into the water without another thought and tried to catch me. And the fact that I didn't go back... I chose to leave. And for what?
"How could you?" I whisper.
"What?" Vitto laughs.
"You killed her!" I scream. "You killed Eleanora, my maid! She was my only friend!"
"Unfortunately, we can't trust anyone." Vitto shrugs. "Don't worry, we'll get you a new maid when we get out of this hole."
"I don't want a new maid!" I screamed. "I want you to stop fucking killing innocent—"
I don't get to finish the sentence. The sound of Vitto's hard slap on my cheek rings out in the driveway. "Don't you dare raise your voice at me," he growls. "I don't know what those bastard Bernardis have been teaching you, but you will never ‒ fucking ever ‒ raise your voice at me again."
"Calm down," Luigi hisses at Vitto. "She gets it."
"Do you?" Vitto asks me.
I find myself wordlessly nodding even though my eyes are shooting daggers at him.
"Good. Let's head inside."
I follow them into the house. It's beautiful here, everything is expensive, but also covered in a layer of dust. It looks neglected. It looks as if someone killed everyone who was supposed to live here... And I know it was Adrian. He didn't just have my parents killed, he's the reason Vitto's family is gone, too.
Still, I can't help seething with anger as I follow the pair to the garden in the back. There's a table laid out with some whiskey on it and we all sit down around it.
Vitto keeps staring at me, his face unreadable and yet filling me with fear.
I turn to my brother. He's my last chance now, my last opportunity of escaping Vitto Donatti.
"Did everything go according to plan?" Luigi asks.
"Yes." I nod, looking away.
"Good. We had the place you found burnt down."
"Burnt?" I look up. "What about all the artwork that's in that garage?"
"We got all of that. We're going to sell it," Vitto mutters. "Some paintings and sketches of that Bernardi reietto are in there, too. And some of you, Marzia."
I flush, looking at my hands clasped in my lap. I can't stop shivering. "I painted those."
"You painted?" Luigi raises his brows at me. "Adrian put you up to that?"
"I've always loved it," I mutter defensively. "But papa wouldn't let me do it."
"I wouldn't either," Vitto says firmly. "A lady has better things to do than paint, like taking care of her children."
I glare at him. "I don't have any," I remind Vitto. "What else am I supposed to be—"
"Do I need to warn you again?" he snarls, his hand heavy above my face.
I shake my head and look away. Being near them has made me take a thousand steps back. All the work I've done at the Bernardi Estate, everything I've desperately tried to do to get over the abuse of my family, is meaningless. I'm back to being scaredy-cat Marzia—the one too afraid to ever speak up.
"Back to the matter at hand," Luigi goes on after an awkward silence. "We're trying to get more people who can help us, but those bastard Bernardis have killed nearly all of our allies. What they did was more than cold-blooded murder. They tried to erase us from existence."
"But we're not going to let that happen," Vitto grunts. "The first chance we get, we're going to kill them off, starting with that pretty boy, Adrian. I can't wait to slice his goddamn throat."
I swallow thickly at the sound of his words. I need to warn Adrian. But how am I going to manage that here? I'm alone with them... They won't let me leave and I don't have a phone. Fuck.
At least Luigi is here. I'm terrified of being here alone with Vitto. I don't think he would hold back around me if Luigi wasn't with us. I wouldn't catch a wink of sleep if it were just us.
"The problem with the paintings, Marzia," Vitto says after Luigi's attempted interruption. "Isn't just that you were engaging in inappropriate activity. It's the way you painted the two of you. You look entirely indecent in those photos. Did Adrian order you to do that?"
I might just be signing my own death sentence, but I'm determined to protect Adrian at all costs, so I merely smile and shake my head. "No, I painted them the way I wanted to paint them."
"That's what I feared. Your life with the Bernardis has corrupted you. That Adrian is a fucking prick. He'll die for doing this