarts today, Tommaso’s favorite.
“I didn’t like you much at first,” she admitted.
Antonio’s grin was easy enough to muster. “I wasn’t trying to make you like me back then.”
She laughed. “That’s true. You were so full of yourself. Cocky and arrogant, with a mouth that wouldn’t shut up.”
“Well, that hasn’t changed,” he said, comfortable enough to face her again. “That’s who I am.”
She shook her head. “I realized it after a while. Antonio, the truth is, you don’t like yourself, do you?”
His grin fell away as he stared at her.
Nera didn’t pause in her prep work as she waited for an answer.
He cleared his throat, forcing his smile back into place. “You just said I’m cocky and arrogant. It can’t be both ways, Nera.”
“It can if it’s all a front.” She reached for another piece of fruit. “I never asked about it, but you knew all along, didn’t you? That you and Giovanni were brothers?”
Antonio blinked as he tried to process the change in subject. Memories dragged at his mind, ones filled with his mother’s voice. He took a deeper breath. He wasn’t a conflicted little boy anymore. “I didn’t always love Giovanni. Is that what you want to hear?”
Her knife stopped moving as she looked toward him.
“I mean, how could I? My mother compared the two of us, pointing out my superiority, but it was also never quite enough. Not to be claimed as my father’s son. I recognized that, and I hated my half brother. It was easier to hate him and do what she wanted me to do.”
“Antonio—”
He moved his face closer to hers, his glare stopping her. “No, this is what you wanted to know, right? You wanted to understand why Giovanni was the only one left in the dark?”
She hesitated, then nodded. “All the Di Salvo soldiers knew,” she murmured. “But not Giovanni. It seemed strange to me.”
“At first, my father didn’t claim me because of my mother. She was a toxic piece of ass to him, much more problematic than Inessa, Giovanni’s mother. My mother set it up where her husband, Antonio Sr, attacked his own brother. When Giovanni Sr killed him, she thought she was golden. She thought he’d marry her and she’d be some Mafia queen with the prized heir since she was pregnant from their affair. Our father knew exactly what kind of schemer she was. He was the one who named me after his brother, and then he married someone else.”
Nera blinked.
“I’m older,” Antonio reminded her. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I wasn’t named Giovanni?”
“No.” Nera swallowed. “Giovanni’s mother didn’t name him that out of love.”
Antonio snorted. “Inessa was an ideal mother compared to my own. She was married to a piece of shit, our father, and dealing with that took priority over Giovanni, but at least she tried to do right by him. My mother didn’t care about anything but her own upward mobility, and she saw me as a chess piece, one who failed her time and again.”
“I’m sorry,” Nera said. “You don’t have to talk about this.”
But the memories wouldn’t be crowded out anymore. “Did you know that my mother and I went to your family’s bakery first?”
She stilled beside him.
He wasn’t seeing her anymore. He was seeing the brightness that had been the Carmens’ bakery. As a child, Nera had been part of that brightness, but she was never a clear image, not the center of things like she’d become for his brother.
No, it had simply been a bright and cheery day, one where his mother had offered Antonio a treat, and they’d purchased the panna cotta to go.
“My mother heard that panna cotta was Inessa’s favorite dessert and that there was a place in one of the Di Salvos’ borgatas that had the best. I never got to taste it. At the time, even I didn’t realize she planned to poison the dessert she’d purchased.”
