Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 34419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
"DAD."
I sit up and rub my eyes so I can have a better look at the time on my phone.
01:53 AM?
I'm wide-awake in an instant, and confused, since this isn't the usual time for him to come home. "Where have you been?"
Dad sits next to me on the couch. "That's the question you really want to ask?" He reaches for the book from the coffee table and places it on my hand. "You've been working on this, haven't you?"
"Yes...and no? I mean, it's a book about ancient mysteries. And countless experts have already tried solving them and failed. It's not like I can do anything else—-"
Dad shakes his head. "You're looking at it the wrong way, Penny."
My brows furrow as I belatedly notice the way he's looking at me. "What's wrong, Dad?"
"It's not always about what or how much you know."
"Why do you look so sad?"
"Sometimes, it's all about the simplest things, like what you saw. What you heard. What you remember."
I shake my head. "You're starting to scare me. Is this about Mom?"
Dad ruffles my hair. "Love you, Pens."
Tears start rolling down my eyes, and even though we see each other every day—-why does it suddenly feel like it's been forever since I last heard Dad say that?
I wish, God, I wish I can say the words back.
But when my lips part, it's all too late.
I'M CRYING WHEN I WAKE up, but I waste no time in wiping the tears away since someone is furiously knocking on the door.
"Penelope?"
I think that's Massimo's voice?
I open the door, and it's indeed Cesare's brother standing in the hallway, and the grim set of his features makes me feel sick.
No. Please. No. Not again. Please, God. Please.
"It's Cesare."
My knees threaten to fold. "He's n-not dead—-" I would've felt it. Would've known.
Massimo whitens. "Dio, no. It's not that," he rejects right away. "Mi dispiace, I did not mean to frighten you."
My knees do give out this time, and even though I'm crying again, it's tears of relief coursing down my cheeks.
He's alive, thank God.
That's all that matters.
Cesare's alive.
Massimo carefully helps me back to my feet, and I look up at him, saying unevenly, "Just tell it to me straight."
And so he does.
Pilar is dead, and Cesare is now behind bars...as the prime suspect behind her murder.
Chapter Twelve
Cesare
HE HAD ONLY BEEN IN jail for a few hours when the police was telling him he had his first visitor, and while Cesare was not surprised to see La Strega on the opposite side of the bulletproof window—-
It pained him to see her frailty emphasized, with how her fingers were badly shaking as she reached for the receiver that would allow them to hear each other's voices.
"How bad is it?" Cesare asked calmly.
"The evidence against you is damning." Potenziana felt like she was breaking her own heart as she forced herself to speak to her grandson as La Strega.
Once he was free, and she was assured of his safety, it would only then that she would indulge herself with the luxury of weeping like a grandmother whose little boy was in danger.
But until then, she had to act like the matriarch whose famiglia was under threat.
"Whoever killed her," Potenziana emphasized curtly, "had all of their ducks in a row."
"Fucking ducks again."
Potenziana was stunned to find herself almost smiling.
Next time, she promised herself.
Once Cesare was free, this, too, would be another wonderful story about those fucking ducks that they could laugh about.
But until then—-
"If I were to make a guess, those ducks are the killer's multiple scapegoats, with evidence meticulously prepared against each and every one of them. It just so happened that you were the unlucky one to draw the shorter stick, with your visit to Pilar."
Silence followed, and an inscrutable mask smoothened over the chiseled features of her grandson's face.
"If I end up charged—-"
"No!"
Emotion finally cracked through her voice.
"You are not to think of that. Ever. You will get out of this place, do you understand? And Penelope—-"
Cesare had not allowed himself to think of her at all since coming here, but he also knew the time had come to be a fucking man and do what he had to fucking do.
"What exactly does she know?"
"That you were the one to find her grandmother's body, and that there was enough made-up evidence to have you arrested. She—-"
"I don't need to hear anything more," Cesare said curtly. "And this is the only favor I'd like to ask of you, Nonna."
Potenziana had a feeling she already knew what her grandson was about to say.
"She's not to come here at any point—-and this will be the last time we'll be talking about her."
His grandmother stared at him, and his jaw clenched.
"You...IDIOT."
That she was choosing to call him that now, after what he had said, was not lost on Cesare.
But he didn't give a damn, and he also made it clear to his grandmother that he was not going to change his mind about this either.