TWO

THALIA

I didn't sleep.

How could I? Every time I closed my eyes I saw it again. The door opening, the shadow, Rafael's body jerking on top of mine. Seven times. I kept counting them in my head like some kind of sick mantra.

Rosa had put me in a guest room after the bath. Clean sheets, soft pillows, everything perfect and untouched. It felt wrong. Rafael was dead down the hall and I was supposed to just lie here in the dark and rest? The whole thing was insane.

Around three in the morning I gave up trying. Got out of bed and walked to the window. The Torrisi compound stretched out below, I couldn’t help but stare at the manicured gardens and security lights. Guards were everywhere now, way more than earlier. They moved in pairs, talking into radios, checking shadows. Locking the barn after the horses already ran off. Or got shot. Whatever.

My reflection in the glass looked like a stranger. Rosa had braided my hair to keep it out of the way while she cleaned me up, and I was wearing some borrowed nightgown that was too big. I looked about sixteen. Tiny and lost and completely out of my depth.

A knock on the door made me jump.

"It's me," Rosa said softly.

"Come in."

She entered carrying a tray. Tea, from the smell of it. "Couldn't sleep either?"

"No." I turned away from the window. "Is there news? Did they find who did it?"

Rosa set the tray down on the nightstand. Her hands were steady but her eyes were still red and swollen. She'd been crying. Of course she had. Her son was dead. "Marco is handling the investigation. Your father is on his way here."

Great. Exactly what I needed. Dad storming in, probably thinking I'd screwed up the one job he'd ever asked me to do. Marry Rafael. Make peace. Don't ruin everything. Well, I’d spectacularly failed all.

"Salvatore wants to see you in the morning," Rosa continued. "He has questions."

"I already told Marco everything I saw."

"You told him you saw a shadow." She handed me a cup of tea. "Salvatore will want more."

"There isn't more. It happened so fast." My hand shook holding the cup. Tea sloshed over the rim, burned my fingers. I set it down before I dropped it.

Rosa sat on the edge of the bed. For a minute she just looked at me, studying my face like she was trying to figure something out. "Do you know why Salvatore agreed to this marriage?"

The question caught me off guard. "To end the feud. Same reason my father agreed."

"That's part of it." She folded her hands in her lap. "But Salvatore also did it because Rafael asked him to."

"What?"

"My son came to his father six months ago. Said he wanted out of the family business. Wanted to build something more… legitimate. Salvatore refused, of course. The Torrisi legacy is everything to him. So Rafael offered a compromise. He'd stay, he'd do his duty, he'd marry into the Corsini family to secure peace. But after that, he wanted freedom to pursue other ventures. Better, legal, non-violent ones."

I sat down in the chair by the window. This was news to me. During our engagement Rafael had mentioned wanting to do things differently eventually, but I'd thought he meant years down the line. Not right away.

"He never told me any of this."

"He wouldn't have. You were the bargaining chip, not the confidante. Not yet anyway." Rosa's voice was gentle but the words still stung. "I'm telling you because I want you to understand something. Rafael chose you. Not because he loved you, not yet. But because he saw a way out and you were part of it. He would have protected that chance with his life."

"He did protect it with his life."

"Yes." She stood up, smoothed her dress even though it was already perfectly smooth. A nervous habit maybe. "Which is why Salvatore is going to want answers. His son died protecting a Corsini. That sacrifice needs to mean something or it was all for nothing."

After she left I sat there thinking about what she'd said. Rafael had his own agenda. His own plans. And I'd been completely clueless about all of it. We'd had dinner three times during our engagement, talked on the phone maybe twice. Awkward conversations about music and movies and surface level stuff. He'd seemed nice. Reserved but kind. I'd thought maybe we could make it work.

Turned out he'd been planning an exit strategy and I was just part of the process.

The sun came up around six. I watched it rise over the compound, orange and red bleeding across the sky. Appropriate colors for a morning after a murder.

Someone brought me clothes around seven. Black dress, simple and conservative. Mourning clothes. I put them on feeling like I was playing dress-up in someone else's tragedy. Except this was my tragedy too now, wasn't it? I was Rafael's widow. That made his death mine to grieve even though I barely knew him.

Marco came to get me at eight.

"Salvatore is waiting," he said. No good morning, no how are you holding up. Just straight to business.

I followed him through the compound. We passed the bedroom where it happened. The door was closed now, crime scene tape across it. I made myself look away.

Salvatore's office was on the ground floor, overlooking the back gardens. He was standing at the window when we entered, hands clasped behind his back. He didn't turn around.

"Leave us," he told Marco.

Marco hesitated. "Boss, maybe I should…"

"Leave. Us."

Marco left. The door clicked shut and I was alone with my father-in-law. Former father-in-law? Was there a term for this situation?

"Sit." Salvatore still wasn't looking at me.

I sat in one of the leather chairs facing his desk. The office was furnished with dark wood and expensive art, the kind of room designed to intimidate. It was working.

Finally Salvatore turned around. He was in his late fifties, silver hair slicked back, face that probably had been handsome before age and grief carved lines into it. He'd aged ten years overnight. I could see it in the shadows under his eyes, the way his shoulders sagged.

"My son is dead."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Sorry." He said the word like he was tasting something bitter. "You're sorry. How generous."

I didn't know what to say to that so I kept quiet.

Salvatore moved to his desk, pulled out a folder. Dropped it in front of me. "Security footage from last night. Or what little we have of it. Someone disabled cameras in the bedroom wing from eight-forty-five until nine-fifteen. Right around the time of the shooting."

I opened the folder. Inside were printouts of grainy surveillance images. Hallways, stairwells, the garden where the reception was held. Nothing useful that I could see.

"Whoever did this knew our security system," Salvatore continued. "Knew exactly which cameras to disable and when. That suggests inside help."

"You think someone in your family helped kill Rafael?"

"I think someone wanted my son dead or my alliance with the Corsinis destroyed. Possibly both." He leaned against the desk, arms crossed. "Tell me again what you saw."

I went through it one more time. The door opening, the shadow, the gun. Rafael throwing himself in front of me. The shots. All seven of them. The blood. The waiting. The eleven minutes it took for help to arrive even though I was screaming the entire time.

Salvatore's jaw tightened. "Eleven minutes."

"Yes, I know it took some time but I heard Marco say eleven minutes."

"This compound has forty-two guards on duty during events. Someone should have reached you in under two minutes." He straightened up. "Yet it took eleven. Why?"

"I don't know."

"Because someone delayed the alert. Someone made sure help wouldn't arrive in time." He came around the desk, stood over me. Not threatening exactly but definitely intimidating. "My son died in those eleven minutes, Mrs. Torrisi. He might have survived if medical help had arrived sooner."

Mrs. Torrisi. The name felt like a slap. I was a widow before I'd even gotten used to being a wife.

"I didn't delay anything," I said. "I was screaming for help. I wanted someone to come. I wanted Rafael to live."

"Did you?"

The question hung in the air between us. He was asking if I'd wanted my husband dead. If this whole thing had been a Corsini setup and I was the bait.

"Yes." I met his eyes. "I didn't love him, we barely knew each other. But I didn't want him dead. He saved my life. The bullets were meant for me."

"Marco's theory."

"It's not a theory. Look at where I was lying on the bed, where Rafael was standing. The shooter was aiming for me."

Salvatore studied me for a long moment. I couldn't read his expression at all. Finally he nodded, just barely. "You're aware that tradition demands the alliance be maintained."

It took me a second to understand what he meant. When I did, my stomach dropped. "You can't be serious."

"Rafael is dead. His twin brother Dante is next in line. You will marry him to preserve the alliance between our families."

"But…. But that's insane." I sputtered.

"That's tradition." He walked back to his desk, sat down. Picked up a pen like we were discussing business contracts instead of my life. "The wedding will take place in three days. Small ceremony, immediate family only. Marco will handle the arrangements."

"Dante hates me."

"Dante hates everyone. He'll adjust." Salvatore started writing something, effectively dismissing me. "You're a Torrisi now, Thalia. That comes with obligations. You'll fulfill them."

I stood up. My legs felt like water but I made them work. "And if I refuse?"

Salvatore looked up. His eyes were cold, flat. Dead. "Then the alliance fails, my son died for nothing, and I'll make sure your father understands exactly who's responsible for starting the war that follows. Do you want that blood on your hands?"

No. I didn't. But I also didn't want to marry Dante, who looked at me like I'd personally murdered his twin.

"Three days," Salvatore repeated. "Marco will escort you back to your room."

The door opened. Marco must have been waiting right outside. He put a hand on my elbow, guided me out into the hallway.

"He's grieving," Marco said quietly as we walked. "He doesn't mean half of what he says right now."

"Which half?"

Marco didn't answer that.

Back in my room I locked the door and sat on the bed. Three days. I had three days before I married Dante Torrisi, the most violent enforcer in the family. The man who'd barely looked at me during the wedding reception yesterday. The man whose twin brother had died in my arms.

This was going to be a nightmare.

My phone buzzed. Text from my brother Nico: Dad's coming. Brace yourself.

Perfect. Just what I needed.

I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Twenty-four hours ago I'd been getting ready for my wedding, nervous but hopeful. Now I was a widow planning a second marriage to a man who probably wanted me dead.

Rosa was right about one thing though. Rafael's sacrifice had to mean something.

I just had no idea what yet.