Page 93

Why would Dario have flown to Sicily without a standing meeting with the capo? What other reason would he have to visit?

I twisted so I was lying on my back and looked at Dario in the blue light of the phone screen. His face was so much younger in sleep, the brackets beside his mouth and the notch between his brows smoothed out, the faint silver traces at his temples smudged out in the dark. My fingers itched to trace the shape of one slashing brow and push into the subtle divot in the square chin.

Instead, I turned back to my phone and pulled up my encryption software to contact my hacker friend, Obsidian Swan. If anyone could find information about those missing twenty-four hours of Dario’s life, she could.

I had just sent the email when a text came in from Finn.

Finn: Sorry about the late hour but figured you’d want this Stat. Don’t know what to make of the results . . . Call me when you can, and if I don’t hear from you by 10 a.m. tomorrow, I’m coming to the house to check on you. They won’t let me through the door, I’ll knock it down.

My fingers shook as I pulled up my encrypted email for the Oracle and clicked on the private lab results Finn had forwarded to me.

Results of examination: Sample subject confirmed as one Dario Orlando Ferretti.

My heart stopped, from one second to the next.

Sweat broke out on my palms and across my forehead, at the back of my neck.

I forgot the mechanics of breathing, and the air in my lungs evaporated into nothing.

If Dario Ferretti’s ear was the severed one in the box, who the hell was lying beside me in bed pretending to be my husband?

I blinked, and my heart restarted with a clunky lurch before stumbling into a sprint.

My entire body was shaking as I twisted to hold my phone close to my husband’s cheek, searching for the faint three-line scar I’d carved on our wedding day into his flesh. I didn’t know why it occurred to me to check other than some vague idea that the scar wasn’t always noticeable.

The ghostly light illuminated surprisingly smooth, tanned skin, and when I quested my fingertips over it, there wasn’t any sign of raised scars.

Oh my God.

Just as I thought to snatch my hand away, Dario’s ice-blue eyes sprang open. There was no sign of sleepiness in the bright orbs, made almost neon in the light of my phone. Just a keen alertness like a predator sighting their prey.

My hand froze instinctively, fingertips still against his cheek.

A muscle jumped under my touch.

“Fia,” he said softly.

That was what unstuck me.

My husband never called me Fia. It was always Fiammetta, the proper full name. A sign of distance that he refused to close even in bed, even in rare moments of thoughtfulness.

And he never—not ever—said my name like that.

As if my name was a benediction or a hallelujah.

As if it was sacred and full of bliss.

I had never moved so quickly in my life. Between one blink and the next, I was off the bed, racing backward through the bedroom to the door because I knew better than to turn my back on an enemy.

As soon as I had the knob in my hand and threw it open, I twisted and raced from the room down the hall.

I was halfway down the stairs before I heard the heavy tread of his big body chasing after me.

My heart was lodged in my throat, beating so hard I threatened to choke, but I didn’t let it slow me down. I ran down the stairs so fast I smashed into the marble pedestal at the side of the staircase and knocked an Etruscan vase to the floor with a crashing shatter.

Ignoring the pain as a piece sliced clean through my bare foot, I headed down the hallway, desperate to get to the one place I would be safe.

I was a Mafia queen in a fortress. We had precautions for everything, including home invasion in case the security at the gate and across the grounds failed. To someone outside of the life, they might have said a panic room was an unnecessary expense.