The Arrangement Vol. 26 (The Ferro Family)

by H. M. Ward

  I’m still blinking at Bryan as if he were an apparition. My jaw unhinges, flapping back and forth, as my finger lifts, pointing at the man. “Who is that?”

  Sean lifts the boy from my arms and turns to show him off. He’s not the least bit shocked to see his cousin back from the grave.

  “SEAN FERRO!” My voice sounds like my mother’s when I was about to get blasted for doing something incredibly selfish and stupid. “You nearly died that night. You let everyone believe he was dead!” Turning toward Bryan, “Does your mother know?” Lizzie may be nuts, but I have this fierce instinct to protect these babies. They’re mine. She must have been so broken.

  Constance makes a delicate noise at the back of her throat. “Darling. You’re covered in birthing excrement. You obviously are family now and need to be in on some of the deeper secrets.”

  I stare at Bryan. “Where have you been? Are you still sick?”

  Bryan’s hair is cut short, close the head. His stance is very different than the hopeless man that last crossed my path. His shoulders are squared, back, spine straight with his hands joined in front of his waist. He’s wearing a neatly pressed white button-down shirt with a crisp collar. Coupled with a pair of khakis and loafers, he looks a lot like Sean’s Father. Before he died, Bryan was a defiant kid. Now he’s clean-shaven, head shorn, and has a hardened look about him. That playful smile that always adorned his lips is out of reach, but my gut says it’s still there—just not right now.

  He opens his mouth to speak, to explain, but his aunt lifts her jeweled hand, stopping him. “There’s no time for this now. Once we have you in your new room.” She’s smiling down at the girl in my arms. “I only had boys. She’s beautiful. What will you name her?”

  Our eyes are locked and the old Constance, the one who tried to control me burns like an ember beneath barely controlled restraint. She inhales deeply, her chest expanding and pressing against the scarlet buttons of her suit jacket. Waiting for my reply. To say yes to leaving here. To give her the baby’s name. To agree to this. The fact that she’s waiting is weird. And new.

  “Where are we going, because I doubt it’s down the hall. I doubt Dr. Liz will allow me to leave, and the presence of a deceased Ferro family member is making me think some plot or plan of yours has gone horribly wrong—and somehow I’m twisted up in it.”

  She laughs. “Finally. You have some Ferro fucking brains in that empty head of yours.”

  I smirk and lift my baby like a glass of champagne towards her and speak sarcastically in Italian, “Saluti. Now get the hell out.”

  Sean’s voice interrupts so swiftly that I nearly jump into the ceiling. “Avery, I’ll tell you everything, but we need to move. News will spread swiftly and we cannot let the children out of our sight. There’s been a threat.”

  “When? I just had them two seconds ago!” A threat?

  “That’s why we need to move. That’s why there are so many guards. We can’t afford to not take it seriously.” He hands me a piece of paper that’s been folded into quarters.

  I press my baby girl closer to my breast. She’s rousing. Her dark lashes flutter as she peers up at me with the same sapphire eyes as her father. My heart tightens. I glance at Sean holding our son. His jaw is tight, he’s trying to maintain decorum. He was trying to grant my wish of having some semblance of a normal birth.

  I unfold the letter. It’s old school. Cut out letters from magazines.

  A BOY FOR A BOY

  My heart stops as the piece of paper turns to lead and falls to the floor. If Bryan is standing here, they know he’s alive. We’ve taken two of theirs. That’s what this is about.

  My voice is a whisper, “The Campogne family?”

  “Yes.” It’s one word but my entire world hangs on it. I glance up at Sean, his powerful body holding our infant son in his arms. Protecting him. “We’re not safe here.”

  “An eye for an eye? Is that how this works? Is that when it ends?” I stare straight ahead as I ask, seeing nothing. “I thought this was over.”

  Constance laughs darkly. She presses her fingertips together. “It never ceases, girl. Best adjust to the idea quickly. Those babies can have a wonderful childhood, but not at the tiny shoebox you call a house. They’ll be raised in the mansion, as their father was, as I was before.”

  “Connie,” I address her casually, upset beyond belief, “it blew up. That place isn’t safe either.”

  “It’s safer than here. It’s safer than your apartment. It’s most definitely safer than your shack. When things settle down and smooth out—when the threat is removed—you may leave. In fact, you don’t even have to come.” She tips her head to the side. Her platinum hair barely shifts out of its perfect styling. She swallows hard and looks me directly in the eyes. “It’s your decision. Keep those children safe with the protection that the Ferro family has to offer, or run like your mother did for the rest of your lives. Because once you stop. Once you think you’re safe, well, you lived the ramifications of that. I don’t need to explain it to you. The question is, how do you want your boy to live?”

  My body is already surging with hormones that are making me want to cry and laugh at the same time. I look at my son, swaddled in Sean’s arms. “You think we’ll be safe there? All of us?” I glance at my daughter, and then at Bryan. “I’m assuming they know about you or you wouldn’t be here?”

  Bryan looks sheepish and tucks his chin in a single nod.

  “Did you even have cancer?”

  “He still does,” snaps Constance.

  “Aunt Constance,” Bryan lifts his hand to stop her from continuing. “Another time. Avery, we need to move. Now. Sean, I did what I could to give you as much time as possible. They’ve been chasing a ghost but they know now. The letter came this morning, before the birth. Someone, somewhere, told them you were having a boy.”

  All eyes are on me. Sean will follow me if I want to run, but I don’t want my children living in fear. Always moving from place to place. Having that feeling in the pit of their stomach that something isn’t right. I don’t want to give them the life I had. One day, either Sean or I will make a mistake. Someone like Marty might not be there to save my babies. “I’m not running. We need to band together and remove the threat. Mansion. Now.”

  Constance’s crimson lips snake into a smile that I now recognize. No one fucks with the Ferros. I’ll defend my children until the day I die. For a moment, her past apathy, cruelty, and hostility melt away and I see her for what she truly is—a lioness. A hunter. A provider. A protector. Every bit the matriarch I hope to become.

  Chapter 4

  We travel via helicopter. I’m not cool enough to know what the current lingo is—heli? Boomer? That one made Sean laugh. He carried our son and I held our daughter. We sat next to each other and Bryan flew the beast of a machine from the hospital rooftop over the city, passing Queens, Nassau, and out to the north shore of the Suffolk County line. He lands the bird lightly on the beautifully manicured back lawn. For a moment, my heart is in my throat. I remember the pool, the bodies. Seeing Sean floating face down, and I panic. His hand covers mine. “It’s gone.”

  “No, it’s not,” Constance snaps over the headset. “I moved it. I admit I didn’t want a solarium any longer, but the concept of an indoor bath was very Roman.”

  Someone snorted and we all heard the crackle. Connie glared at Bryan, knowing he’s the one who laughed. Finally, he turns to me, says over his shoulder, “It’s a Turkish bath if ever I saw one. And I have. There’s nothing Roman about it.”

  “It’s not as garish as the Turkish baths.” Constance defends her lavish change to the mansion. “As you know, the inside was the real issue. Some hallways have been relocated to make way for the new wing.”

  “What new wing?” Sean doesn’t know? He’s staring at his mother like she has two heads. Then he looks out the window of the helicopter as the blades slow their spinning and Bryan flips a ton of switches on the huge-ass dashboard.

&
nbsp; Constance presses her lips together. She’s nervous. Suddenly she removes her headset and grabs the door handle, tugging it hard, and then pushes the door open. It’s still loud outside the aircraft, but I can see the base of the building, some part of the mansion that wasn’t there before. Sean hands me our son so I’m holding both children. He hops out and the ranting begins. His voice is like vapors in the wind due to the spinning blades. They’re slowing but haven’t stopped. I glance down at the babies. One in each arm. I smile and feel like my heart might burst. How could I love them so much? I don’t even know them. They don’t even have names.

  When the blades finally still, Sean hides is emotions and turns back to me. I smile down at him. “What’d she do that has you in such a tizzy? Built you a fort?”

  “You could say that.” He takes our son and then hands him to Connie before reaching for our daughter.

  My mother is rushing towards us, the glee on her face. “Let me see her!” The baby is in her arms before I can say hello. Mom looks up at me sitting on the edge of the chopper with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on her face. “She’s beautiful! Just like her mother. Avery, you had such a head of hair when you were born. And a little bit down her back.” She giggles and turns away with the baby, walking next to Connie, towards a door that wasn’t there before. I can’t see the rest.

  Sean offers his hand and I step down from the aircraft, my boot on the support step, and then onto the grass. I stop. Take in the whole thing. Where the pool once sat is a tower-—like something out of a princess movie. Flowers surround the windows and there are climbers on the stone. Accent rocks line the doorways in lighter tones, making it brighter than it had been. Before the house was foreboding. Now it was magical. The tower attaches to a four-story pool house that connects to the main building via a Greek hall, complete with gothic windows. Rather than being an open walkway, it’s enclosed, and there are pieces of handblown glass in each arched window.

  “Did she build the babies a fairytale castle?” I stand there blinking and then turn to him.

  “So it would seem. I should have checked on her from Manhattan. This is what happens when you leave her alone and let her be happy. Holy fuck.” He runs his hand through his dark hair as his eyes rake over the fairytale before him. The curtains in the tower open and Connie waves down at us, babe in arms. “Oh my God.”

  Sean rounds on me swiftly, takes my hands in his, covering them. But as his lips part, filled with apologies, I just laugh. “It’s fine. It’s rather sweet actually. Your mother never shows any sort of anything. She built a shrine to childhood over the part of your house that was covered in blood. I’ll never have to look at the pool again. Or the spot where Marty died.” Where I killed him. My eyes drop to the ground as grief and guilt flood me.

  Sean pulls me to him and tucks my head under his chin. “Avery, Marty died for you. You didn’t kill him. You aren’t the reason he’s dead. Your brother did that.”

  “Right and now my insane family wants to make it even by taking our son. Do they mean to kidnap him or kill him?” I can barely get the words out. “I inherited the Campogne estate unchallenged. Who sent this?” I gesture toward the piece of paper with the threat. The moment I first read that note, my heart sank. But something is happening to me. I feel a fierce protectiveness growing inside of me, lined with steel walls ten feet thick. Nothing will happen to my son. I’ll see to that. I’ll do anything to keep him safe. I know Sean is thinking the same thing when our gazes connect.

  He breathes in heavily. Tired. That’s the only clue that he’s worn out and teetering on exhausting. He hides it better than I do. “We’re working on discovering who is rallying the rest of that family.”

  My exhaustion gets the better of me and I voice the fear that’s festering in my heart. “Sean, you cut off the head—or Bryan did, which we need to talk about—” my finger is in his face, just under his nose. Sean grins like a schoolboy who just filled his teacher’s desk with frogs. “Yeah. You two have a lot of explaining to do. I thought he was dead. For months and months. He has a kid for Chrissakes. Does Hallie even know?”

  “Avery, let’s talk about it inside. What were you saying about the Campognes? Cut off the head…?” He lets the leading sentence fall off and waits for me to finish my thought. The thing is I don’t want to say it. Things have a way of coming to pass once they’re said aloud. At the same time, admitting a fear sometimes makes it lessen. You realize it isn’t as impossible as you’d thought.

  I spit it out. “You cut off the head and then another took its place,” a shiver licks my spine, “worse than the last. What if this new person is worse than my brother?”

  Sean kisses the top of my head before sweeping me up in his arms. “As you said, we remove the threat.” He laughs darkly as he strides toward our new castle. “If anyone doubted you were made of stronger stuff, that’s gone now.”

  “I’m a Ferro. We’ve got iron hearts.”

  “Yes, we do.” He kisses my head again and stops before the threshold. The door is massive, with two panes of hand-scraped wood that looks like it was yanked from some Italian village a thousand years ago.

  I wriggle to get down. Sean holds me tighter. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “You can’t carry me over the threshold yet. We aren’t married.”

  “Superstitious?”

  “Sometimes. Iron heart. Iron head.” I wrap my knuckles on the side of my skull. Sean chuckles and I get treated to one of those crooked grins before he sets me on my feet.

  “I had no idea she did this, Avery.” There’s an apologetic tone to his voice. His palms are up, and it’s obvious he didn’t know about this and feels awkward, if not shocked.

  I link my hand through his arm and rest my fingers on his forearm. “Well, it was built during my pregnancy, without either of us knowing, which means she made this for her grandbabies. So I bet it’s a big Barbie Dream House.”

  Sean glances around. “I don’t see a pink corvette.”

  “Yeah, but I bet she spent money where it matters.”

  At the same times, we look at each other and say, “Petting zoo.”

  “With weird animals.”

  “Like ponies,” Sean adds.

  I laugh and look up at him. “And unicorns. Maybe a walrus. As long as she doesn’t gift us that bear, I’m okay with it.”

  Sean barks a laugh. “Withdraw your statement, my love, until you actually see what she’s done. My mother has a way about her.”

  That’s an understatement.

  Chapter 5

  The foyer is nothing like the old house with the grand entrance and spiral staircase. This is more compact. The front wall is solid stone with cedar beams soaring less than twenty feet above us. The ceiling is plaster or appears to be. A fresco adorns every inch of it with cherubs and fluffy clouds. Golden corbels gather laurels of pink and white gold every few feet, like metal drapes. The room is about twenty feet wide and fifteen deep. A concrete staircase spills from an upper landing forming a C. You can come down either side. Thick beams are surrounding the low doorway. And I mean low for a Ferro mansion. It’s still an oversized door for a normal person with a much grander entrance than our apartment in the city.

  The stone floor is slate with antique rugs that are plush under my feet. Despite the amount of stone and lack of windows, the room isn’t dark. There’s a huge chandelier hanging in between the twin staircases, making light bounce off the golden ceiling ornaments. It gives the room a happy golden glow. This place is brighter than the old entrance to the mansion. Less imposing.

  Sean glances at me before threading his fingers through mine. “What do you think?”

  “There’s a lot less red than I’d imagined.” The Ferro mansion is full of it. Henry’s place too. This place has a historical feel, but the clean lines make it feel modern. It’s a strange juxtaposition of the present and the past. And oddly enough, it’s baby-friendly. I can see the twins sitting on these stairs. They’re
covered in carpet runners. The banisters are made from wrought iron and curl into floral patterns, but there are no hard edges or points. And the openings are so tiny, I doubt my hand will fit through the design. We won’t have to worry about having a panicked moment when my kid stuffs his head in the railing. Sean’s kid won’t. But mine will. Just to see the view from the other side.

  “Do you think the twins will take after us? Like a mini Avery and tiny Sean? Or do you think they’ll be a mix?”

  A smile teases his full lips. “I supposed we’ll have to wait and see. But I hope there’s a little Avery, running around here, throwing caution to the wind.”

  “and a little Sean plotting to take over the tri-state area.” I start for the stairs but Sean stops me, and suddenly I’m in his arms again.

  “We passed the threshold. And you’ve not rested much since you had the babies. I’m carrying you to your bed.”

  “My bed?” I want to kiss him and hold him in my arms. It feels like we haven’t been alone in days.

  “For all I know, she gave the babies the master and we have servant’s rooms. Let’s go see.”

  I remain in his arms and rest my head against his chest. “Actually, I’m surprised I’m still upright.”

  Sean easily navigates the stairs, and as we pass through the upper landing I see a dark line down the wooden frame.

  Sean mentions, “Easier to guard. There’s a steel door that comes out if we need to lock the place down. She probably built it as a firewall, but you never know with her.”

  “No, you don’t.”