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“Yeah. I’m sure it’ll be a blast.”

Cesare was in his study, a dark room made even darker by its overabundance of heavy

furnishings, walls crowded with melancholy paintings of madonnas and saints and framed

photographs of unknown relatives from the old country. Wine-colored drapes hung at the French

doors and windows that overlooked the garden.

Cesare himself was seated behind his mahogany desk.

“Shut the door and wait outside,” he told Felipe, and motioned Rafe to a chair. “Raffaele.”

“Father.”

“You are well?”

“I am fine,” Rafe said coolly. “And you?”

Cesare seesawed his hand from side to side. “Cosi cosa. I am all right.”

Rafe raised his eyebrows. “Well, that’s a surprise.” He slapped his hands on his thighs and rose

to his feet. “In that case, since you’re not at death’s door—”

“Sit down.”

Rafe’s dark blue eyes deepened in color until they were almost black.

“I am not Felipe. I am not your wife. I am not anyone who takes orders from you, Father. I have

not done so for many years.”

“No. Not since the day you graduated from high school and told me you were going to a fancy

university on a scholarship, and told me what I could do with your tuition money,” Cesare said

blandly. “Did you think I had forgotten?”

“You have your dates wrong,” Rafe said, even more coldly. “I haven’t taken orders from you

since I discovered how you earned your money.”

“So self-righteous,” Cesare mocked. “You think you know everything, my son, but I promise

you, any man can step into the darkness of passion.”

“I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about and, frankly, I don’t care. Goodbye, Father. I’ll

send Dante in.”

“Raffaele. Sit down. This will not take long.”

A muscle knotted in Rafe’s jaw. Hell, why not? he thought. Whatever his father wanted to tell

him this time might be amusing. He sat, stretched out his long legs, crossed them at the ankles

and folded his arms over his chest.

“Well?”

Cesare hesitated. It was remarkable to see; Rafe couldn’t recall ever seeing his father hesitant

before.

“It is true,” his old man finally said. “I am not dying.”

Rafe snorted.

“What I wished to discuss with you that last time, I did not. I, ah, I was not prepared to do so,

though I thought I was.”

“A mystery,” Rafe said, his tone making it clear that nothing his father could say would be of

interest.

Cesare ignored the sarcasm. “As I said, I am not dying.” Another beat of hesitation. “But I will,

someday. No one ever knows the exact moment but it is possible, as you know, that a man in my,

ah, my profession can sometimes meet an unanticipated end.”

Another first. Cesare had never made even token acknowledgment of his ties before.

“Is this your not-so-subtle way of telling me something’s coming? That Mama, Anna and

Isabella might be in danger?”

Cesare laughed. “You have seen one too many movies, Raffaele. No. Nothing is, as you put it,

‘coming.’ Even if it were, the code of our people forbids harming family members.”

“They are your people,” Rafe said sharply, “not ‘ours.’ And I am not impressed by honor among

jackals.”

“When my time comes, your mother, your sisters, you and your brothers will all be well taken

care of. I am a wealthy man.”

“I don’t want any of your money. Neither do my brothers. And we are more than capable of

taking good care of Mama and our sisters.”

“Fine. Give the money away. It will be yours to do with as you wish.”

Rafe nodded. “Great.” He started to rise from his chair again. “I take it this conversation is—”

“Sit down,” Cesare said, and then added the one word Rafe had never heard from him. “Please.”

The head of the New York families sat forward. “I am not ashamed of the way I’ve lived,” he

said softly. “But I have done some things that perhaps I should not have done. Do you believe in

God, Raffaele? Never mind answering. For myself, I am not certain. But only a foolish man

would ignore the possibility that the actions of his life may one day affect the disposition of his

soul.”

Rafe’s lips twisted in a cool smile. “Too late to worry about that.”

“There are some things I did in my youth—” Cesare cleared his throat. “They were wrong. They

were not done for the good of la famiglia but for me. They were selfish things and they have

stained me.”

“And this has what to do with me?”

Cesare’s eyes met his son’s. “I am asking you to help me put one of them right.”

Rafe almost laughed. Of all the bizarre requests…

“I stole something of great value from a man who once helped me when no one else would,”

Cesare said gruffly. “I want to make amends.”

“Send him a check,” Rafe said with deliberate cruelty. What did all this have to do with him? His

father’s soul was his father’s business.

“It is not enough.”

“Make it a big check. Or, hell, make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Rafe’s lips thinned. “That’s

you, isn’t it? The man who can buy or intimidate his way into anything?”

“Raffaele. As a man, as your father, I am pleading for your help.”

The plea was astounding. Rafe despised his father for who he was, what he was…but, unbidden,

other memories rushed in. Cesare, pushing him on a swing at a playground. Cesare, soothing him

when the clown hired for his fourth birthday party had scared him half to death.

His father’s eyes burned with guilt. What would it take to hand-deliver a check and offer a long-

overdue apology? Like it or not, this man had given life to him, his brothers and his sisters. He

had, in his own manner, loved them and taken care of them. In some twisted way, he had even

helped make them what they were. If he’d developed a conscience, even at this late date, wasn’t

that a good thing?

“Raffaele?”

Rafe took a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay.” He spoke briskly because he knew how easy it would be

to change his mind. “What do you want me to do?”

“I have your word that you will do it?”

“Yes.”

Cesare nodded. “You will not regret this, I promise.”

Ten minutes later, after a long, complex and yet oddly incomplete story, Rafe leaped to his feet.

“Are you insane?” he shouted.

“It is a simple request, Raffaele.”

“Simple?” Rafe laughed. “That’s a hell of a way to describe asking me to go to a godforsaken

village in Sicily and marry some—some nameless, uneducated peasant girl!”

“She has a name. Chiara. Chiara Cordiano. And she is not a peasant. Her father, Freddo

Cordiano, owns a vineyard. He owns olive groves. He is an important man in San Giuseppe.”

Rafe leaned across his father’s desk, slapped his hands on the brilliantly polished mahogany

surface and glared.

“I am not marrying this girl. I am not marrying anyone. Is that clear?”

His father’s gaze was steady. “What is clear is the value of the word of my firstborn son.”

Rafe grabbed a handful of his father’s shirt and hauled him to his feet. “Watch what you say to

me,” he snarled.

Cesare smiled. “Such a hot temper, my son. Much as you try to deny it, the Orsini blood beats in

your veins.”

Slowly Rafe let go of the shirt. He stood upright, drew a deep, steadying breath.

“I live by my word, Father. But you extracted it with a lie. You said you needed my help.”

“And I do. You said you would give it to me. Now you say you will not.” His father raised his

eyebrows. “Which of us told the lie?”

Rafe stepped back. He counted silently to ten. Twice. Finally he nodded.

“I gave my word, so I’ll go to Sicily and meet with this Freddo Cordiano. I’ll tell him you regret

whatever it was you did to him decades ago. But I will not marry his daughter. Are we clear

about that?”

Cesare shrugged. “Whatever you say, Raffaele. I cannot force your compliance.”

“No,” Rafe said grimly. “You cannot.”

He strode from the room, using the French doors that opened into the garden. He had no wish to

see his mother or Dante or anyone.

Marriage? No way, especially not by command, especially not to suit his father—especially not

to a girl born and raised in a place forgotten by time.

He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t crazy.

More than four thousand miles away, in the rocky fortress that her father called his home and she

called her prison, Chiara Cordiano shot to her feet in disbelief.

“You did what?” she said in perfect Florentine Italian. “You did what?”

Freddo Cordiano folded his arms over his chest. “When you speak to me, do so in the language

of our people.”

“Answer the question, Papa,” Chiara said, in the rough dialect her father preferred.

“I said, I found you a husband.”

“That’s insane. You cannot marry me to a man I’ve never even seen.”

“You forget yourself,” her father growled. “That is what comes of all the foolish ideas put in

your head by those fancy governesses your mother demanded I employ. I am your father. I can

marry you to whomever I wish.”

Chiara slapped her hands on her hips. “The son of one of your cronies? An American gangster?

No. I will not do it, and you cannot make me.”

Freddo smiled thinly. “Would you prefer that I lock you in your room and keep you there until

you grow so old and ugly that no man wants you?”

She knew his threat was empty. He would not lock her in her room. Instead he would keep her a

prisoner in this horrible little town, in these narrow, ancient streets she’d spent most of her

twenty-four years praying to leave. She had tried leaving before. His men, polite but relentless,

brought her back. They would do so again; she would never be free of a life she hated.

And he would surely not permit her to avoid marriage forever. She was a bargaining chip, a

means of expanding or securing his vile empire.

Marriage.

Chiara suppressed a shudder.

She knew what that would be like, how men like her father treated their women, how he had

treated her mother. This man, though American, would be no different. He would be cold. Cruel.

He would smell of garlic and cigars and sweat. She would be little more than his servant, and at

night he would demand things of her in his bed…

Tears of anger glittered in Chiara’s violet eyes. “Why are you doing this?”

“I know what is best for you. That is why.”

That was a laugh. He never thought of her. This marriage was for his own purposes. But it

wasn’t going to take place. She was desperate, but she wasn’t crazy.

“Well? Have you come to your senses? Are you prepared to be a dutiful daughter and do as you

are told?”

“I’d sooner die,” she said, and though she wanted to run, she forced herself to make a cool, stiff-

backed exit. But once she’d reached the safety of her own room and locked the door behind her,

she screamed in rage, picked up a vase and flung it at the wall.

Twenty minutes later, calmer, cooler, she splashed her face with water and went looking for the

one man she loved. The man who loved her. The one man she could turn to.

“Bella mia,” Enzo said, when she found him, “what is wrong?”

Chiara told him. His dark eyes grew even darker.

“I will save you, cara,” he said.

Chiara threw herself into his arms and prayed that he would.

RAFE decided not to tell anyone where he was going.

His brothers would have laughed or groaned, and there were certainly no friends with whom he’d

discuss the Machiavellian intrigues of the Orsini don and his interpretation of Sicilian honor.

Honor among thieves, Rafe thought grimly as his plane touched down at Palermo International

Airport. He’d had to take a commercial flight; Falco had taken the Orsini plane to Athens. But

even without the benefit of coming in via private jet, he moved swiftly through Passport Control.

Rafe’s mood was dark. The only thing that kept him from snarling was knowing he’d have this

ridiculous errand behind him in a day.

Maybe, he thought as he stepped out of the terminal into the heat of a Sicilian early autumn, just

maybe he’d buy his brothers a round of drinks in a couple of weeks and when they were all

laughing and relaxed he’d say, “You’ll never guess where I was last month.”

He’d tell them the story. All of it, starting with his meeting with Cesare. And they’d nod with

approval when he described how gently he’d told Chiara Cordiano he was sorry but he wasn’t

about to marry her and, yes, he would be gentle because, after all, it wasn’t the girl’s fault.

A weight seemed to lift from his shoulders.

Okay. This might not be as bad as he’d figured. What the hell, this was a nice day for a drive.

He’d have lunch at some picturesque little trattoria on the way to San Giuseppe, phone Freddo

Cordiano and tell him he was en route. Once he arrived, he’d shake the old guy’s gnarled hand,

say something polite to the daughter and be back in Palermo by evening. His travel agent had

booked him into a hotel that had once been a palace; she’d said it was elegant. He’d have a drink,

then dinner on the balcony of his suite. Or maybe he’d stop at the bar. Italian women were

among the most beautiful in the world. Well, not the one he was on his way to see, but she’d be

history by evening.

By the time he reached the car rental counter, Rafe was smiling…

But not for long.

He’d reserved an SUV, or the Italian equivalent. Generally, he disliked SUVs—he preferred low,