Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“Let’s go up the road today,” I suggest.
“Okay,” she says, skipping ahead of me.
We follow the dirt road up the hill. Where the tracks disappear over rolling mountain tops, we cut toward a rocky outcrop dotted with bushes. Sophie falls into step next to me. She talks about the birds and the plants, but I’m ashamed to admit that I’m not fully paying attention. I’m worried about her and her brothers’ future. I’m also concerned that I can’t get a message to Mrs. Paoli and Mr. Martin, who’ll wonder what happened to me. I don’t want them to think I let them down, but I can’t risk going to the village today, not if there’s a chance that my husband may return. With everything that’s happening with the boys, our predictable routine is disrupted. Plus, I don’t entirely believe that Angelo showing up at the same time as Johan was a coincidence. What if he’s having me watched? He used to have men following me in South Africa. What’s preventing him from doing so again?
I’m so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I don’t realize how far we walked until Sophie cries out, “Look, a cross.”
I turn my head in the direction she’s pointing, and then I still. Three crosses stand on top of the highest hill, their shapes forming stark black lines against the winter blue of the sky. A picket fence encloses them, marking the patch of tamed earth that isolates the crosses from the rest of the wilderness.
My heart skips a beat. Those crosses and the fence can only signify one thing—a graveyard. And I already know who were put to rest there before Sophie pulls on my hand and says, “Let’s go look.”
I want to object, but my curiosity gets the better of me. Together, Sophie and I make our way to the top. The gate isn’t locked. It works with a latch, which only purpose is to prevent the wind from blowing the gate open. I lift the latch and push the gate. It swings inward without a squeak. The hinges are oiled. The coat of varnish that covers the wooden spikes of the fence is shiny. The sun and wind haven’t damaged it yet. The distinct smell of the varnish still hangs in the air. Except for those three crosses, there are no other gravestones. The graveyard is new.
Sophie trots in carefully. Just in case, I hold onto her hand. I don’t want her to step on the nurslings growing next to the path and around the graves. We stop in front of the crosses. They’re massive, cut from granite with carvings of roses. Names and dates are engraved in the centers of the flower artwork, intertwined with the leaves and the thorns.
Teresa Maria Russo.
Adeline Sofia Russo.
Santino Romeo Russo.
As if on cue, a cloud drifts in front of the sun. The mild winter heat on my back vanishes. A shiver runs through my body. I take in the browning flowers at the foot of each grave. Roses. The blooms must’ve been a pristine white, their petals thick and velvety. Now, they’re the nondescript color of decay and withering around the edges.
Did my husband leave those flowers?
An incredible sadness invades my senses. The sentiment is deep and profound like a smell that’s pulled into the woodworks and that you can never wash out, the kind that clings to a soul. I imagine his loss and his pain as he laid the beautiful, perfect flowers on each grave. I try to put myself in my husband’s shoes, to imagine what he must’ve suffered when his mother and his twin were ripped from him in such a violent way, both on the same day. And as compassion and the echo of his anguish rip through me, I experience an intense urge to soothe him.
I lost a dad, but Angelo lost so much more. I heard his father when he gave the order, when he told his son to kill me. An eye for an eye. My father for his mother. Me for his sister. Only, he didn’t. He didn’t pull the trigger. How much self-control did it take to defy and disappoint his father? How much did he risk letting me live? For the first time, I also consider that his motives involved more than vengeance, that he kept me alive for selfish reasons. That he spared me not only for the useful purpose of my name or for extracting punishment but because he wanted me.
A deep, furious voice cuts into my melancholic thoughts. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I spin around. Angelo is stalking up the path, his powerful legs bunching in a pair of tight jeans as his long strides eat up the distance.
Confused, I frown. It’s as if he materialized from thin air. I’m still in a different space, and it takes me a moment to come to my senses as he grabs my bicep and shakes me.