Not Mine to Keep (The Costa Family)

Catania, Sicily

“I thought Gabriel would be here. Where is he?” Alessandro blocked my path down the steps with his body, not ready to trust the men waiting for us.

The Monday morning sunlight fell overhead, and I had to shield my eyes when peeking around him to see if I recognized the goons Armani had sent. “Frankie,” I said under my breath, not a fan of my father’s guard who shared an uncanny resemblance to Sylvester Stallone circa the 1990s.

Frankie broke through a pack of five other guards and hung back at the bottom of the steps.

“Gabriel’s back at the estate. He’s in a meeting with Mr. DiMaggio about the information we learned.” I was kind of surprised Frankie had bothered to speak English for me, considering from what I remembered he deplored anything and everything American.

“What new information?” I piped up before the six-one (maybe six-two?) blockade of muscle before me could. My knees were weaker than my stomach right now, so I snatched hold of the railing at my side. It was three in the morning Nashville time, so my body was trying to remind me where I belonged, and it wasn’t on a tarmac in Sicily.

Frankie answered, “Not for me to say.” He beckoned us with a flick of his wrist, waving us over to three blacked-out SUVs. Tinted-to-the-max windows. Black rims. Not a lick of silver in sight on the Escalades. “We have a little over an hour drive. Let’s not keep Mr. DiMaggio waiting.”

Alessandro turned to the side, and I was still holding the railing with both hands like I was a mermaid with new legs, unsure how to use them. Okay, maybe it was more than fatigue hitting me. I was about to face Armani and potentially marry either Alessandro or a psychopath. Reality of my hell had caught up with me, and hard.

“You good?” That almost sounded like genuine concern from him. When he removed his Ray-Bans, there were no signs of exhaustion in his eyes. Of course, he’d dozed on and off on the plane, which had oddly frustrated me that he’d been able to sleep upright and so soundly. He’d offered me his bedroom, but the bed had only been good for tossing and turning.

My continued tight grip on the railing was all the answer he needed, and he surprised me by setting a hand over one of mine. I thought he’d planned to unglue my death hold, but he simply stood there, his touch like a quiet offer of support—a take-your-time gesture I hadn’t expected.

“It’s time,” Frankie hollered, but Alessandro didn’t move, continuing to protectively shield anyone from coming close to me.

I looked up at him, the light catching my eyes since I hadn’t had the foresight to bring sunglasses. “We should go.”

He dipped his mouth near my ear. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

I had a feeling the sweet side of this man could destroy my heart as fast as the dark side could destroy me in the bedroom. “Thank you.”

He met my eyes again, a hint of a smile on his face at how easily I’d managed to get the gratitude out, since I’d been a bit more of a brat about it back in Tennessee.

“I’m ready. Let’s go.” Hopefully, I can walk and not collapse.

“Calliope,” Frankie hollered.

“Don’t use that name,” Alessandro warned, his hand leaving mine as he slipped on his shades and faced Frankie. “She doesn’t like it.”

Frankie didn’t challenge him, which was a surprise, and instead he asked, “Are you armed?”

Releasing the railing, I followed Alessandro down the steps, where he gave a handgun to Frankie. The man clearly didn’t trust us, because he motioned to two men to pat us down up against an Escalade.

“You can check me.” Alessandro blocked me yet again when the two guards came over to us. “But you touch her, and you lose the use of both your hands.”

The men looked to Frankie for their cue.

“What do you think Armani will do to you if you feel up his daughter?” Alessandro drilled in another point to prevent the men from groping me in search of a weapon.

“Fine,” Frankie bit out, then Alessandro willingly went up against the Escalade so the two men could check him.

“He’s clear,” one guy said, then opened the back door to the SUV.

“Get inside, Principessa.” I wasn’t a fan of that name from Frankie either, but I kept quiet, not wanting to start trouble at the airport.

Once our bags were in the trunk and Alessandro and I were in the back seats, Frankie joined our SUV, sitting in the passenger seat, then motioned to the driver to get going.

Alessandro gave me a little nod, letting me know he had my back, which he so clearly did, and then I peered out the window, quietly taking in the view as we drove, only the sounds of Italian music over the radio filling the space.

After about an hour of being chauffeured from the airport in Catania, driving past Mount Etna and the beautiful area of Taormina, then through Savoca, where The Godfather had been filmed, we finally made it to Messina. Messina was in northeast Sicily, only separated from mainland Italy by a strait.

A few months ago, when we made it to the Italian history section of the World History class I taught, I found myself doing a little extra digging about the land, specifically looking into Sicily, given my new connection to the place.

“You know, Messina’s rumored to be the location where Odysseus barely escaped Scylla and Charybdis,” I blurted, unsure why I’d chosen to break the comfortable quiet with a random fact about our current whereabouts.

“The story of Scylla and Charybdis,” Alessandro began, meeting my eyes without giving me a WTF look for my out-of-the-blue remark, “is also about having to choose the lesser of two evils.”

I hadn’t expected him to know that story or to connect the dots as to what I was pretty sure I was suggesting without saying it—marriage to him being the lesser of the two evils in my case. “And it’s also been said that the muse for The Odyssey was—”

“Calliope,” he finished for me.

I fiddled with my silver ring, keeping my eyes on my lap. “A cruel joke on my mom’s part to name me as such, given where Armani’s from, right?”

“She chose the name hoping you’d have her voice.” Frankie joined in on our private conversation, damn him. “Well, I’ve heard Armani assume Christie wanted you to have a siren’s voice, like Calliope.” He twisted on his seat and looked back at me. “Although Calliope was mythological . . . and you’re very much real.” His dark eyes cut over me, and I shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze.

Alessandro took off his glasses, preparing to use those eyes as weapons to stare down Frankie. He set a hand on the back of Frankie’s seat, demanding the man’s attention. When they began speaking in Italian, it was clear the men were arguing, and it was growing intense and heated.

“How’d you know about the siren?” I reached for Alessandro’s forearm, hoping to redirect his focus so he didn’t find himself in trouble before we even arrived. “And Scylla and Charybdis?”

Alessandro abandoned whatever he’d been saying in Italian, and in a heartbreaking tone answered, “Bianca.” Shades back on, he let go of the front seat and leaned back.

“I’m sorry.” Fidgeting with my ring again, I thought back to my research on Bianca.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“She was a history buff like you. Well, only when it came to Greek and Roman mythology, at least,” Alessandro revealed. “She used to talk about that stuff all the time. For some reason, I remember.”

Of course you would. You loved her, and then lost her. I kept those thoughts to myself, worried Frankie would speak up and antagonize the man about the loss of his sister, and I was fairly certain that’d send Alessandro over the edge. “Armani’s home is a castle. Well, a replica.” Subject changes weren’t my specialty, but I’d do my best if it meant keeping the peace in the SUV.

“Replica castle?” I could hear the thank you in Alessandro’s tone for the new topic.

“It’s a replica of Castel dell’Ovo, also known as the Castle of the Egg. For a family obsessed with being Sicilian, it’s surprising they chose to imitate a castle from Naples with Norman origins.” I shared what I knew. “Armani even buried an egg on the site of the place, just like at the real castle.”

“Legend has it,” Frankie said, not sounding as asshole-y as he’d been before, “that if the egg breaks, not just the castle but the city will fall.”

“That was for the real one in Naples,” I reminded Frankie, unsure why I’d bothered to reengage with the man.

Frankie twisted around. “You saved the egg from breaking in this case, Principessa. If not for your existence, the DiMaggios’ bloodline would be over. The castle would fall.”

“Almost there,” the driver announced. I wasn’t sure who he was, but he caught my eyes in the rearview mirror, and something told me he was less of a jerk than Frankie.

Thankfully, Frankie faced forward and didn’t continue a history lesson I didn’t want from him about the bloodline.

The SUV rolled up to a set of ornate black and gold gates, and once they parted and we were on the property, I unbuckled, my anticipation, or more like dread, growing for what was to come.

It was a long drive from the gate to the front of the property, but a frustratingly pretty one with all the flowers and trees cocooning us on the ride.

Once parked out front of the castle, the driver came around and opened the door for me. “Thanks,” I tossed out awkwardly.

“I’m Leonardo, but you can call me Leo.” He was probably fifty or so and looked nothing like the only two Leonardos I was familiar with, DaVinci and DiCaprio. But he was the second man at the estate who had kind eyes, and the first was en route to us now. Gabriel.

“Sure,” I said to Leo as Alessandro came up alongside me, a hand moving to the small of my back, which managed to comfort me.

The men wordlessly followed Gabriel’s order to head inside, and then Gabriel strode our way. He gave off Keanu Reeves vibes from the movie The Matrix with his slicked-back, black hair and dark clothes. I felt like I was stuck inside a matrix and ready to escape this nightmare. “Sorry I couldn’t meet you.”

He didn’t reach for Alessandro’s hand in greeting once it was just the three of us, but why would he? They weren’t friends anymore, right? This was a debt owed for Alessandro.

“Not a fan of the assholes you sent to pick us up,” Alessandro remarked, keeping his hand on my back, even though said assholes were gone from sight.

“You talk with The League? Your family? They on board with the plan?” Gabriel asked, not addressing Alessandro’s comment.

“What, like the Justice League? I mean . . .” I turned toward Alessandro, and he lowered his hand. “Superman and Batman are in it, so . . .” At Alessandro removing his shades and shooting me a surprised look, I refocused and remembered where we were: not in a comic book but inside my own personal nightmare. “The League? Who are they?”

“My family leaves today for Sicily,” Alessandro said instead, as if it’d be a waste of his breath to explain. “And my father spoke with Emilia Calibrisi, the head of The League in Italy, two hours ago.”

When Alessandro hadn’t been staring at me with frustration on the plane, and I hadn’t been tossing and turning while he snoozed, he’d been glued to his phone. So it wasn’t a shocking revelation to discover this news. It would’ve been more surprising had Alessandro shared it with me before.

“I need to speak to Emilia myself, but my dad believes The League will have our backs,” Alessandro went on when I didn’t interject and demand more information, and I was pretty sure he’d been half expecting me to. “So what news did you find out that kept you from coming to the airport yourself?”

“The men who interrogated the guard back in Tennessee were able to get him to talk.” Gabriel folded his arms, studying me. The man really did just need that full-length leather coat to complete the whole Neo persona from The Matrix look. “When the guard learned Armani’s plan to force Calliope to marry this week, he reached out to Armani’s rival in Rome—let him know about an heir to the throne and for the right price, he’d give her up. Give you up, I mean.”

Right. I’m standing here. This is my life we’re talking about. “You’re saying Armani’s rivals tried to have me killed?”

“Yeah, and that gives Alessandro a better shot at your hand in marriage now,” Gabriel said, eyes back on Alessandro.

“How? I don’t follow.” I asked him, turning his way to demand his attention and answers, “What is it?”

“I need to kill the man responsible for your attempted murder—I have to take down the head of the Esposito mafia family in Rome,” Alessandro said, his tone almost too casual for me to handle.

“Premeditated murder is different from saving my life in the park yesterday.” I grabbed hold of his arm, refusing to let him kill for me, even if the man was the head of a crime family.

Ignoring me, he asked Gabriel, “How long do I have?”

Gabriel began, “Armani will go over the details, and you’ll still need to try and win him over in other ways, but Joseph Esposito’s wife turns forty tomorrow night, and they’re having a party in her honor. He wants Joseph and his right-hand man killed there.”

Keeping hold of his arm, I rasped, “You can’t be considering this. I won’t let you do it.” My body, mind, and my everything was wide awake now. The foggy haze of shock had also been lifted.

Alessandro looked me dead in the eye, and in a deep voice, he hit me with, “Scylla and Charybdis.”

I hung my head, letting go of my grip on his arm. The lesser of two evils.