The Rocchetti Queen - Bree Porter Page 0,43

yank it off, so I trapped his hands in the blanket. “I know, I know. You don’t like anything on your head.”

Oscuro followed us as Dante and I tried to catch up with Alessandro, his heavy footfalls matching my speed.

“Alessandro!” He was too far away to hear my yell, so I drew myself to a halt. “These men,” I muttered.

Dante mewled in my arms.

“Not you, of course, my love. You’re exempt from all my irritation toward your sex.” I turned to Oscuro. “Do you remember the Corsican Union war?”

“I was very young. But my father used to talk about it.”

“What did he say?”

Oscuro shrugged. “What everyone said. It was bloody and horrible. And only ended with the Pelletiers being sent to jail.”

“Pelletier’s son is out of jail now.”

“No one knows where he is. I always assumed he was taken out by the Union. They’re not very fond of rats.”

I nodded, casting my eyes around the property. “This really is the last piece of land owned by a Pelletier in Illinois?”

“There is no other.”

“Strange. Why didn’t Don Piero scoop it up?”

“I’m sure he had bigger things on his plate than some old woman’s inheritance,” Oscuro told me.

I stepped toward the cottage. “Let’s go and check it out.”

Alessandro and Beppe had reached the tree line. I saw them say something to each other before turning back and heading toward us.

The cottage, itself, was terribly unkept, with rotting wood and rust lining the windowpanes. I didn’t want to get too close and risk Dante, so I walked around the little house, eyeing the mould and cracks.

My foot caught on something sharp and I squeaked.

“What on Earth—?”

I looked down and shrieked.

“SOPHIA!” Alessandro came skidding around the corner of the house, both Beppe and Oscuro in his wake. “What—Oh, fucking hell.”

“Is that?” Beppe asked.

“Yes. That’s a skeleton.”

Half-buried, half-frozen, a skeleton laid on the ground. Their hollow skull peered up at me, almost accusatory.

I stepped back, holding my son tighter. “Don’t look, my angel.” I pressed his face to my chest. “My God, did Eloise kill someone?”

“It could be anyone’s skeleton.” Alessandro sounded more inconvenienced than anything. “Let’s go.”

“Shouldn’t we try and identify them?”

My husband looked like he was going to say no, but something in my expression must have changed his mind because he jerked his chin to Oscuro, “Grab a bone. We will send it to Li Fonti.”

Oscuro approached the skeleton with care, trying not to disturb it too much–like the person who had originally owned it would mind. He grabbed a small bone in the arm, yanked it, and when it didn’t come out of the snow, yanked it hard.

The bone came out, a flash of golden light—

“Oh,” Oscuro held up the bone. A finger bone–most likely the wedding ring finger, if the golden band was anything to go by. It was a beautiful ring, engraved with a message I couldn’t quite make out. “I know that ring. Alessandro, isn’t that—”

I looked to my husband and stepped toward him in concern. My husband’s face was gray in its complexion, his entire body tense, and his eyes so dark he looked near possessed.

“Alessandro…” I stepped toward him. I didn’t understand his reaction. Dante tried to lift his head, sensing his father’s sudden shift in mood.

Beside him, Beppe also had gone a shade paler and was muttering, “Shit, shit, shit,” under his breath.

I looked back to the skeleton and felt the pieces click into place.

“My mother’s wedding ring,” Alessandro said, his voice as cold as the winter frost that surrounded us. “That’s my mother’s wedding ring.”

“Why...” Oscuro breathed.

“I assume we just found the place my father stashed my mother’s body.” My husband’s demeanor had changed, darkened. I knew that if my father-in-law had been here with us in this moment, my husband would have tried to kill him.

I laid a hand on his arm, trying to swallow down my horror. “Let’s not rush to conclusions. We will test the bones for DNA and go from there.”

But I already knew what the DNA test would say and so did my husband.

I found my husband the next day in his study.

He leaned back in his chair, staring at the golden band on his desk. In response, I twisted my own rings. My wedding band was my own, but the engagement ring had been passed down from woman to woman—including Danta.

Alessandro had a brooding look on his face, hard and stone-like. Whereas my anger seemed to make me louder, more volatile, my husband’s worst anger seemed to make