Page 44 of Unbound

“Day and a half,” she replies. Fuck. It felt like I was gone for an hour tops. She scoots up, so she’s straddling me, runs her hands over my face. Smooths back my hair, checks me over. Once she’s satisfied, she leans down and kisses me. “Never do that to me again, you big lummox.”

“What exactly did I do? And why are you here and not in Italy?”

“I knew something was wrong. I could just tell no matter what you said. We came back. There’ll be other flights, but there’s only one you. I ran straight through into the courtyard, possibly knocked Aidan flying on the way. Then I found you in that horrible place, that awful hole …”

She sounds terrified, the memory of it unsettling her. I can understand that. I would feel exactly the same. I take her hands in mine, kiss her fingertips. “I’m good, bella. I have things to tell you, but I’m good.”

She nods, but a sigh shudders through her. “Your eyes were still open, Luca. Staring and completely silver. You were out cold, and it was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Not like when you’re sleeping; it was like you were actually dead. There was no trace of a breath, no heartbeat. Not one single thud all the time I was checking. It was as though you’d just gone. Luca had left the building. It was … um. It was a pretty bad moment. I think the only reason I didn’t set the whole place on fire is that I was crying so much. I got Aidan and Matteo, and they carried you out, brought you back here. Minnie said you were still alive, but I didn’t believe her … part of me really thought you’d gone. I couldn’t feel you. I couldn’t reach you. You were gone, Luca.”

“And now I’m back,” I tell her, pulling her down into my arms, cradling her against me. We both need the comfort, the closeness. “Though I’m not entirely sure where I’m back from.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, her hands sliding around my waist, clinging to the side of my body like a limpet. I puff out some air, try and gather myself.

“I mean something happened to me while I was gone. I met my mother. I met my younger self. I found out my real name.”

Chapter 19

Luca

“Luca d’Argento,” I say, still getting used to the feel of it on my tongue. I have only ever been Luca da Firenze. Only ever been the bastard son of a maid who thought so little of her child that she sold him to monsters. The only parents I ever knew were Giulia and Vincenzo, two of the most corrupt creatures to walk the earth.

Luca da Firenze was marked by that, molded by it. It took Rosa to show me that I didn’t need to live in the shadow cast by their evil. That I didn’t need to live with Vincenzo at all. I was willing to die for her the day I challenged the Don in that crowded court, but instead I am living for her—with her. At her side, forever. She’s given me a reason to exist, a reason to fight. When I see myself through her eyes, I see a different me.

Luca da Firenze has only ever known that kind of love from her, the Seer who should be my enemy but is truly my soulmate. But Luca d’Argento? He was different. He was loved, adored. Cherished. I had a mamma, a papà, a home. There was joy, happiness, family, community. I have no idea what really happened to me, what happened to that beautiful place in the Tuscan hills, but I do know this—I was not abandoned, sold, or cast aside. That woman loved me with ferocity, and she would never have let me go.

I have recounted some of my experiences to Minnie and the others a while after I shared it with Rosa. I told her when we were alone, because the emotions were still running wild inside me. A type of mourning, though for something I never truly remember having. She had held me in her arms, my head cradled on her chest, letting me talk. Allowing me to figure it all out. “How can I feel this pain so deeply?” I asked her. “I know nothing about my human life apart from those glimpses. I don’t even know her name, or who my papà was. And yet I am so very sad, bella. Sad in a way I just don’t understand.”

She had kissed my head, her touch as tender as a mother’s. “You don’t need to understand, Luca. None of us really understand grief. And you feel this way because you have a huge heart, a huge heart that you’ve spent centuries trying to ignore. Your entire vampire life you’ve been told you’re one thing and one thing only. You’ve been modeled into the perfect soldier, the perfect capo—ruthless, dangerous, violent.”

“I am all those things, Rosa. You know that.”

“I do. But you are also so much more. You are a beloved son. You are my whole world. You are a friend, a protector, a knight in blood-soaked armor. Ruthless, dangerous, violent, yes, but never for your own gratification. Never without integrity. There is so much more to you than you were told, and seeing that is bound to be confusing. Confronting the past is never easy, especially when it comes to family.”

She, of course, knows this more than most. Her grandfather, a man she never liked but always trusted, turned out to be responsible for the death of her mother, her sisters. For the manipulation of her brother, who betrayed her in the worst possible way. For the destruction of every happy memory she ever had. Even now, he is poking at her, hurting her, using her twin’s name, Serena, for the carnage he has unleashed.

I stroked her side, my fingers drifting under her shirt. Her skin was smooth, soft, perfect beneath my touch. Her heart thudded into life beneath my head, making me smile. One thing had soon led to another, and our reunion evolved into something much more sensual. Much more naked. We both needed it—to reconnect, to possess, to reaffirm the fact that we belonged to each other.

Now we’re in an Irish bar in the East Village. I needed to get away from the court, from the constant reminders of Vincenzo and the fucked-up life he gave me. Everywhere I look I see him, the now-destroyed garden and the evil chamber beneath it, the room where he tried to kill me during that final battle, the dungeons where Carlos raped and tortured Yvonne. Even if I bulldozed the whole damn place and rebuilt, the memories would still be there. The people would still be there. The blood addicts who still turn up looking for a hit, because Carlos was always willing to provide it in return for sex and pain. The damaged women who were broken by him but are too traumatized to leave, living together in the place where they were abused. Freya, with her scrambled psyche and child-like mind. It’s not just the bricks and mortar; it’s the whole goddamn toxic cloud that hangs over it.

Minnie stares at me, her eyes narrowed. She repeats my new name a few times, frowning. “I suppose it makes sense, given your freaky eye condition.”

“Is that the technical witch term for it?” Donatella asks, sipping a glass of Chardonnay. This is a spit-and-sawdust joint, and all they sell is beer. It comes in two types, light or dark. But being Donna, she fluttered her eyelashes, pouted a little, and before you knew it, a bottle of wine magically appeared.

“Yeah,” Minnie replies, grinning. “That’s why I spent so many years at witch camp.”

“There’s a witch camp?”

“Of course! And a witch college and a witch grad school and no. None of those things. But the name—d’Argento. It means ‘of silver,’ doesn’t it?”

I nod. “Right. It does. Have you heard of the d’Argento family? They’d have been around in Tuscany, at least until the 1600s, probably much earlier.”

She shakes her head. “No. But I’m not that old, and I’m not a history buff. Also, not that I’m doubting you, but how real did it feel? I know you left us, but I’m not sure where you went. At the moment, I’m landing on ‘somewhere a bit magic’ and hoping for the best.”

Fuck. I was expecting her to have all the answers. Still. I know now that she at least helped me get back. That string of roses was no coincidence; it was her spell, searching for me. Reminding me of Rosa, offering me a way out.

“It felt real,” I reply. The gentle touch of my mother’s fingers on my cheeks, the scent of her hair. The smoke. The sadness when she rode away. Rosa slips her hand into mine, comforting me. “But it also didn’t feel linear. It felt like some kind of bubble, maybe a version of reality? It felt like it had happened before, and not necessarily when I was that young. Like it was a way of showing me what I needed to know, but not exactly what happened. It was all a bit mushed up, didn’t make total sense.”

“Like when they say a movie is ‘inspired by a true story,’ but they mess with the timeline to make it easier to understand?” asks Matteo.