A Madness Most Discreet (Brothers Maledetti Book 4)

by Nichole Van

  I was such a goner.

  This was a problem.

  Just keep your lips to yourself and you’ll be fine.

  Chiara had texted that she and Jack were stuck in traffic and would get here as soon as they could. In the meantime, she forwarded a file she had already created on Olivia Hawking, detailing every salacious detail she could scavenge off the internet.

  I knew this was simply typical Chiara behavior, but it didn’t stop my hackles from rising.

  My Olivia was so much more than a handful of unflattering paparazzi photos and a couple lines of poorly written journalist copy.

  I didn’t want to read anyone else’s opinion of her.

  Olivia turned her cell phone over and over in her hand, a nervous sort of gesture.

  “I’m glad you’re still here,” I began. “After everything Michael said, I expected you to run for the hills.”

  A small smile. “Isn’t that where I am?” She looked pointedly out the window at the rolling Tuscan landscape.

  I chuckled.

  She lifted her phone. “My mom did send over a thorough dossier on you about an hour ago. Or rather, Michael did for my mother.” She tapped her screen. “It’s even color-coded. Michael’s big into color-coding.”

  Ah.

  Was the dossier a good or bad thing? I didn’t know.

  “I feel like I have you at a disadvantage,” she continued, glancing at her phone. “I mean, now I know that you were an all-state soccer player in high school. Those silky shorts were a good look on you.”

  Was there teasing in her tone?

  And how pathetic that my heart lurched at the thought that she found me attractive.

  “Well, those shorts did show off my fantastic legs. My left leg was always a bit of a flirt.” I sat back, stretching my intact right leg in the process.

  Olivia winced.

  Damn.

  Jokes about my amputated leg not funny. Got it.

  I massaged the remaining upper thigh muscles in my left leg again. They got stiff easily and my hip joint ached when the barometer dipped.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked, nudging her chin toward my leg.

  Usually when people ask me that question, I felt pity or a morbid curiosity from them.

  What did she feel? It was hard to read the tone of her question. And what did I want her to feel?

  “Meh. Sometimes. It depends.”

  “Do you miss playing soccer?”

  “Who says I can’t still play soccer? Michael’s slacking in his research if he missed the local team I play with.” No way was I going to let a simple missing leg stop me from playing a sport I loved. I had a special-built prosthetic that allowed me to run and pivot.

  She tapped on the phone, studying what was written. “Nothing about that,” she finally said. “Though apparently you are currently unemployed and living on your family’s income.”

  Irritation at Michael flared hot.

  That man . . .

  I snorted. “I do work for my brothers to earn my keep. I think Michael is just cherry-picking things here. Feed you the bad and omitting the good.”

  “Probably.”

  I held up my own phone to her. “I feel I should come clean and mention that my sister sent over a similar dossier on you.”

  That got her attention. Olivia’s head snapped upright. “On me?”

  “Yeah. Most of what Chiara has collected here is just hearsay and rumor from various blogs. Nothing too substantial.” I thumbed into the file. “Seems your parents carefully manage your public image. There have been numerous lawsuits and settlements aimed at silencing information that might be defamatory in any way.”

  “True.” Her tone very cautious. “The worst was a newspaper article right before my seventeenth birthday.”

  I frowned, glancing at Chiara’s summary of the same incident, but not reading it. I set my phone aside.

  “Tell me about it. I want to hear it from you directly.”

  I didn’t add that I wanted to hear everything about her.

  Every. Single. Thing.

  In excruciating detail.

  Olivia shrugged. “Eh, it was politics as usual. Mom was running for re-election and a rival candidate hired a P.I. to dig up a bunch of dirt on me. I guess they figured seventeen was old enough to be a target. So they ran this whole exposé about my obsession with the supernatural, complete with some bad video footage of me in my fourteen-year-old, all-black Goth phase. It made the rounds on the news networks for a couple weeks—lots of judgy commentators opining about my obvious mental health issues and all the things my parents should be doing to help me. It caused huge problems for my mom’s campaign. They had to go into crisis, ‘manage Olivia’ mode.”

  Anger and protectiveness surged through me as Olivia talked. She said the words so matter-of-fact, like it was all old news—which, I guess, it clearly was—but it still had to hurt, didn’t it? Was she stinging inside? Repressing the pain?

  Dammit.

  Not knowing her emotions was driving me crazy.

  I shied away from the Twilight/Edward Cullen comparison she had made earlier, but it was, unfortunately, proving all too accurate.

  I was rapidly developing a full-on Olivia obsession.

  “Did they retract the story?” I asked.

  “Sorta. I was still a minor, so my parent’s outrage was enough that the other candidate eventually let it go. Of course, that doesn’t stop the news networks from digging up the old footage anytime I do something odd, going on and on about my mental health. Given her career, Mom really chose the wrong daughter.”

  I couldn’t stop my sharp intake of breath.

  Oh, Olivia.

  Olivia grimaced at my reaction. “Yeah, I know. That’s harsh. To her credit, my mom has never reproached me for it. But still . . .”

  “It’s awful that others would attack a child for political gain. You deserve better than that, anima mia.” The Italian endearment dropped from my lips without me consciously thinking.

  My soul. Anima mia.

  Adoration pounded in behind it. Olivia was rapidly becoming my soul.

  I dropped my gaze to my phone and Chiara’s dossier, pretending like I hadn’t just accidentally unleashed an emotional bomb on the room.

  She can’t be yours, idiot. Stop fixating.

  Fortunately, Olivia didn’t seem to know any Italian and the moment slid past.

  I cleared my throat and looked up from my phone. “Did you really spend three months living in a Tibetan monastery?”

  She shifted, pulling a leg up to her chest, continuing to rub Elvis’ head. “Yeah. After the exposé thing, my parents were desperate for my ‘hallucinations’ to stop. I convinced them to send me to Tibet. I was hoping something in Eastern religious and philosophical traditions would have answers for the daemon and scars, but they knew nothing. I returned home well-rested but no more informed.”

  I had approximately a dozen follow-up questions for her.

  What had she liked best about Tibet? Did portions of Eastern beliefs coincide with our GUTs? Had she had a boyfriend while she was there? And if so, had she loved him? And how long before she could love me like that?

  Before I could stop myself, I said, “Chiara couldn’t find any information on romantic relationships. I assume you’ve left a string of broken hearts along the way?”

  Olivia looked up from Elvis, brows drawn down. I would have labeled her expression confusion, but that didn’t quite jive with our conversation.

  What could be confusing about my question?

  Olivia continued to stare at me, her face almost . . . sad? Though I was so bad at reading emotions, her look could have been anything between devastated to irritated.

  “My mom thinks that you’re only pretending to have answers about the daemon,” she said.

  My head reared back, not following her non-sequitur.

  “Why on earth would I do that?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s a proven track record when
it comes to guys and me. Men using me to get at my parents’ money and influence.” She shrugged, like it was no big deal.

  My heart plummeted at her words. “Guys have done that?”

  “Yes. It’s . . . uh . . .” She looked away and then came back to me, her shoulders sagging a bit. “It’s been a bit of a theme with me.”

  Anger raged through me, furious that other men had caused my woman to doubt her amazing self. The caveman part of me surged forward, wanting to tell her every minute of every day how very loved she was.

  “Olivia—” I waited until she lifted her eyes squarely back to mine, making my face as earnest as possible. “I have no interest in your political connections. Why would I even be interested in your parents’ money or influence?” I circled my hand in the air, indicating the opulent room in which we sat.

  “Well, there is currently a measure before the Senate Finance Committee that would reduce import taxes on antiquities.”

  Ah.

  I vaguely remembered Dante and Branwell chatting about it a few weeks ago.

  I shook my head in disgust. “So, of course, it’s impossible that I’m an actual psychic who has decided to join forces with you to solve our mutual problem.”

  My tone may have been slightly bitter.

  “That’s the rumor.” She gave a wan smile.

  I snorted. “Sono pazzo di te, cuore mio. Non ho bisogno della tua famiglia. Ho bisogno solo di te.”

  The words tumbled from me in an irritated, emphatic rush: I’m crazy about you, my heart. I don’t need your family. I only need you.

  Olivia raised her eyebrows.

  Thank goodness she didn’t understand Italian.

  I shook my head and tried again, only a little less confessional this time. “I have absolutely no intention of asking you to do anything to help D’Angelo Enterprises. And I’ll pound my brothers if they do.”

  Silence greeted my statement.

  The intensity of her gaze was too much. Words were crowding behind my tongue desperate to get out.

  Love hard. Love true.

  Not a problem when it came to Olivia.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I threaded my fingers behind my head and tilted my head back, studying the frescoed ceiling with its gold trim.

  Pull yourself together, man. Her safety is more important than your stupid need to express your intense crush on her.

  After a few moments of silence, I let out a long stream of air.

  “Know what I think?” I said, eyes still averted.

  “No.”

  “I think you and I should withhold judgment until we get to know each other better. I don’t want to know my sister’s version of you or the Internet’s version of you. I’m only interested in learning about you from you.”

  I dared to glance at her.

  A small smile appeared.

  “I agree,” she all but whispered.

  Warmth spread through me. A sense of rightness. That she and I could build something to become an us.

  I shifted, needing to change the tension in the room before I did something stupid.

  “So tell me about your history with the daemon,” I said.

  “There really isn’t much else to tell, to be honest.” She moved to scratching Elvis’ belly, the rascal. He was clearly in dog paradise. “You know the gist of it.”

  “You said yesterday that you had been able to see the scars your entire life?”

  “Yeah. I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t see the scars. I just assumed that everyone could, like most kids do. I do remember when I realized other people couldn’t see them. I was probably about five. We were on a trip to Disneyland, and I freaked out and refused to get on It’s a Small World because there was a wriggly thing in the boat. My mom was a junior senator then and mortified that I made a scene, screaming that the Wriggles would get me. She told me over and over that there was nothing in the boat. I initially thought she was lying, like how parents tell you that Brussels sprouts are delicious—”

  “Brussels sprouts are delicious.”

  Olivia fixed me with a death stare. “That is a lie to end all lies.”

  “You clearly have never had my Brussels sprouts.”

  “That good, huh?”

  “Change your life.”

  “My life is pretty good as is. I’m withholding judgment.”

  “I don’t think you are. I think my Brussels sprouts have already been pre-judged.”

  “That is true.”

  I mock-sighed in sadness.

  Olivia grinned.

  I wanted to do a lap around the room in victory, I felt so proud about that small smile.

  I did that. I made her smile.

  I was officially pathetic.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “my parents started me in therapy over my ‘hallucinations.’ I learned pretty fast that the simplest solution was to pretend that the scars didn’t exist. That went on for a few years. Then, when I was sixteen, the daemon suddenly started coming out of the scars.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was in New York City visiting a friend. I had noticed some scars here and there in the city, but I tended to see scars just about everywhere. Nothing like here in this villa—” She circled a finger in the air. “—but some. We were walking through Central Park when the daemon came pouring down a sidewalk and swarmed over me. I didn’t realize at first that my friend couldn’t see it. She thought I was having a weird seizure because my body clamped up, and I started screaming hysterically. It wrapped around me for a few minutes and then left, retreating through a scar I hadn’t seen before.”

  My heart pounded in sympathy. “How terrifying.”

  “Yeah. The daemon wasn’t too damaging at first. Just frightening. But over the years, it has gradually grown in strength to what it is.” She changed the topic. “So what is the daemon? Do you know? And why are the scars concentrated in some places, like here, but absent in others?”

  “We have our theories. We think it’s all somehow tied to our GUTs.”

  “Okay.” She absorbed that for a moment. “And what are your GUTs exactly? I know about you, but what about your brothers?”

  I recapped for her my brothers’ GUTs and our theories about the madness inherent in the D’Angelo line.

  I finished with, “The daemon causes fracturing within us which eventually leads to madness and suicide. Every single D’Angelo male for last seven hundred years has met this fate.”

  “You’re slowly fracturing, you’ve said, but what about your brothers?”

  “It doesn’t seem to affect them as much. They’re doing better than me, but who knows.”

  Branwell, as least, struggled more. Dante seemed stable. His GUT hadn’t changed in years. Which was why he had no trouble talking about it all the time.

  Branwell and I preferred not to dwell on the inevitable.

  “And don’t you have a nephew?” she asked. “What about him?”

  “Alessio? Branwell’s son?” I shook my head. “He’s only two months old, so it’s impossible to say how the D’Angelo gifts have manifested themselves in him. We worry about him, of course. Who knows what will happen to the surviving D’Angelo males once I’m gone. We just don’t know how us triplets have changed things.”

  Olivia met my gaze and held it, frowning, her lined forehead troubled and concerned.

  “Don’t say that,” she said.

  “Say what?” I hunted back through our conversation mentally. What concerned her?

  “Once I’m gone,” she repeated my words. “Don’t even obliquely refer to your death like it’s a foregone conclusion.”

  She sounded . . . angry. Upset, even. I didn’t know how to interpret her concern. Again, did it mean that she cared for me? More than a random stranger she had just met?

  Silence for a moment.

  “Olivia. Anima.” I matched the sincere concern of her face. “Unless we stop the daemon, my death is a foregone conclusion. I’m not going to sugarco
at that fact.”

  Vision notwithstanding, the daemon was a threat to us both.

  She chewed on the corner of her mouth, thinking.

  Silence descended.

  “Your mom told me about your father,” she said.

  I blinked at the change in topic.

  “She did?” Shock chased my spine. Such openness wasn’t quite my mom’s MO. Sure, she was friendly and kind, but openly discussing personal memories with a stranger wasn’t her.

  “Yeah. She told me the story of how she and your father met. So my question is this,” Olivia continued. “If your father knew that he would pass this awful curse on to his children, why did they decide to have children?”

  That was a valid question.

  “Actually, they initially agreed to never have children. Their love would be enough,” I answered. “My father’s GUT was more powerful than mine. He had the full effect of the family curse, whereas it’s somewhat diluted in me. Fortunately, advances in modern medicine helped, and certain anti-psychotic drugs dulled the voices and the visions. But it was never enough.”

  I took a deep breath. “From what my mom has told me and what I remember, Dad heard what someone would say minutes before they said it. He felt the pain of every person who passed along a street before him. By the end, he walked the streets of Florence, moving through the ghostly shadows of scenes past and future.”

  It was a hellish way to live. I would know.

  “Dad,” I pleaded. “Dad, come back.”

  I hugged my father as he stared off into space, neck swiveling. People jostled us. I maneuvered us to the side of the busy sidewalk.

  Dad muttered words, indistinct, head twitching, eyes continuing to follow some scene only he could see.

  Pitydisgustfearfearworrysmugconcern—

  Emotions of onlookers flooded me.

  “You should get that loser into rehab,” someone muttered as he passed.

  I shook the memory away. Thankfully, my GUT hadn’t reached that point. Yet.

  “So if your parents decided not to have kids, how did they end up with triplets?” Olivia asked.

  “Well, from what I understand, they took every modern precaution to prevent a pregnancy short of a hysterectomy, but nothing is a hundred percent foolproof. My mom got pregnant. They struggled with it for a while. Nonna, my father’s mother, has talked to me about it. Apparently, they even discussed having an abortion, but Mom refused. This was their love child. What would be, would be. Of course, this was all before they knew they were carrying triplets. Multiples run in Mom’s family—”