by Lucia Black
He eventually pulled off onto a gravel drive surrounded by trees. A large cabin with a rough wood exterior waited in a little clearing. It was completely secluded. Nothing around for miles. A perfect hiding spot.
Alessandro frowned at an SUV already parked in the grass outside the cabin. “Wait in the car for a minute.” He unfastened his seatbelt and opened the door. So did Lorna. She had no intention of staying put. He grabbed her arm and made his most threatening face. “Stay.”
He didn’t wait for a response, just slammed the door closed and marched up to the cabin porch. Lorna waited just long enough after he’d gone inside and then followed him. Why did he feel the need to protect her? She could take care of herself. She had years of experience, years of training. He didn’t know anything she didn’t.
He’d left the door ajar, and she stood at the entry, watching as Alessandro bent close to another man, arguing in hushed angry voices. Lorna vaguely recognized the man as the other Moretti brother, Luca. Both men looked at her as she walked in. Luca looked surprised, Alessandro looked weary and fed up.
“What’s going on?” she asked politely, with a smile for Luca and only Luca.
Alessandro took a threatening step toward her. “I told you to wait in the car.”
Lorna raised her eyebrows. “And when have I ever listened to you?”
Luca laughed, then stopped laughing very suddenly when a door opened and a pretty woman with wide green eyes and shoulder-length curls stepped out. She looked to be about Lorna’s age.
Alessandro forgot about Lorna, and he stared at his brother like he suddenly sprouted a second head and confessed to being an alien. “Excuse me,” he said and looked at the woman, then back at Luca. “What the fuck?”
Luca attempted to silently convey some message to the woman, and Lorna wasn’t sure it worked. “Can I talk to you outside?” he asked Alessandro, then glanced at Lorna. “Alone.”
Alessandro grabbed his brother’s arm and pushed past Lorna to the door, sticking an accusatory finger in her face. “Stay,” he growled.
Lorna did not appreciate being growled at or ordered around like a dog, but curiosity won out against defiance. This woman caused a reaction in Alessandro. Now she had to know why.
With Alessandro gone, she took in her surroundings for the first time. The interior of the cabin was much less rustic than the outside. A sitting area with leather chairs and a sofa, wooden bookshelves, expensive-looking art on the wall, a fluffy rug under the lacquered coffee table, vases of flowers next to ornate lamps. The sitting room opened into a kitchen with dirty pots in the sink and an abandoned bowl of cereal on the counter. Not quite messy, but certainly lived in.
The woman wore loose athleisure style clothing and no makeup. She had a natural beauty to her, with green eyes and full lips drawing attention to her face. She was shorter than Lorna and slighter, and her posture curled in on herself to make her look even smaller. She stared at Lorna like she was looking at some messiah. Lorna offered a half-hearted wave. “So, what are you in for?” she joked. The woman reached out to hug her or grab her hand, but Lorna stepped away with a face that clearly said ‘don’t touch me.’
She grabbed her own arm awkwardly. “I was kidnapped. He brought me here.” He, meaning Luca. Lorna narrowed her eyes, and the woman continued. “My name is Caroline Wells. Maybe you saw in the news I was missing?”
Lorna shook her head slowly. She didn’t keep up with missing people. She had tabs on everyone important and she would know if they disappeared. “Why did they kidnap you?”
Caroline grabbed at her loose shirt. “I don’t know.” She sounded absolutely tortured but showed no signs of it. No bruises, no cuts or scrapes, no real sign of a struggle. Luca must be good.
Lorna wondered silently why this woman wasn’t dead yet. Surely, she knew something. Lorna didn’t believe that for a second.
Caroline shivered. “I could be dead any minute. I’ve been here for days,” she lamented, then smiled at Lorna with hope in her sparkling eyes. “But now we can escape.” She reached for Lorna again, and Lorna took another step back.
“Listen, I’m not here to save you,” she said. She did not come here to ruin the Morettis’ plans, whatever they happened to be.
Caroline stepped forward again. “Now is our chance. They’re distracted, we can sneak out the back—”
Lorna stopped her with a hand in the center of her chest. “You severely misunderstand your situation.” She dripped authority and composure, the complete antithesis of Caroline’s desperation and fear and blind hope. “I am not a captive. I’m with them. If they want you dead, it’s not my place to argue it.”
Caroline blinked her big green eyes, slow to process. “What?”
Lorna walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge to find something to drink. Cans of beer and soda, bottles of water, some boxes of takeout, ketchup, mustard, and some very sad-looking lettuce. “I’m not going to save you,” she repeated, and grabbed a can of soda.
Caroline followed her to the kitchen. “You’re really the kind of person who can see someone about to die and just walk away and do nothing?”
Lorna popped open the can and said nothing, watching Caroline with a measure of pity. Death was a part of life. That’s how it worked in nature. Predators fed on weaker animals and survived. The strongest flourished while the weak were destroyed, and the whole species was better for it. Natural selection. She took a drink of her soda. People like the Morettis and the Bianchis were apex predators. She didn’t like it, and it took a long time for her to accept that fact.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Caroline insisted. “If you think I deserve this, I don’t.”
“I didn’t say you did.” Lorna sighed and walked out of the kitchen, back into the sitting area. “Most often, life isn’t fair.”
Caroline followed her. “You said you’re one of them? Why are you here, then?”
“A weekend retreat, apparently. The woods are so lovely in the springtime.” She stopped in front of a painting on the wall and studied the brushstrokes. She’d painted in a similar style when she was younger. She suddenly wanted to paint something, but she wouldn’t because it would no doubt end up being a sexually raw piece. She couldn’t focus with Alessandro around.
“I don’t believe you,” Caroline said. She chewed her lip, clearly trying to figure Lorna out. “You really wouldn’t care if they killed me? How heartless do you have to be—”
“Heartless is not the word I would use.” Lorna had a heart. Sometimes she wished she didn’t. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel silly and irrational attraction for Alessandro. If she were heartless, it wouldn’t be a problem for her to marry Giovanni. She wouldn’t have to deal with her feelings because she wouldn’t have any.
“What word would you use? Callous bitch?” Caroline just wanted to pick a fight. She had to be bored, stuck here. And scared and lonely. That could cause people to make bad choices. And Lorna was not responsible for Caroline’s bad choices.
She sighed again, trying to ignore the bait. “Look, I’m not your savior. I’m not your executioner, either. I don’t know why you’re here, and it’s not my place to interfere.” Caroline picked up a vase from an end table, face contorted in anger. Lorna huffed. “What are you going to do? Throw the vase at me?”
“Yes.” Caroline lowered her chin, determined.
“And what does that accomplish, exactly?” Lorna switched her soda to her other hand. She hadn’t been able to provoke Alessandro, and now she had somehow unintentionally picked a fight with Caroline. Or maybe it was the other way around. She wasn’t quite sure. “You make a mess, Luca comes back, he’s upset. What does that mean for you, I wonder?”
“Shut up.” Caroline raised the vase to throw it.
A noise outside. The boys were coming back in. “You aren’t really thinking this through, are you?”
The door opened at the same time Caroline threw the vase. Lorna stepped easily out of the way and locked eyes wi
th Alessandro as the vase smashed against the wall beside her, throwing water and flower petals and shards of porcelain in a dramatic arc.
Luca and Alessandro assessed the damage in silence for a moment. Luca was the first to speak. “Caroline, what are you doing?”
“She goaded me into it.” Caroline hugged herself and looked at her feet.
Alessandro disregarded the trembling mess that was Caroline and stopped inches from Lorna to brush a petal off her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I’m sure that’s true. Lorna is the goading type.” She winked at him to throw him off, but it backfired. A slow smile tugged his mouth, and he returned the gesture.
Across the room, Luca folded his arms over his chest. “We’ll all be sharing the cabin for a few days, so I suggest you learn to get along.”
Alessandro smirked, and Lorna wanted to either smack him or kiss him, but she did neither.
“Get cozy, princess,” he said, walking away. Then he turned to look at her. “And try to be nice.”
12
Alessandro
Alessandro brought their bags in from the car and set them down as he watched Luca sweeping up broken pottery and crushed flowers. Caroline stood over him wringing her hands and speaking low so Alessandro couldn’t hear.
Luca was supposed to just kill her. Those were the instructions. That was the job. She was a nuisance and had caused the Morettis too many headaches. But Luca couldn’t make anything easy for himself, so he kidnapped her instead and brought her here until he could decide what to do about her. There was more to that story and he knew it, but considering that Alessandro had his own secrets involving Lorna, he wasn’t going to push Luca further. Their father would not be happy. He’d be enraged, and more importantly, disappointed. Luca and Alessandro both knew the consequences of a disappointed Bruno Moretti.
But he wouldn’t be happy to hear that Alessandro and Giovanni switched roles either, and their mother didn’t raise snitches. They were brothers. They would protect each other in this. They would also have to share the cabin.
Lorna sat on the leather sofa sipping a soda and looking largely unenthused. Alessandro picked up their bags to carry them upstairs. The cabin had three bedrooms. Plenty for when they came for camping outing when they were younger. Their parents in one room, the girls in the other, and the boys sharing in the third. Plenty for holding someone ransom or sending someone to lay low for a bit. Not enough for Luca and the chick he kidnapped, and Alessandro and their future sister-in-law. Asking Caroline to share a room wasn’t an option, she was still frightened and volatile, and apparently violent toward Lorna.
Luca wasn’t about to share a room with Alessandro. They had differences when it came to neatness that would drive both of them crazy. Luca liked his shoes lined up in neat little rows, hospital corners on his bedsheets, and keeping every surface completely clear with everything in a drawer or a cupboard. Alessandro liked his things where he could see them. He liked easy access. And he didn’t like not being able to find anything when Luca shoved his stuff in a drawer.
Alessandro set the bags down in the third bedroom, the one he usually shared with his brothers, and he looked around. The bunk bed that Gio and Luca used as kids had been taken out years ago, but everything else was just like he remembered. A tall, rustic dresser with iron drawer pulls, a queen size bed with tall posts, navy-blue curtains, a beige rug, and a lamp on the side table that looked like a gas lamp. He studied the bed. A navy-blue comforter that matched the curtains, a few throw pillows neatly arranged. It was easy enough for two teenage boys to share a bed considering they had once shared a womb. The bed hadn’t felt that small. But he was bigger now, and not sharing with his twin brother.
He went over to turn the lamp on. It wasn’t like he hadn’t shared a bed with Lorna before. But it was different then, and that felt like a lifetime ago. She wouldn’t be happy about the arrangement.
He ran back downstairs to grab the rest of the bags. Luca was arranging the flowers that weren’t damaged into a water glass. “But he never won Uno,” Luca was saying.
Lorna looked entertained, despite Caroline sitting in one of the chairs, glowering at her. She barely acknowledged Alessandro. “No?”
Luca hadn’t noticed him, still fiddling with the flowers. “Not once. We all kept draw 4s specifically for that purpose.”
“So it was a conspiracy,” Alessandro said.
Luca looked up and grinned at him. “We had to stop you from winning.”
Alessandro scoffed. “Petty.”
“No pettier than you lying in Go Fish.” Luca turned to face him, arms crossed.
Alessandro put a hand over his heart and staggered backward. “I would never.”
Luca looked at Lorna. “He made Tessa cry.”
Alessandro lifted a finger. “Now that was not my fault. She was already losing, and I forgot the rules. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Not my fault.”
Luca laughed. “You need help with that?” He nodded at the bags.
“Nah.” Alessandro shook his head. “Keep telling Lorna embarrassing stories about me.” He paused to make eye contact with her. “She seems very interested.”
Her eyes flashed a warning that he would completely disregard. “I should probably start unpacking.” She stood up. “You can just drop my stuff in my room,” she said politely to Alessandro.
He picked up the bags. “Our room,” he corrected.
She froze, then spun to Luca. “You’re joking.” Luca only looked at her with raised brows, not speaking at all. “I am not sharing a room with him.” She pointed at Alessandro.
He smiled. “Neither am I. My house, my rules.”
Lorna looked at Alessandro for back up, but he shrugged helplessly. “You can share a room with me, or you can share a room with her.” He indicated Caroline, who was still glaring daggers every time she looked at her.
Lorna scowled at Alessandro. “You must have other places. If Luca has claimed this one, we can go to another.”
“No can do,” Alessandro said. “My father has already been notified that you are out here with Giovanni for the week.” He glanced at his brother. “And as far as he knows, Luca isn’t here, so moving would be a little suspicious.”
Lorna took a breath and lifted her chin defiantly. “We can claim that I would feel more comfortable in one of my own safe houses—”
“Hmm,” Alessandro hummed and wrinkled his nose. “Actually, your father also approves of this spot for a little pre-wedding retreat.” He smiled, knowing he won. Everything was a competition with Lorna and winning just felt so good.
Lorna huffed a breath and set her empty soda can on the coffee table too hard. The hollow metal clunk displayed her dissatisfaction. “This is bullshit,” she muttered.
“Too damn bad, princess.” He smirked.
She stood quickly and marched upstairs. He followed with their bags. “Here on the right,” he told her on the landing, and she walked through the open door. He set their things down in the middle of the room. Purple dusk crept in through the window, the room lit by warm incandescent lamps that threw large fuzzy shadows on the walls. In another life, the moment would have been romantic. In another life, he would wrap his arms around her and rest his chin on the top of her head. She would cling to him and cuddle close and fall asleep in his arms.
In another life.
Lorna stared at the bed, the potential romance of the moment lost on her. “There’s only one bed.”
Alessandro unzipped his suitcase and began to transfer his clothes to a dresser drawer. “Yeah.” She said nothing else, just kept staring at it. He paused, holding a couple of shirts. “What, you don’t trust me?” She moved just her eyes to look at him. He set the shirts in the drawer and took on a lofty tone. “What have I done to make me undeserving of your trust?”
She picked up her suitcase. “You kissed me a week ago.”
He laughed. It had been worth waiting a week if she was still thinking about it. “I won�
�t kiss you tonight. How about that?” He was sincere. He didn’t want her to be uncomfortable.
She nodded curtly and picked up a small bag. “I get to shower first.”
“So you can take all the hot water?” he guessed. Not that he blamed her for being upset with him. The circumstances weren’t ideal.
“Yes.” She raised her chin and closed the door to the ensuite bathroom a little harder than necessary.
He finished unpacking and leaned on the closed dresser drawer. She might hate him for this. Of course, this wasn’t his plan. His plan didn’t involve Luca and some chick he’d kidnapped. No, he would have let Lorna have her own room, and seduced her slowly. She would have chosen to share his bed by the end of the week. Probably by the second day, if the way she kissed him in return was any indication of how much she still wanted him.
He sat on the floor with his back against the bed frame. She was taking her time in the shower, actually trying to use up all the hot water. It was a good thing Luca showered in the morning. He wouldn’t enjoy a cold shower and would take it out on Alessandro.
He was exhausted. He would’ve fallen asleep if he didn’t feel like he still smelled like smoke. Even through the shower he’d taken before leaving, it clung to him. He closed his eyes and saw fire.
When they were young, they’d done competitions within the gym. When Alessandro was ten, he won. There was a wall at the back of the gym covered in the handprints of the winners of those competitions. He’d climbed a ladder and dipped his hand in blue paint and pressed it to the wall next to Giovanni’s orange and green handprints. When he lifted his hand off, the pinky smeared a little. He had written his name with one finger underneath, barely legible on the textured brick.
In the middle of the fire, crumbling at his feet, had been so many little colorful handprints. So many little victories, so many children’s names—all of it turned to ash. He’d kicked one brick over after the fire had been extinguished and recognized his own tiny blue handprint with a smeared pinky finger. It was like a knife to the gut. He knew Giovanni had seen the brick, and he knew he would have no mercy when he found the people responsible for it. But killing the people who burned it down didn’t bring it back.
