Peasants and Kings

by Emma Slate

  Angelo picked up the thread of conversation. “If the Borgia got immunity from the government, they don’t care about their own secrets coming out and it will leave the other four families vulnerable. It will take time to verify this. But if it’s true, it needs to be handled delicately and quietly.”

  “We can handle it quietly if you want, but an example needs to be made,” Hadrian said, his tone dark.

  Angelo nodded. “It will be done.”

  “Good.” He paused. “There’s another reason why I invited you here. It wasn’t just about the assassin.”

  All eyes were on Hadrian, giving him their undivided attention.

  “I also invited you here to reunite you with your kin.”

  Nico’s brows snapped together.

  “Kin?” Angelo repeated. “What are you talking about?”

  Hadrian looked at me and gave a nod.

  I took a deep breath and after a moment I said, “My name isn’t Eden. It’s Sterling. And my mother was Violetta Moretti.”

  There was a stunned silence in the room and then Nico erupted. “Impossible!” His body quivered as though he was barely able to control himself.

  Angelo’s face was inscrutable. He stared at me and then glanced at Hadrian. When his eyes came back to mine, he said, “Child, I don’t know what you’re up to, but you had better explain yourself. Where is my sister? If you know—”

  “My mother is dead. You are Angelo Moretti, and within you flows the blood of the Compagnia Bianca del Falco. My mother fled Italy after the Foscari murdered my father, Gianni Russo. She went to the United States and raised me in secret. I’ve spent my entire life on the run, but it ends here and now, and I can prove to you who I am.”

  Angelo’s expression contorted as he struggled to process what I’d just told him, and as he was about to say something, Hadrian raised a hand and said, “No. Wait. She’ll show you.”

  I looked to the ceiling and removed my right contact lens. I blinked a few times to clear my vision, and then lowered my gaze to reveal a brilliant turquoise blue eye to the room.

  Angelo flinched. Luca gasped. Nico gripped the edge of the table. Tor didn’t react at all.

  I took out my left contact lens in the same fashion, uncovering a green eye the color of peridot.

  The Moretti men stared at me in shock.

  Angelo swallowed a few times, clearly attempting to find his voice. “When did Violetta die?”

  I glanced at Hadrian, silently calling on his strength. “A little over a year ago.”

  “How did she…” Nico trailed off, sounding drained of all his energy.

  “She took her own life,” I swallowed, “to protect me. She was afraid the Foscari would find me…and she warned me not to come to you. But here we are, and I have to know; did you know that she was pregnant when she left Italy?”

  “No,” Angelo said. “We had no idea. Neither did the Foscari. They’ve been looking for Violetta, and as far as we knew, they never caught up with her. Our business with them ended after she slighted their family, and we haven’t been in contact with them for years. She embarrassed us in a way you can’t understand. She spat on the legacy of generations past. She turned her back on family for the love of a man who was unworthy, and by doing so she has dragged the Moretti name through the filth.”

  “Papà,” Tor said.

  “Yes, son,” Angelo said with a nod at his second eldest. To me, he stated, “We have a chance now to make things right for generations. You will help us make things right.”

  The finality of his statement sent a pit of despair deep into my belly. He finally rose from his seat, as did Nico and Tor.

  Hadrian’s voice lashed like a whip. “Sterling was not raised by the Compagnia Bianca del Falco. She is under no obligation to honor her mother’s pledge.” His jaw was tight with anger.

  “But she is Violetta’s daughter, and the Foscari deserve restitution,” Angelo said.

  “There is another option,” Hadrian said, taking my hand and pulling me to his side. He didn’t wait for Angelo to speak, “You have a daughter. Marry her to the Foscari. Sterling is already promised. To me.”

  I inhaled a sharp gasp at Hadrian’s public declaration. His words resounded through the room even after he fell silent. The two men at the opposite ends of the table stared at one another.

  “I like you, Hadrian,” Angelo said finally. “I’ve always admired you—what you’ve built, coming from nothing. But as powerful and wealthy as you are, you are not one of the five families of Italy, and you don’t understand our code of honor. It doesn’t matter how many islands you buy or how much wealth you acquire, you will never be one of us. You will never be good enough to marry a Moretti.”

  “I don’t think I’ve made myself clear,” Hadrian stated, his eyes turning feral. “Sterling will leave this island over my dead body.”

  They continued to stare each other down, two allies who had become opponents.

  Because of me.

  Angelo turned his chin ever so slightly, diverting my attention.

  In one expert, calculated move, Luca stood from his chair and darted toward Hadrian, striking him hard and fast in the throat. While Hadrian was stunned, Luca produced a syringe and plunged it into the side of Hadrian’s neck.

  Hadrian’s left hand went to his throat as he gasped for air and after a few seconds, his eyes rolled into the back of his head. His palm slid from mine and I gulped in terror as his body slackened, slumping against the arm of his chair.

  “What did you do?” I whispered in horror.

  “He’ll live, Sterling. But you’re coming with us,” Angelo said, straightening the cuff of his shirt. “Nico?”

  Before I knew what was happening, Nico all but launched himself toward me. His hand clamped around the back of my neck and he squeezed once hard enough to make me light-headed and then he let go. Then he tapped his thumb hard and fast against my temple.

  Everything went dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I rolled over, expecting to feel Hadrian in bed next to me, but his side was cold—which suddenly made me lurch up in fear.

  I was not in Hadrian’s bed.

  I was no longer in Hadrian’s home.

  My breaths came in spurts, and I focused on drawing air into my lungs. Terror, unlike anything I’d ever known before, pierced my soul.

  Now I was under the control of my family—family that had driven my mother to flee her home. Family that had stood by and let my father be murdered in cold blood.

  God, no.

  I lifted my knees to my chest. I was on a comfortable four-poster wooden bed with blue and gold paisley drapes. A rope of golden threads kept the draperies from closing. I reached out to touch one of the tassels.

  Hadrian.

  I clenched my fist and shoved it in my mouth, biting down hard on my knuckles, refusing to scream.

  Hadrian.

  A bout of longing hit me so deep that it felt like it had cleaved me in half, and I sucked in a breath of air.

  He had claimed me. He promised to protect me from my family. He would come for me.

  All I had to do was hold on and trust him.

  My heart stuttered in my chest, and then like a stick trapped in the spoke of a wheel, my world came to a grinding halt. A cold blanket of shock enveloped me.

  It was as if I’d lived through enough tragedy, enough pain, enough guilt, and my mind had finally said enough.

  Daylight streamed through the large glass windows in the room. I untangled my limbs and climbed out of bed, realizing I was still in my dress and jewelry from the previous evening. Only my heels were missing.

  I walked to a set of glass doors that led to a stone balcony and looked out. A sprawling, manicured garden went on for as far as the eye could see. It reminded me of the garden at The Mansion, the place I’d spent my first night with—

  I doubted the doors were unlocked; why would my family take any chances that I might escape?

  I was m
y mother’s daughter, after all.

  My hand went to the doors anyway. Surprise sparked inside of me when they opened freely, and I stepped out onto the balcony and took a deep breath of warm air. I smelled earth and soil, not ocean and mountains.

  I had no idea of my exact location—Luca had never mentioned where in Italy he lived. Yet when I breathed in, the scent of vines tickled the back of my throat and I knew instantly I was in the home my mother had grown up in.

  The land called to me. It was innately in my blood, and though I’d never visited the vineyards, or been weaned on the stories of my ancestors, something clicked into place inside of me. A feeling of belonging, a kinship.

  I heard the faintest sound of the bedroom door opening but refused to turn to see who’d come. Leather soles padded across the wooden floor before halting a few feet behind me.

  “You’re awake,” Luca said as he came to stand next to me on the balcony.

  I touched the side of my head where it was sore from Nico’s strike. “What happened? How did I—”

  “Family secret,” he said without smiling. “Every Moretti knows specific pressure points that will either result in death, or unconsciousness.”

  “Every Moretti male, you mean?”

  “Yes.” He stared at me pensively. “Cousin—”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “But we are cousins,” he said.

  “No. I am no more than a pawn to you.”

  Anger and hatred ripped through me, but it wasn’t a hot, blistering ember. It was a ball of ice, and it continued to spread through my body, freezing everything that had once made me, me.

  “So? What will happen now? Are you and your father going to keep me locked in this room?” My tone was bitter, but Luca didn’t rise to the bait.

  “The doors aren’t locked, but times have changed. We won’t lose you like we lost Violetta. You have no allies here, no money, nothing. If you run, we will hunt you down and bring you back. You will marry Raphael Foscari and unite the Foscari and the Moretti once and for all.”

  “Fuck you, Luca. I’m not a Moretti. You are not my people.”

  His eyes hardened. “Do you know why I’m up here with you instead of my father or my brother? Because unlike them, my heart isn’t dead. I saw the way you and Hadrian looked at each other. I’m sorry there was nothing to be done about it. If I were in charge of the family, I’d—” He abruptly cut himself off. “This is out of my hands. I am my father’s son and I am a Moretti.” His tone turned frigid as he went on, “Your life is at stake, Sterling. If you accept your fate, if you align yourself with us, if you make good on your mother’s unfulfilled promise, then you will live a good life. The Foscari will treat you the way you were always meant to be treated—as a Moretti married into their own family.”

  “You want to give me to the people that murdered my father and hunted my mother,” I lashed out.

  “You only have to fear them if you are their enemy, and right now you are. So, make this right.” His hands dropped from my shoulders. “You have two choices, Sterling. You can marry Raphael Foscari. You can give him heirs. You can be treated as a queen. Or…”

  “Or?” I prodded.

  He turned his attention to the gardens. “Or I can leave you unattended for a few minutes. You’re on the sixth floor. Your only way out of this is death. I hope I’ve made myself clear.”

  I blinked. “Jump? You expect me to jump?”

  “No. I don’t expect you to jump. You’re a Moretti. I expect you to survive.”

  We stared at one another, bound by blood. My kin.

  “Hadrian will come for me,” I vowed. “And when he does, you will beg for mercy, Luca.”

  “Accept your fate, Sterling.”

  I turned away from him and gripped the stone balcony, swallowing the rage that threatened to overtake me.

  The Moretti expected me to marry a man who was not the one I loved, or die by my own hand.

  They were cruel and calculating, and Hadrian had underestimated their reaction to finding out who I was. He thought he could use power and wealth to save me.

  He was wrong.

  “I’ll send someone to help you bathe and dress,” Luca said, interrupting my thoughts.

  I frowned. “Why?”

  He righted his shirt cuff. “Family meal.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he stated. “Papà has requested your presence.”

  When he stepped away from the balcony and headed into the bedroom, I called out to him, “You’re the most dangerous of all, Luca.”

  He didn’t stop his long stride to the exit, but I knew he heard what I said.

  Luca was the most dangerous. His power wasn’t derived from violence alone. He had the ability to seduce with charm and humor. He didn’t need to use his fists; Luca was a master manipulator. A natural orator. A true Roman Caesar.

  Forty minutes later, I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I had concealed my eyes since I was a child, and now I was baring them for the world to see. They might’ve been a part of my legacy, but they were foreign, even to me.

  Luca came to escort me to the formal dining room. As we walked down the lavish staircase, I took in the beauty of The White Company ancestral home. Irreplaceable Renaissance art hung on the walls, ornate rugs covered gold inlaid marble floors, and gleaming wooden furniture spanned fashions over the course of hundreds of years. The worth of each piece would be incalculable to all but the world’s finest antique dealers.

  The wealth was so encompassing that I briefly wondered if I’d entered a different time. It felt like a different world. A world not even Hadrian had been a part of.

  The thought of him sent a stab of yearning through my belly.

  The wooden doors of the dining room were already open, the occupants seated at their places. At the head of a long wooden table was Angelo. Two spots on his right were vacant, while the two seats to his left were occupied. Tor sat at his father’s left elbow and a young woman, who couldn’t be any older than sixteen perched next to him.

  My eyes skimmed over Tor’s cold expression and then settled on the young woman, who wore a dusty pink dress. She shot me a tentative smile, but I refused to smile back.

  Luca helped me with my seat.

  “Sterling,” Angelo greeted. “You look lovely.”

  I didn’t give a damn what he thought about how I looked. “I thought you said this was a family meal? Where’s Nico? Or should I say, Uncle Nico?”

  “Nico doesn’t live here,” Angelo explained, not at all perturbed by my attitude. “He lives with his wife, Beatrice, and their four children on their own estate. This home is for the first-born son and his family. You’ll meet Beatrice and your cousins in a few days.”

  I reached for my napkin just to have something to do.

  “This is my daughter, Gisella,” Angelo said with a smile at his youngest child.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sterling,” Gisella said. “Your Italian is flawless. How did you learn to speak it?”

  “My dead mother taught me,” I stated coldly.

  She didn’t react, but still, I instantly felt remorse for lashing out at the young girl. It wasn’t her fault she’d grown up a Moretti.

  Angelo ignored my remark as though I had said nothing of importance and rang a small brass bell that rested by his plate. A few moments later lunch was served. Cured meats and cheeses, warm bread and olive oil, sautéed escarole and broccoli rabe, grilled calamari and octopus, platters of meat and fish.

  I couldn’t help the maniacal laugh that escaped.

  Luca glanced at me and frowned. “What’s so funny?”

  “Is this a welcome home feast?” I asked, a gruesome grin stretching across my face. “What’s the point of this charade?”

  “Charade?” Angelo repeated. “It’s no charade. You’re family. And families dine together.”

  “We’re not family,” I gritted out.

  I was on the
verge of taking a butter knife and jabbing it into Luca’s thigh, but I thought better than to draw blood at the table. In one swift move, I stood up, knocking my chair over and rushing from the room.

  No one stopped me.

  I had no idea where I was going, but I passed a maid dusting a priceless antique vase resting on a wooden credenza and asked her how I could get outside. She pointed the way to a set of double doors that led out into the gardens. They were even more magnificent to behold from ground level.

  Greedily gulping the fragrant air, I tried to stem the rapid beat of my heart. My blood simmered in my system, but at that moment I chose to nurture it instead of shoving the feelings away. I would gladly give the Moretti my rage, but they would not conquer me nor spill my tears.

  I found a stone bench in front of a fountain depicting a bearded god wearing a crown, holding a naked woman. It was so beautiful that it nearly brought my emotion to the surface, but I got control of myself. I took a seat in front of it, not caring that the white dress I wore would be smudged with dust.

  “It’s a version of the Rape of Proserpina,” a timid voice said from behind me, making me jump.

  I turned to look at the intruder. Gisella had walked on light steps. She reminded me of a doe, watchful, careful, quiet.

  She lifted a plate of food in her hands. “I thought you might be hungry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Thank you,” I said. “That was thoughtful of you.”

  Gisella came to the bench and took a seat next to me and handed me the plate. It had olives and other antipasti, foods I could eat with my fingers.

  Despite my situation, I wasn’t immune to the scent of food. I would need sustenance if I was going to go another round with the Moretti men.

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” she said.

  I nodded absently, feeling a fresh coat of tears breach my eyes. “I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you back there.”

  “I understand why you did. I’m a Moretti.”

  “Apparently, so am I,” I joked.

  She didn’t laugh. Gisella nibbled on her plump bottom lip. She was pretty, but her beauty was subtle and unripe. She had the flush and slender features of youth, but in a few years, she would be a beautiful woman.