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He doesn’t look happy as he nods again. Then he says something to Carlo. Lifts his gun hand, open and empty, in a dismissive wave, and he turns back to his marked car. He throws out a scowl as he climbs in. Turning off the red and blue flashers, he reverses, turns and drives off the way he came.
Carlo saunters back to the car.
“What did you say to him?”
“Not much.” He has an easy sparkle in his eye. “He’s new to the force. I gave him a couple of tips. Names of people who can help his career.”
“You ordered him off.”
Carlo’s shrug is light. “I gave him a pointer. He’ll do better with that than if I gave him a donation to the widows and orphans.” As he swings his legs back into the Bentley and fires up the big engine, he’s like a man without a care in the world.
“You want to go somewhere quiet for a drink?” His eyebrows lift, and the look in his eye is inviting. “I know a place. Nice. Out of the way. Overlooks a lake.”
Up from under his loose, movie-star hair and his perfectly manicured eyebrows, he almost lets loose a smile. “They have rooms, too.”
My heart pounds. Before I can answer, his phone beeps.
He fishes in his pocket, then his face darkens when he sees the screen.
“Minke. I have to go. The don wants a council of war.” He slaps the steering wheel. “I don’t make any of the decisions, but the don isn’t stupid. He knows that between us, my advice and Bruno’s are worth more than the blundering doofus he calls his consigliere.”
And Alessio? I’m wondering, Where’s he in the equation? but I keep my counsel, as Daddy would say. And I notice, like Bruno, he calls Don Fortuna the don. Not ‘Dad,’ or even ‘my father.’
“Sorry, Cinderella. I’m taking you back to the house.”
“I can come with you.”
“No.”
“I could wait in a bar or a diner.”
“No.”
“Or in the car.”
He grabs my wrist. His intensity makes me buzz. “I need to know you are safe. Meanwhile, I have to go and meet with the don and the others at a place in town.” The thought clearly doesn’t please him.
He’s wrong about me, though. I tell him, “I’m Cinderella in reverse. I was a princess to start with, but at the stroke of midnight, my party clothes were all over the place and a prince came for me.”
Even with my inexperience, I know that the first encounters with a mafia prince can be devastating. but from the way I’ve watched princesses turn into brides, then slide down into married life, they don’t always wear so well.
Now, though, right now, I feel more of a glow inside than I knew that I could. I never felt better than I do this moment.
He sees me inside the big doors of the house of horrors, and leaves me there. I watch from the door as he drives away, and I feel a pang. I feel for him. I love him. I’m falling in love with him. But I can’t deny the feelings that I have for Bruno, too. And for Alessio. Just the thought of him gives me shivers.
Carlo told me to wait for him in the summerhouse. We won’t be disturbed there. Maybe. But I have no idea how long I’ll have to wait for him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The summerhouse is out in the grounds at thee back. Even though Carlo gave me directions, I was unsure. I have to steel myself to ask Mrs. Jago to point me the way. Getting a favor from her feels like dragging out something heavy and awful stuck in the bottom of a freezer.
The look she gives me is enough to chill the bottle of white wine I picked out. As she gives me directions, the twist in her voice could strip paint.
A council of war can be anything from twenty minutes of the don giving instructions, to several days of consultation and planning, with maps and calls and advisors summoned in. I know. That’s how Daddy’s were.
Chilly night air and the huge, gothic house looming behind me make the nighttime stroll in the grounds a pulse-raising prospect, but twenty-first century tech pours automatic, motion-sensing light on the sculpted slopes and manicured lawns. Painted in flat, low-level LED light, the place looks more like a modeled set or a game rendering.
When I finally find the summerhouse, nestled in trees, way down by the lake, I let myself in with the key and the code. Inside is a reception room with a wet bar. I take my bottle and Kindle to a big, open room with wide benches and soft, padded chairs and a picture windows overlooking the lake. I collect a glass and a corkscrew from the wet bar and, as an afterthought, I take a glass of cold water, too.
