A Madness Most Discreet (Brothers Maledetti Book 4)

by Nichole Van

More to the point, she couldn’t be seen to have a conflict of interest—or, for that matter, a psychotic daughter with delusions of paranormal grandeur—if she wanted to run for POTUS.

  If the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t believe me either.

  It didn’t make the pain hurt any less, however. Why couldn’t she just trust me?

  “Mom, I approached the D’Angelos first. It’s not like they learned about my issues, tracked me down and convinced me that they saw the same supernatural things.”

  “Be that as it may, Olivia, that doesn’t mean they’re not opportunists who seized on a good thing when it landed in their laps.”

  I had no comeback to that. Which was probably all for the best because Mom wasn’t done. “So . . . let me present the two scenarios as evidence. Option one: Tennyson D’Angelo saw you and fell hard for you. He is some sort of psychic who can help you fight the mystical black goo and together your love and supernatural powers will win the day.

  “Or option two—Tennyson D’Angelo is an opportunist who is pretending to be interested in you, as well as knowing the answers to your little episodes. He is doing this in order to gain access to me, the one woman who could influence customs taxation and significantly benefit the D’Angelo family bottom line. And in the course of reaching his aims, he is preventing you from returning home to much-needed, very real medical attention. Which option should I believe?”

  I closed my eyes, drawing in a deep breath.

  She could be entirely right about Tennyson, at least about the opportunists part. It was a possibility, but I didn’t really buy into it.

  Tennyson genuinely had supernatural gifts, and he definitely needed my help as much as I needed his.

  I got why my mom acted like this. She loved me. She was overprotective and concerned about my health. And much too logical to believe in anything supernatural.

  But it still hurt that she automatically assumed Tennyson D’Angelo would never be interested in me for me. Could she believe in my ability to attract a Hot Guy? Just once?

  I wanted to get mad. I wanted to scream and accuse my mom of not loving me, like I had as a teenager.

  I didn’t want to be fixed or purged or saved.

  I simply wanted to be witnessed.

  I wanted my mom to say, I see you. I hear you. Let me listen to the song of your heart.

  Or, even better, I believe you. When you say a black demon has been trying to destroy you for the past twenty years, I trust your word that it’s true.

  That was all.

  But I had long ago accepted that our relationship would never be that.

  My mom took my silence for agreement.

  “Michael is still waiting at the airport for you, sweetie. I’ll tell him you’re on your way—”

  “Mom.” Tears clogged my voice. I swallowed them back. “Mom, I’m not going with Michael. I believe in your political platform. I love and support everything you represent. But I love my life more. I know my story is fantastical. I know you worry about me. But none of this changes reality. Tennyson does have answers. I’m sorry, but I’m staying here for now. I’ll be home before your big announcement in two weeks.”

  Silence.

  “Olivia—”

  A knock sounded on my door.

  “I have to go, Mom. I’ll call you later.” I hung up the phone, quickly wiping my wet eyes.

  I loved my mom. Truly, I did. But she and I were such drastically different people, and we would never see eye-to-eye on this issue.

  The knock sounded again.

  “Come in,” I called.

  A woman peeked her head into the room. “Am I interrupting anything?”

  I gave a wan smile and shook my head.

  The woman walked into the room. She was older, probably late 50s, dressed casually in knee boots, tight jeans and an over-sized sweater. Tall and curvy with a shock of thick, gray-streaked auburn hair that hung in loose curls just past her shoulders, she clearly didn’t have a drop of Italian blood.

  But her vivid blue eyes gave her away.

  Judith D’Angelo.

  This had to be Tennyson’s mother. The resemblance was there in the striking high cheekbones, the shape of the mouth and her shockingly blue eyes, of course.

  “Hi, I’m Judith. I was here last night, but you were still out, so it’s nice to officially meet you. How are you feeling?” she asked, crossing to me, a gentle smile on her face.

  “I’m fine, thanks. I appreciate you coming to get me.”

  Judith radiated calm and acceptance. I had a feeling she would face down any problem with the same unruffled composure, loving and supporting those around her.

  “My pleasure. I love making friends with my kid’s friends.” She smiled, huge and welcoming. “Tennyson has already told me a lot about you and your situation, but I can’t wait to hear about you from you.”

  Wow.

  So much to unpack there, all of it kind and good.

  I tried not to make comparisons with my own mother, but . . . Judith’s face was so warm, so accepting, my eyes welled up again without warning. I bit my lip, trying to hold the tears back.

  “Hey, it’s gonna be okay.” She crossed to me, sitting gently on the edge of my bed, reaching for my hand. “My family and I will do all we can to help you.”

  I nodded, hiccupping a little as I tried to choke back my emotions. “Th-thank you,” I whispered. But the conversation with my own mother was too fresh. I had to ask it. “Do you b-believe me?”

  She angled her head. “Do I believe you? About the daemon?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Of course, I believe you. It was awful with Jack. My boys saw it attack him once—”

  “They saw the slime?”

  “Not precisely. They couldn’t see the slime itself, but they could see that something was attacking poor Jack. It nearly did him in. Branwell has seen it in a way, however.”

  “And you believe that they have . . . powers?”

  “Their GUTs?”

  “GUTs?” I repeated.

  “Grossly Unusual Talents,” she laughed. “It’s what you end up with when you allow seven-year-old triplet boys to nickname their supernatural talents. You should have heard the names I rejected.” She rolled her eyes before sobering a bit. “But to answer your question, yes. It’s not a question of belief with my boys. It’s a fact of reality.

  “Look, I’m as logical a person as you’ll ever meet.” She patted my hand. “I’m a scientist to my core. But sometimes when faced with overwhelming physical evidence of something that seems fantastical, you have to let go of logic and just believe. I watched my husband, Cesare, deal with his GUT over the years. I raised three boys with strong paranormal abilities that manifested themselves in different ways every day. So yes, you are wise to be here. You’re on the right path. If anyone can help you, my boys can.”

  I sniffled and buried my head in my hands. After the cool emotional distance of my own mother, Judith D’Angelo was a balm to my soul.

  “Come here.” Judith motioned her arms. “You look like you could use a hug.”

  Wasn’t that the truth?

  I scooched forward and wrapped my arms around her, burying my face in her shoulder.

  Judith D’Angelo gave amazing hugs, tight and purposeful, full of comfort.

  It all caught up with me. My terror over the daemon attack. Mom’s lack of support. Tennyson’s overall awesomeness and my own overwhelming attraction to him. I wanted so badly to believe that he liked me for me. That the sense of kindred spirits and similar minds was genuine and real, not some sort of act.

  Mom’s theory about the D’Angelo’s motivations lingered, feeding into my earlier concerns. I mostly discounted it—Tennyson’s explanation for needing my help made perfect sense—but after a lifetime of being used for my connections, it was hard to dismiss all her warnings. Was there even a kernel of truth?

  In the end, it didn’t matter. The D’Angelos could help me, and that’s all that cou
nted. If they wanted to harass me into influence peddling, well, then I would deal with it when it happened.

  For her part, Judith simply absorbed my grief, patting my back and letting me cry.

  I had only just met her, but I already loved her. Was this the D’Angelo’s superpower? Insta-love?

  Eventually I pulled back and she handed me a tissue.

  “Feel better?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Then dry your eyes and let’s blow this joint,” she laughed.

  Judith drove south toward Volterra. I was going to stay with Tennyson at Villa Maledetti, partially because that was where my car was parked with my purse, clothing and such. But mostly so we could study the scars and discuss options. Tennyson’s younger sister, Chiara, and her boyfriend, Jack Knight-Snow, were going to join us.

  Judith was fantastic company on the drive. I asked questions and learned that she had worked as a veterinarian for nearly thirty years. She also was a Virgo, hated superhero movies, loved Rice Crispies and wanted a time-traveling Katherine Hepburn to play her in the movie of her life.

  “What was your husband like?” I asked as she turned off one highway and onto another. I was very curious about their story.

  If Judith found my question intrusive, she didn’t show it. Instead, she laughed. “You mean, how did a veterinarian from Oregon end up marrying an Italian earl?”

  I nodded.

  She went quiet for a moment.

  “You never plan on meeting a man like Cesare,” she finally said. “I think most women assume they’ll meet a guy casually somewhere—work or college or a friend of a friend—and the relationship will grow gradually from that point. And for a lot of people, that’s exactly how it plays out. But for some of us, it’s a bolt of lightning out of the blue, unexpected. Falling in love with Cesare was . . . accidental. Extraordinary, but completely unanticipated.”

  Judith navigated a roundabout. I caught a glimpse of a hilltop town in the distance, medieval towers stretching toward the sky. Cypress trees edged fields in straight rows, trailing over the rolling Tuscan hills like dark ribbons. Smoke from farmers’ fields hugged the valleys, wrapping through the orange and gold leaves of autumn.

  “You can’t leave that hanging,” I laughed as she continued along the road. “I want to hear the story, if you don’t mind sharing.”

  Judith smiled, though it was soft and distant. “Of course. It was the early eighties. I was fresh out of grad school and wanting to have a European adventure before settling down. I was dating a nice boy at the time. He had started hinting at marriage, and I figured I would marry him and have a safe, normal, average sort of life. I wasn’t madly, giddily in love with him, but he was comfortable. I was a scientist and a medical practitioner, so I felt like the whole concept of love was kinda silly.”

  I snorted.

  Judith shot me a wry smile and rolled her eyes. “Exactly. I clearly had never been truly in love. Anyway, I decided to spend a summer backpacking through Europe with two friends, thinking about my future and what I wanted, blah, blah. All the things young people worry about.

  “We landed in Rome first, spent a week there and then made our way up to Florence. We were planning on only spending two days in the city. But on the morning of that first day . . .” She paused, her voice drifting off, obviously lost in her memory. “It’s funny how some things stick with you. How even thirty-five years later, I remember that hour of time as if it happened yesterday. My friends and I were drinking coffee in a sidewalk cafe in Piazza Santa Croce. I took a sip, lifted my head and locked eyes with the most gorgeous man I had ever seen. He leaned against an archway across the piazza, staring straight at me. Like I was a revelation. He was . . . I don’t even know how to describe Cesare. It was like seeing a mythical creature in real life, ya know.”

  I nodded. I did know.

  “I ogled him as he walked over to our table and introduced himself. He was sexy and funny and charming, and I fell so hard, so fast, my logical brain didn’t stand a chance of resisting him. Fortunately, he fell just as hard, just as fast. I dumped my boyfriend back home and toured Europe a bit with my friends, always coming back to Florence after a few days away, falling deeper in love. Cesare returned to the States with me in the fall and we married a few months later. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  She glossed over those words, as if she didn’t want to dwell on what came after. Were Michael’s words true? Had Tennyson’s father committed suicide? I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

  We turned off the main highway and on to a smaller road.

  “Here’s the thing with the D’Angelo men,” Judith shot me a quick look. “They don’t love easily, but when they do, they love with everything they have. It takes a strong woman to navigate that kind of love.”

  Her words had layers. Was she referring to Tennyson? Was she talking in general or was this meant for me specifically? And why would she mention this to me?

  She continued, “If you aren’t strong enough, their love can drown you. It’s overwhelming and overpowering. But a steadfast woman will swim with their love, channeling and treasuring it.”

  “Is that a warning?” I had to ask.

  “No. Just hoping you’re a good swimmer.”

  FIFTEEN

  Olivia

  I didn’t see Tennyson until late afternoon.

  Judith settled me in the villa before taking off back to Florence. Apparently, her babysitting services were needed for her twin baby grandchildren. Did that explain Tennyson’s visit to the baby store yesterday? And how could that have only been yesterday?

  Apparently, Jack and Chiara would be arriving around dinner time, two more new people for me to meet and make clumsy chit-chat with. Yay.

  But there was no help for it, as we were all eager to have a conversation about the scars and daemon.

  So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, it was hard to wrap my brain around it. My weirdo different-from-everyone-else’s brain. And now Tennyson knew all about it.

  I tried hard not to think too much about that.

  I also ignored the three emails and text message I had received from my mom (or, rather, communications from Michael authorized by my mom). Basically, she wanted me on a plane home, and how could I be dating a suicidal, psychic-wannabe amputee with delusions of grandeur? Did I feel any loyalty to her and my father?

  So . . . yeah. Sometimes I wondered if my birth mom would get me. Or at least my birth family. Did they have broken brains, too? Would we be awkward and gloriously clueless together?

  I chose to give myself a little space before responding to my mother—again, communication coaching in action, think before you speak.

  Instead, I made myself comfy in my bedroom with its enormous bed and high ceilings frescoed with pastoral scenes of barn animals. I could lie in bed at night and literally count sheep jumping over fences. A large window looked out to the rolling countryside, the towers of Volterra in the distance.

  I took a much-needed shower and changed my clothes, as someone had been kind enough to haul my luggage up from my car.

  Langley had texted a series of stunned-face emojis and at least twenty exclamation points and question marks in reply to my IV photo from earlier.

  I took a photo of the bucolic scene out my bedroom window and texted it to her.

  Three dots and then she came back:

  Only you, Olivia. Please tell me you’re currently cuddled in Tennyson’s arms as he whispers sweet nothings . . .

  Ha! Funny.

  Seriously. Call me with deets.

  Which I did.

  I sprawled on my luxurious bed and told her everything about the daemon and scars and Tennyson being a part of it all. She squealed and fangirled and pretty much confirmed everything I was currently feeling.

  Which was why she was such a good friend.

  After hanging up with Langley, I responded quickly to a couple urgent work emails before going in search of Tennyson.

/>   The villa was riddled with Wriggle scars. I gave up counting them. There were even scars outside, one on the back terrace and a particularly impressive one in a stone-strewn garden beyond the terrace.

  Usually, the more populated the place, the more scars there were. Even then, I would rarely see more than one or two a day. But that didn’t necessarily always hold true. Some cities, particularly in eastern Europe, didn’t have any scars at all.

  Other places, like here in Italy, had a plethora of Wriggles. I had always refused to live in places that had scars, for obvious reasons. They didn’t seem to drift around too much, preferring to stay in the same general location.

  Obviously, something with the D’Angelo’s gifts interacted with the scars, sometimes creating them, as Tennyson had told me. That much was obvious, as Villa Maledetti appeared to be supernatural scar ground zero. If any place would have answers, this had to be it.

  I wandered into the large drawing room where the daemon had attacked me yesterday. The enormous scar drifted in the corner, skimming the edge of the man-sized flatscreen TV.

  Tennyson stood in front of one of the sets of french doors leading to the large terrace. Sunlight streamed around him, casting his body into shadowy shapes.

  I had been pushing aside the words Judith had said to me in the car about D’Angelo men and swimming:

  They don’t love easily, but when they do, they love with everything they have.

  Why would she tell me all that? Did she know something I didn’t, namely that Tennyson like-liked me? How close was Tennyson with his mom anyway?

  Instinctively, I rejected the idea of Tennyson like-liking me. My Venn diagram was rock solid on this—Hot People and Not People did not mix.

  Perhaps, the cynical part of me that had been raised by Louise Hawking noted, Judith is trying to prime me to be manipulated by her boys. Did they need my mom’s help for something?

  But . . . I rejected that, too. Tennyson said they needed my help. The daemon was hurting him, as well. Obviously, we could get more answers together.

  Conclusion? I was simply reading too much into Judith’s words. Sure I felt a tight sense of connection with Tennyson, but it was hard to know how much of that connection was real, or just a by-product of my intimacy-starved psyche and clinging need for answers. He was, after all, essentially a stranger.