TwelveNiccolo Capaldi I was out on the veranda looking at the ocean. The summer home had been in the Capaldi family for generations. My great-great-grandfather, who had started out as a merchant, had bought the villa as a wedding gift for my great-great-grandfather. It had been built in the fifteen hundreds and was rumored to have originally been a vacation home for the Medici family. Daniela was inside. I had been in there when she woke up. But I didn’t know what she was doing. It had been a day since we’d arrived in Italy and she finally woke up. I was smoking a cigarette when I heard the back door open. “Did you have to knock her out?” Luca asked. I smirked as I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Who told you?” “Rick,” he said, “and then Daniela when I came here. I gave her my phone number when I saw her that first night. She texted me so many times I am surprised my phone didn’t somehow break from the amount of vibrating

FourteenNiccolo Capaldi The last time I had been to our summer home, it had been the summer before my senior year of high school. Dad took the whole family, including Daniela and her mother. We would spend the whole summer swimming, taking the yacht out, and having picnics. Here, I was a completely different person. There was something about Italy that made me relax a little more. And that summer, it had been particularly hot. Dad had been away on a lot of business trips leaving us alone to our own devices. Daniela usually spent most of the time helping out her mom with the house and the cooking. Somedays, though, Augusta would let her spend the day by the pool or she’d go off to the beach with Luca or go into town. One day, we all went out to the beach. There was a small path with a creaky staircase that had been built sometime in the 1920’s that went all of the way down to the shore. Daniela was wearing a white sundress, and she was tan from spending her days out in th

SixteenNiccolo Capaldi “Dad! What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. “You should be in the hospital. I thought you were half dead.” He had gathered us around the big, dining room table inside. It wasn’t warm enough to eat out doors like we normally did. Giuseppe Capaldi was tall, and frail, with wrinkles upon wrinkles and grey hair. He used a cane to get around. My Pop was the kind of man that used to having people scurry when they saw him. In many ways, he was an imposing figure still. But after his heart attack, I was painfully aware of how old he was. And I hated the idea that he had traveled so long to get to us when it could have hurt him. My Pop laughed. “I’m a Capaldi, son. Death doesn’t come for us. We go looking for it because we’ve sent them too many souls.” “Mr. Capaldi,” said Audrina, “I’m a little confused about why you want me to be part of this conversation?” He smiled at her. “Audrina, you have always

EighteenNiccolo Capaldi She was staying. She wasn’t running. She had a chance to leave, to get the hell out, and she had decided to stay. I always thought that if Daniela knew the true nature of my world, she would run. That was one of the reasons I had ended it when we were younger. It also didn’t help that my father kept on trying to force her to marry me because he thought it was the only way that she could stay safe. I didn’t want Daniela to ever feel like I was forcing her into this world. And now, to hear her openly say she wanted to be here, with me, it was confirmation that we had a shot. Of course, we had to survive the Barretta family first. “What do you know about them?” Daniela asked as she followed me to my room. “Who?” I said. “The Barretta family.” I hesitated. “Are you sure you want to know? Sometimes, family history is best left in the dark.” “Of course, I want to know. Mama never ta

TwentyNiccolo CapaldiI dreamt about this.From the moment I had her for the first time when we were both teenagers, Daniela Berni was the only thing I wanted in this world that I could not have. Not fully. Daniela drove me to distraction. Now, there was a hit on her, and me, and the people we cared about. And we had just enough time to spare to rest and then try to get away. But we weren’t going to be doing any resting that night. Not in the traditional sense, anyway.I should have been more worried about the people coming for us. At that moment though, Daniela was on my bed, completely undressed, having started to take her clothes off in the hallway before we even got to my room. “You still on the pill?” I asked her. It wouldn’t have mattered if she wasn’t. At that point, there was nothing that could stop us. It had taken both of us years to get here, to realize there was no letting the other go. Now that she was all in, I’d make her mine whatever it took.Daniela nodded.