He walked over to the wall where two of my paintings were propped. I watched as he ran a finger down the edge of one canvas, the one of the dark haired woman bound in a shibari-style by ropes of her own hair.
“Cosima would do anything for you. She has done many things for you in the past, things that she would castrate me for telling you, so I will not. But you must know that she has continually sacrificed her happiness for your own, for your family. She always had a special place in her heart for you though, her bambina.”
I smiled at her endearment for me even though the fact that he knew it made me shiver. How could he know so much about her, about our family, and yet we had never even known he existed?
“Are you her lover?” I asked, before I could censure myself.
I blushed when his eyes slid to mine with heated amusement.
“No, I have never been with her romantically,” he laughed at my shock, leaning back against the opposite counter as if we were having a normal conversation. “I love her but because she is mia sorella di scelta.”
My chosen sister.
“We met when she lived in England. It is a long story, one that I have said before is not mine to tell. The only thing you must know is that she is under my protection.” His expression was fierce as a warrior before battle, his posture that of a soldier. I had no doubt he could protect Cosima, the man was basically a heathen.
“Why should you need to protect her?”
He crossed his arms across his expansive chest but didn’t answer.
I gritted my teeth in frustration. “Fine. Who are you to offer protection?”
His full lips twitched. “Now, you are asking the right questions. I told you before, you will hear about me. I am Don Salvatore.”
Even though I had forsaken my country of birth years ago, there was something in my Italian blood that reacted instinctively to the presence of a made man.
I gasped, scooting back on the stool until I nearly fell over. “You are in the mafia.”
He shrugged one massive shoulder. “I am in the business of money and power.”
“Do you know anything about Cosima’s attack?” I demanded.
His lips thinned. “There is no reason to share details with you. I am working on it.”
I shivered at the raw threat in his words. Whoever had hurt my sister would pay brutally for doing so.
“My family won’t warm to you, not when you remain so enigmatic,” I explained. Not to mention, we all abhorred the Mafia, the men who had so ceaselessly stalked us in Italy. My fear was warranted and I was grateful for it, a naïve person may have seen the threat of violence, the money and the power as glamorous. I knew it only meant death.
I shuddered.
“Your safety comes before everything else. Cosima would want that,” he countered.
He was right, so I didn’t argue with him. Instead, I decided to trust in his ability to get to the bottom of Cosima’s accident. No matter his motivation, it was obvious that he loved Cosima and that he was ruthless, a mafia man with the same soulless eyes I had seen so many times around the house in Naples.
Which reminded me of the letter I had let slip from my fingers. I searched the ground for it, spotting it just beside Dante’s feet. My gaze drew his to it and before I could move, the paper was between his fingers. He glowered at it.
“Who wrote this to you?”
I bit my lip, unwilling to tell him. Even though I had my deep suspicions, I didn’t want them to be true. I’d left Paris to escape and I deeply wanted to refute the idea that he could have found me so quickly again. I closed my eyes because I had been incredibly incautious about the publicity for my upcoming show. Though I had changed my name to Giselle Moore in hopes of creating a new identity, my cover had been blown when he found me in Paris.
“Giselle,” Dante called me back to reality. “Who wrote this?”
“A man,” I said, unhelpfully.
A man who has been stalking me for the last four years.
“Christopher?”
My eyes snapped to his. “How do you know about him?”
“Your sister. She told me a little about him. This is the man that abused you, si?” His eyes sparked with anger and the hand that held the letter shook with tension.
“I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Well you bloody hell should talk about it to someone,” he bit out, his British accent more pronounced. “Does your man know that this sociopath is back in your life?”
“It may not be him,” I countered but there was a sinking feeling in my gut as I remembered the odd candid photo of myself that had been sent to me, the feeling that I’d been having of being followed.