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“You’ll see. Bring your coffee upstairs. I need to keep an eye on you while I get dressed.”
Instead of doing as he says, I slide onto a stool at the counter and take a sip. “You don’t have to watch me every moment of the day. I’ve wondered about that night for months, and now that I’m getting closer to the truth, the last thing I want to do is run.”
“Why wouldn’t you run? I’m going to kill you as soon as you tell me everything.”
I take another sip of my coffee, surprising myself about how nonchalant I feel.
He stares at me for a long time, and then shakes his head. “You’re a strange woman, Rieta Lombardi.”
He goes upstairs to get dressed, and I watch his broad, scarred, and tattooed back as he leaves the kitchen. That’s another thing that’s different about the two brothers. The scars. But there’s something else as well. This man looks at me like I’m the only woman in the world, even when his eyes are filled with hate.
I look out onto the sunny garden while I wait for him to return. Maybe I am a strange woman, but I want answers. A man is buried in my back garden, and my strong sense of right and wrong tells me that the person responsible has to pay for his death, and that person is probably me.
Fifteen minutes later, the stranger comes back downstairs, freshly shaved and wearing a black suit and leather shoes. I don’trecognize the clothing. He looks sharper and more dangerous than my husband, who always favored traditional suits.
He notices me staring as he buttons his suit jacket. “What?”
“Your clothes. They’re different.”
“I bought them the other day. There’s no need for me to pretend to be someone I’m not anymore.”
As he strides past me, I breathe in, and a rich, aromatic scent surrounds him, one that I’ve smelled before, but not for months. He smells like my fiancé.
The man who kissed me and caressed me.
The man who rescued me from the basement.
As if moving through a dream, I reach out and take hold of this stranger. He looks at me like I’m crazy, but I don’t care. Going up on tiptoe, I put my face next to his freshly shaved cheek and breathe in. My eyes drift closed in pleasure. He smells like the marriage I always wanted. The scent makes me want to burrow against his chest and never let go.
“Rieta. What the fuck are you doing?”
My eyes snap open. Both my arms are wrapped tightly around his waist. My cheeks heat from embarrassment, and I slowly disentangle myself from this man and follow him out the front door.
We drive across the city, and I start to feel sick as I realize where we’re going. To Nero’s office. Apart from that flash of memory with the shovel in the back garden, the last thing I remember from that night was seeing Nero’s—Luca’s—car parked outside.
I cross my arms across my chest tightly as I gaze through the windshield at the entrance, my stomach suddenly clenching with anxiety.
“Remember anything?” the man asks as he switches off the engine.
I shake my head. “I have a sense of dread. I don’t know why.”
Inside the building, there’s no one there. My husband’s business affairs ground to a halt without him, and I suppose everyone who worked for him was given severance by his lawyers and found other jobs months ago.
In my husband’s office, I stand in a corner with my nails digging into my palms while the stranger goes through the papers on the desk. He boots up the computer and enters the correct password.
Over the monitor, he shoots me a baleful glare. “Are you just going to stand there? Look around. See if anything jogs your memory.”
I gaze doubtfully around the room. Once or twice I picked my husband up after work, but I’ve never been in this room before. Nothing about it sparks any memories, but I dutifully walk around the room. It’s a large, luxurious space with heavy blinds on the windows. I open them, letting in the sunlight. Curious that they were closed. I thought people enjoyed sunlit offices, but my husband was a secretive man.
My fingers trail over the back of a white leather sofa and across a long, glass-topped cabinet displaying a few expensive-looking sculptures and a crystal bowl. The pale carpet is thick beneath my shoes. My foot passes over a dark spot, and then I pull it back.
Is that a drop of blood?
I get down on my knees and touch the reddish-brown spot. It’s old, and it’s been cleaned, but the stain is a stubborn one. It could be blood, but I’m not sure.
Out of the corner of my eye, something glistens in the dark beneath the cabinet. There’s about three inches of dusty space where the cleaners haven’t been so scrupulous.
“What’s that?” I murmur to myself.
