Page 60 of Promised to the Don of Naples
"Is my brother down there?"
"Go back up, Signorina."
"I can go down. I'm the bride."
"Signorina," he said, his voice firmer. "Go back up."
The man wasn't going to let me past, I knew. And I also knew that if I insisted, he'd call Luca, and Luca would come down, and that would be worse.
I went back up the stairs, but I swore, on every step, that I would have that conversation.
I knocked on his office door without waiting for an answer.
I pushed it open. He was sitting at the desk, jacket over the back of the chair, sleeves already rolled, a glass of whiskey on the desk.
"Bella."
"Let my brother go."
"No."
I walked to the desk and braced both hands on the edge, looking at him.
"You don't have that right."
"I have the right."
"You just promised me, nineteen hours ago, that he was your fratello."
"I promised he was," he said plainly. "Not that he automatically stayed that way."
"You're being cruel."
"I'm being exact, Valentina. That's different."
"Cruel!"
"Bella." He stood up slowly and came around the desk. "If I let your brother go now, in forty-eight hours your father will know. In seventy-two, he has Matteo back in Palermo. In a week, he has Matteo dead for real this time. Or he has Matteo armed against me. Which do you prefer?"
"I prefer my brother out of a cellar."
"The cellar is the only thing keeping him alive until we sort out the rest."
"You could have put him in a room."
"Rooms have windows. Windows have a line of sight to the street. The street has your father's soldier on it within twenty-four hours. There's no safe room in this house, Valentina. Only the cellar."
I looked at him. His black eyes were closer than I wanted, the scar through his eyebrow, the smell of the cigar. Him.
"Luca. I can't hate you when you talk like that."
"Then don't try."
"I have to try."
"Why?"
"Because I don't know who my family is anymore."
