Shattered Throne: A Dark Mafia Romance: War of Roses Universe (Mice and Men Book 3) - Lana Sky (top romance novels .TXT) 📗

The sad part is I don’t know if he’s lying or not. His tone straddles the boundary between gruff and unemotional. If he isn’t bluffing, then it’s yet another example of how little I really know about him.

Kisa observes him cautiously. “How?”

“Because I said so,” he declares. “And I know everything.”

Despite the curt tone, Kisa seems to mull over that line of logic. “Is that why you hurt my daddy?”

“Honey, you’re bleeding.” Luciano hisses through his teeth, noting the bright scarlet streaking across the front of her already filthy pink shirt. “You need to let us fix it. Now.”

She eyes both men for another tense few seconds before finally, extending her wounded hand toward Donatello.

He’s efficient in his movements, briskly cleaning her wound with antiseptic and testing the integrity of the stitches. Apparently satisfied with their state, he rebandages her arm with a familiarity that makes me suspect this isn’t the first time he’s bound a wound.

Given his line of work, it probably won’t be the last.

“Keep them on,” he warns once finished. “Take them off again, and you risk that cut getting infected. It might not kill you, but it definitely could wind up in you needing your hand amputated. That means cut off. Understand?”

She nods, inching closer to Luciano, who places a hand protectively on her shoulder.

Donatello stands, turning for the door. His eyes meet mine a second time as he passes me, but I can’t decipher the emotion they convey. Something that makes me shiver even as he finally leaves the room. Perhaps the look contained a dare.

Or a warning.

I banish the unease in favor of turning my sole focus to Kisa. I help Luciano wipe the blood from the floor and her skin, but he hisses in disgust at the sight of her shirt.

“Could you grab a new one?” He nods to indicate a box in the corner of the room, and my blood runs cold.

It’s dented, aged with time, but I recognize the contents as I approach. My old clothes—Safiya’s clothes—all bought on Donatello Vanici’s dime. He even picked them out for me…

No. I disconnect from the assorted garments, searching through them as I would any random clothing. Eventually, I resurface with a fresh light blue shirt and jeans, handing them both to Luciano.

“What the fuck is up with him?” he asks, cutting his eyes toward the doorway. Then he seems to remember the child within earshot, and he clears his throat. “Time for bed, Kisa.”

I watch her obediently take the clothing and scramble into the closet to change. The question she asked Donatello keeps echoing in my brain. Is that why you hurt my daddy?

After he claimed to know everything.

What could—at least in her mind—warrant her own father worthy of death? The possibilities are chilling. I don’t want to know the answer.

Though…would I have wished the same on Gino Mangenello? Looking back, I never mourned him the way I have the man who betrayed me.

But Gino wasn’t the person I expected to tuck me in at night. His voice isn’t the one I remember murmuring bedtime stories to me as I drifted off. As it stands, I barely even knew him.

I didn’t know Donatello either, apparently. The man from my past and the current iteration might as well be two different people—but at least now I have proof. I wasn’t wrong, and I wasn’t a fool for trusting him, at least not then.

Something changed in him—and I think it went beyond Olivia’s death. Fabio’s reaction to the silver box all but cements that.

Some memories are better left buried…

What did he mean? Renewed curiosity spurs me into the hall, my fingers flexing impatiently at my sides. I know Donatello saw me with the letters—I’m taking a risk by even returning to that room.

But they alone provide insight into a side of him I’d been blind to as a child. Perhaps they contain the answer as to why he did it. Why he left?

I can only hope he assumed they were nothing of importance. Just trash.

When I round the doorway of that pink room, I don’t know if I’m surprised or relieved to discover the silver box lying on the end of the bed. As I come closer, though, I realize the letters I left behind are gone. A tendril of dread runs down the back of my neck before I even open the box. Only one slip of folded paper remains inside it, but it’s stark white.

New.

When I unfold it, the message is simple, penned in fresh ink that smears as I run my finger across it.

You want to nose into the past? You come ask me directly.

8

Don

All those letters I wrote to Liv… I don’t even know where the witch found them; I just know they’re real. To make sure, I bring them beneath my nose and inhale the crisp scent they still carry.

Lilacs and honey. Closing my eyes, I see her clearly for the first time in so damn long, still beautiful. Still mine. That upturned nose and hazel eyes. Liv…

I continue to breathe her in—but another, fresher smell doesn’t belong, itching my nostrils. Roses. It’s an insidious stench, overpowering Olivia’s until she vanishes completely.

I wonder how many letters the little witch read.

Writing them was Liv’s idea. “Come on! It’s silly, but it’s also romantic,” she explained, flashing her crinkled smile. Silly or not, I would have carved the notes into my skin if she asked me to. So, I settled for scribbling a piece of my soul down on paper every damn day. For her, only her. Like lovestruck teenagers, we traded the notes back and forth, leaving them under the pillows on our bed.

After all this time, I can’t even remember what they say. Not a damn one. Anyone else might crave the chance to re-explore these snippets of the past, but I toss them aside. For what it’s worth, little Willow can win this battle. I’m not brave enough to unearth