by J. L. Drake
“Will Vinni be joining you?” She motioned for us to follow her out to the patio as she asked about her youngest son. I loved it here. The view over the stables and their vineyard went on for miles. Turned out, funneling money through wineries was easier than we expected. We now owned six.
“Yes, he should be arriving any moment.”
“Good, I need to speak with him.” She handed Sienna a bubbly water, and I shook my head, opting for a plain bottle of water instead. “So,” she took a seat across from us, “do you ride, Sienna? We have a stable just over there.”
“I have, a bit. Yes.”
“Wonderful. Maybe we could ride sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
My aunt smiled at me. She seemed excited to find someone who was interested in riding too. “Tell me more about yourself, Sienna.”
Sienna blinked a few times and cleared her throat, looking up at me for help.
“Aunt Noemi.” I pointed to the door, thankful Vinni had just walked in at the perfect time.
Vinni looked fit to kill, with Wyatt trailing behind him, his face as white as a ghost. As soon as Wyatt spotted Sienna, he rushed to her side and began to sputter an apology. She just nodded at him and stroked his arm.
“Haven’t they arrived yet?” Vinni looked around.
“Not yet.”
“What the hell?” Vinni pulled out his phone, and I did the same. I dialed Francesco.
“I’m here.” Francesco rushed inside holding up his ringing phone. Sienna jumped to her feet. “Just,” he held up his hands as we both took a step forward, “give me a second to take a breath.”
“Where are they?” I looked past him, not liking the idea of them being unsupervised in the house.
“They’re not coming.”
“What?” Sienna called out at the same time Vinni did.
“They’re not comfortable meeting here.” Francesco shrugged.
I squinted at him, catching his lie. I knew his every expression.
“A word?” I motioned for him to follow me into the hallway, out of earshot of the others.
“So, coming here was just a way for you to be alone with her and to draw us away from them?” He closed his eyes for a moment, and I knew I was right. “You’ve known me since I was born, and yet you lie to my face.”
We both turned our attention to the girl we had saved from the dockyard. She mindlessly roamed from room to room. She reminded me of one of those vacuum robots that bumped into pieces of furniture or walls with no real purpose but to move the dust around. I needed to figure out what to do with her. I shook my head and got my thoughts back on track.
“Elio,” he placed a hand on my shoulder, “there’s much that needs to be revealed, but it has to be done delicately. The time was not right then, nor is it now.”
“You can’t expect Sienna to accept that. She just met her mother after years of searching for her, and her reunion was met with guns drawn and hateful words spoken.”
“I know.” He closed his eyes as though my words hurt him. “I’m not expecting her to.”
“Where are they now?”
“Staying at a hotel.”
“All right, now what?” I tossed my hands in the air.
“Elenora wants to meet with Sienna, alone.”
“No way.” He must be out of his mind. “Over my dead body.”
“Elio, I promise you she’ll be fine.”
“How?” I nearly shouted but stopped myself. “How do you even know her mother?”
He covered his mouth and let out a long sigh, and I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“That’s a long story, and there are many layers to it.”
“Meaning?” I was getting tired of these cryptic conversations.
“Meaning this whole thing has roots that date back well beyond your years, that can and will affect us all if not treated carefully. I can’t just come out with it. It’s as if Pandora’s Box is about to explode and reveal all its secrets at once. Secrets as important as these need to be revealed in a much more controlled setting. Elio, please, I beg you to be patient and trust me.”
I cursed and paced, unsure how to navigate something so obviously big without knowing what the hell it was all about. I was used to being in control, but I was out of my depth.
“So, what am I supposed to do? Let you take her there?”
“Yes.”
“No.” My jaw nearly hit the ground with what he was asking of me. “I won’t allow it.”
“There’s no other choice here. Elenora won’t step foot on Capri land!” he shouted. “You must let Sienna go to her, because once this unravels, Elio, you better hang on because it’s going to get messy.”
A sound sent both of us spinning around to find Sienna staring at us. Her face looked white, but her stance told me she was not going to back down.
“Which hotel?”
Dammit.
“No.” I shook my head.
She looked from me to Francesco. “What hotel?”
“Il Giglio.”
“Will you take me?” She tugged on the bag that hung from her shoulder.
“Yes.”
She gave a tight nod before addressing my fuming anger.
“Piero trusts Francesco, you trust him, and so do I.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but if going there alone is how I will get some answers on my past, then so be it.”
“Not without me, you’re not.”
She reached up and placed her hand on my chest but paused when the sound of clinking stones reached our ears. It was a very familiar sound to me, so I shook my head and waved at her to continue.
“Elio,” she went on, “I’ve faced a lot of things without you. I can handle this.” She waited a beat before she let her hand slip away then headed down the hallway.
When the door closed, I took a deep breath and felt him behind me.
“We’re not really letting her go there without us, right?” Vinni half laughed.
“Of course not.” I motioned for him to get Wyatt, and we headed out.
Francesco parked the car but didn’t move when I started to get out. He hadn’t spoken one word the entire drive. He just kept checking the rearview mirror, which put me even more on edge.
“Are you coming?”
“Sienna,” his hands squeaked as they ran over the leather steering wheel, “whatever happens from here on, I need you to know one thing.”
“Okay.” My hand fell away from the doorhandle.
He turned, and his haunted look said volumes about what might be ahead.
“I need you to know you can trust me.”
“I do know that.”
“No,” he shook his head and reached for my hand, “you’re going to hear a lot of things, and you’re going to be led down many paths, but no matter what, you must remember that I will be the one person you can always trust to tell you the truth.”
I pressed my lips together as a cold prickle shot up my spine and made my scalp tingle. A hundred questions blew through my mind at that moment, but one lingered there the longest. “Do you know my mother?” Clearly, he did. He had known her name, but then everything had happened so quickly. I wasn’t exactly sure of anything.
His gaze fell, but he quickly recovered, and he swallowed hard.
“Yes.”
“Wow.” A strangled laugh choked out of me, more from shock than anything else. “Well, tell me this. Did you always know she was my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Right,” I whispered, once again feeling like I was caught in an alternate universe. How…how could he keep this from me? How had he let me go all those years without so much as a whisper of the truth?
“Sienna—”
“Trust you?” I pushed open the door and didn’t look back. An icy chill spread through my veins as I took the steps to the Il Giglio hotel. I made a beeline for the lobby and saw the men who had been with my mother earlier. Oscar
, who looked to be around my mother’s age, and the one who had manhandled me stepped forward and blocked my path.
“Ms. Sienna, Elenora would like you to join her in the dining room.” He stepped aside to let me pass, but at the last second, he blocked it again. “My apologies for earlier. Sometimes I forget my own strength.”
I glanced up at him and saw his eyes had softened, so I gave him a little nod and waited for him to move again. I wanted to lash out and put him in his place, but I was in uncharted territory here, and I knew I would need to stay calm. No matter how hard it was.
To my surprise, the dining room was empty. The staff was serving Elenora while the rest of her men were standing guard. She sat perfectly straight, ankles crossed, with only her wrist resting on the table. Large windows lined the balcony which overlooked the gardens and driveway below. Soft music played, and some pretty, pink flowers popped against the stone interior. When she spotted me, she gracefully rose and pointed to a seat across from her.
“Thank you for coming.” She moved as though to hug me but hesitated, then decided against it. “Please take a seat. I took the liberty of ordering you something. I hope you enjoy fresh pineapple and oranges.”
I ignored the food that was placed in front of me and kept my purse on my lap for something to hold on to. I studied her features and mannerisms, trying to catch things we might have in common. She sat, adjusted her linen napkin, and began to eat as if we met up every Sunday for brunch. No hurry to jump in and explain where she had been my entire life.
“You remind me a lot of my mother,” she finally said, dabbing gently at the corners of her mouth, “the way you watch me and observe those around you.” When I didn’t comment, she went on. “It’s a good trait. It’s important to be aware, especially with the company you’re surrounding yourself with.”
“Don’t,” I warned, feeling my back go up. “No one will speak badly of the Capri family in front of me.”
“We will be circling back to that later.” She once again ignored my tone. “But first I have some questions for you, as I’m sure you do for me.”
“Just a few.” I found it hard to curb my sarcasm. She glanced over at me and pushed her plate away, waving at the waitress to remove it. Her deep navy-blue eyes stared into mine, and I pushed down the hurt. This was not how this was supposed to go. We were supposed to hug and cry and say a billion and one things at the same time. I can’t believe you’re here and I can’t believe we’re hugging. Not this cold reunion where apparently many secrets lay just under the surface.
“When did you first meet Francesco?” I jumped in, wanting some kind of control of the situation.
“A long time ago.” She glanced over at Francesco, who stood in the doorway, then brought her eyes back to me. “How was your life growing up?”
“Seriously?” I scrunched up my face, disgusted with her question.
“Yes, seriously. I’m trying to understand how on God’s green Earth you got tangled up with the Capri syndicate.”
“Let me get this straight.” I stood, tipping my chair backward. “You abandoned me when I was young. You left me with a stranger, who later dropped me off at another stranger’s house to live. I grew up being physically abused and emotionally wrecked. I ended up on the streets and somehow managed to survive it all to get where I am today, and all that you want to know is how I got tangled up with the Capri family?”
“Sienna,” she took a long breath then tossed her napkin on the table and stood, “as overwhelming as this is for you, it is for me too. I apologize for my lack of warmth and empathy. I tend to hide it at the worst of times. Leaving you was the hardest and worst decision of my life, but I had to do it. Though I thought things were going to turn out differently, they didn’t, and I’m still trying to understand it all. Please,” she pointed to the chair that was upright again, thanks to Oscar, “take a seat, and let’s try this again.”
Francesco had moved a bit farther into the room when I overturned my chair. He gave me a pleading look to do as she said. I eased down into the seat and nodded for her to begin.
“Let’s start slow and work our way to the bigger questions as we get to know one another.” She poured some ice water into a glass that held cucumber slices. “I read in the article that you’re a journalist. What led you into that profession?”
“You,” I answered simply. “I figured I could find you if I dug hard enough. I needed a job that would let me do that.”
“I didn’t want to be found.”
“Apparently.” I couldn’t help but feel a sting from her answer.
“There were reasons for it.”
“I bet.” I sipped some water. “Why do you need an entourage of men?” I swept my hand about to indicate the obvious muscle around her.
“Protection.”
“From whom?”
“From the ones who want to hurt me.” She leaned back and motioned for one of them to come over. “However, Ugo here is your first cousin.”
I blinked up at the man who looked nothing like me, and more like Elio, and tried to digest that I did have family.
“Nice to meet you, Ugo,” I said softly.
“You as well.”
“Can you tell me a little about—”
“Back to your post.” Elenora cut me off as her curt voice directed Ugo. Taken back, I threw her a look. “We’ll get there,” she said as she turned back to me, her voice lowered.
Well, that was a warm way to discover my cousin.
“Do I have any other family?”
“A little, yes.”
“Are any of them on my father’s side?”
“Yes, there are some there, too. Where are you living now?”
“Somewhere safe.” I kept my answers as vague as she did. After all, why should I give her any detail when she was the one who held all the cards? “Why now, why here?” I blurted, feeling drained with the dance we were in. At this rate, I realized I might have to take notes in a journal just to remember the tiny bits of information she was giving me.
“Because of this.” She pulled a copy of Fab Magazine out of her purse and dropped it in front of her. “Why did you do it?”
“It’s the same answer as why I chose the profession I did—to find you.” I shrugged, not understanding what she wasn’t getting. “I did it in hopes that after all these years, it might lead you to me. And it did.”
“It also will lead others to you.” Her face morphed into a serious expression.
“Others?”
“I left you because our lives were in danger, and we still are in danger, Sienna.”
“I guess I missed the family newsletter, because this is the first I’ve heard of this.” I folded my arms, mad as hell that, for the second time in my life, I was being told that someone may want to hurt me. What did I ever do to make all these people angry with me?
“Why didn’t you stay in Sicily?” She changed direction again.
“Because I was done with that chapter of my life and deserved a new one.”
“Why are you with the Capri family?”
She was relentless, and it was growing old. I threaded my purse over my arm and slowly stood. I watched as her body language showed her annoyance that I wasn’t staying put.
“You haven’t earned the right to ask that question yet, Elenora.” I wanted to be able to call her Mama, but the hurt that she was causing me was too much. “And in case you weren’t aware, your old friend Francesco is the consigliere of the Capri syndicate.” With that, I left, hurrying out into the lobby where I came face to face with Elio and Vinni. Elio reached for me as Oscar and another man caught up to me.
“Ms. Sienna, you must stay.” But as he reached for my arm, Elio blocked it.
“Today was the one and only time you will ever touch her,” Elio growled, and his stance made him appear to grow to almost double his normal size.
“If she has questions,” I stepped in and spoke directly to Oscar, “she can ask Francesco.”
/> “Sienna,” Elenora called as she approached us. She glared at Elio, which only fueled my fire more. “I think that’s enough for today, but I want you to meet me here tomorrow, after we’ve cooled off. We need to talk more. Please, we must try this again.”
I thought for a moment, fighting my need to lash out at her. I had waited too damn long for answers. I wasn’t about to brush off this opportunity, but now it would be on my terms.
“All right.”
“Good, meet me here—”
“No,” I shook my head and heard Elio shift, “if we are doing this again, it’s my way. You had your chance.” I folded my arms and raised my chin to show I was serious.
“Where?” She didn’t argue.
“My parents’ place,” Elio said over my head, “Hill House, The Sunflowers Fields Vineyard, five p.m. Take the south entrance. It will lead you to where we’ll be.”
“Don’t,” Elenora stuck a finger in his face, “get in my way.”
“Enough.” I stepped forward. “If you want to meet me, that’s where you’ll find me. But let me be very clear here.” I moved closer. “If you want any kind of relationship, you better drop the twenty questions act and start looking at me like the daughter you left behind.”
“Fair enough.” Her eyes softened when she finally looked at me. “I’ll be there at five.” She turned on her heel, and her men followed her.
“You okay?” Elio’s hands fell to my shoulders.
“No,” I headed for the door, making his hands fall away, more annoyed than when I arrived, “not even close.”
My fingers curled around the railing of the balcony as I watched them head to their cars.
“Madam.” Oscar handed me a cup of tea before leaving me alone with Francesco. I stirred the sugar cube in a figure eight with the tiny silver spoon and narrowed in on my daughter as she slipped inside the front seat of Piero’s son’s car.
“Who is he to her?”
Francesco moved into my view and took out his phone to decline a call.
“I asked you a question, Cesco.”
Francesco’s jaw flexed as he looked at me. I couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but I could tell my showing up unannounced had been a shock to him. “He’s her friend.”