Page 16 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"How do you not know?"
"I know it wasn't me. And I know there's someone inside my own house who ordered it. That person wanted the war between us, because the war served that person somehow, in a way I'm still figuring out. For three years I've been looking for a name, a face, anything."
I stayed silent, feeling my blood boil.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because you have a right to know."
"No. Why now?"
He looked at me, very slowly.
"Because as long as you think it was me, you're dangerous to me. And because until you know the truth about your father, you're dangerous to yourself. I'd rather have you on my side, Valentina. Even knowing the risk."
The words hung in the air between us.
I looked at the envelope on the desk, but I didn't touch it. I didn't need to. I already knew, somewhere inside me, in some small and stubborn place, that he wasn't lying. I'd known since the photo, since the vineyard, since the touch on my elbow.
I got up and went to the window, looking at the bay in the dark.
"If my father had my brother killed," I said, without turning around, "I'll kill him with my own hands."
"I know."
"Before the wedding."
I stayed quiet and heard him coming closer slowly, stopping behind me. He didn't touch me, but I felt him there—the heat of his body, the smell of the cigar, his breathing.
"Valentina, I still don't know if it was him. It could have been his consigliere, an uncle, someone in my own house he's never even met. You can't do anything before we know. Do you understand me?"
I didn't answer.
"Do you understand me?"
I turned, and he was very close. Too close.
"Promise me one thing," I said. "When we know, you let me into the room."
He looked at me, a long look. And then the corner of his mouth went up again. Those two millimeters.
"Brava," he said.
Then he left the office before I could answer, leaving the door open behind him and the envelope on the desk.
I stood at the window longer than I needed to, thinking that I'd walked into that office hating one man.
And that I'd walked out hating the other.
CHAPTER 6
"A woman warned by another woman is a woman armed—no matter which side the other one is on."
VALENTINA ROSSI
I woke with the sun on my face and the red dress crumpled on the floor like a pool of blood.
I'd slept in my makeup, with my hair still pinned up. I'd slept with the dagger still in my boot, too—the boot had fallen beside the bed, and the dagger lay there looking up at me like a question I hadn't answered.
