Sempre (Sempre 1)

Carmine headed upstairs, looking around, and found his bedroom door open when he reached the third floor. A cool breeze swept through his room, the window wide-open and curtains rustling. His heart rate spiked. This was bad. Real fucking bad.

The voice behind him was icy, detached. “How did she know?”

Carmine turned around, seeing his father near the stairs, nonchalantly leaned against the wall with his silver revolver tucked into his pants.

o;Oh, I didn’t mean to stare.”

“It’s fine. The one on my arm is a cross draped with the Italian flag, and ‘fiducia nessuno’ is on my wrist. It’s usually covered.” He pulled off his watch and turned his arm over so she could see the words scrawled across the veins in small script. She lightly traced the ink with her fingertips. Tingling shot up his arm from her touch, and he closed his eyes briefly at the sensation.

“What does it mean?”

He pulled his arm away and put the watch back on. “Trust no one.”

“Did they hurt?”

He shrugged. “I’ve felt worse pain.”

Images flashed in his mind at those words, and he absentmindedly rubbed the scar on his side. He got lost in the memory until a rumbling sound brought him back to reality. He looked at Haven, realizing it was her stomach. “Do you ever eat?”

She nodded. “Every night.”

“Really? You never eat with us.”

She hesitated. “Master Michael said someone like me shouldn’t sleep in the same house as someone like you, much less sit at the same dinner table.”

“Christ, they did a job on you. Were you always with Michael?”

“He was always around, but he didn’t become my master until his parents died.”

“Were his parents just as bad?”

“Frankie scared me, but he didn’t hit much, and Miss Monica sometimes played with me when I was young. Michael ignored me at first, but it got worse when my mistress realized that he, uh . . .”

“He what?”

“He made me.”

Carmine’s eyes widened. “Michael’s your father?”

She picked at her fingernails, ashamed. “He didn’t mean to be.”

8

For the first time since coming to Durante, there hadn’t been any music last night.

Right away, Haven could feel something wasn’t right, that she was intruding on a moment and seeing something she wasn’t supposed to see. Something sacred. Something intimate.

But she couldn’t look away.

Restless and exhausted, she had been too anxious to sleep. She rose from her bed and found Carmine in a trance in the family room. A faint glow of moonlight from the window illuminated the silent room as he sat at the piano, slumped forward and staring down at the keys.

Carmine laced his fingers through his hair as he dropped his head down, a strangled cry echoing through the room. Holding her breath, her chest constricting, Haven took a step back and treaded lightly upstairs, relieved when she reached her room undetected.

Confusion nagged at her. She didn’t know what she felt for Carmine, but seeing him in pain upset her. Her alarm grew at that realization, her heart hammering in her chest. Vulnerability would do nothing but get her hurt.

Only when Haven heard Carmine come upstairs did she gather the courage to venture back down. She made breakfast as a distraction, finishing the food when Carmine appeared. He opened the refrigerator and grabbed the jug of orange juice, brushing past her to get a glass.

“Smells good,” he said quietly, no spark to his words, none of that passion Haven was used to hearing. Haven fought the urge to try to smooth away the heavy bags under his bloodshot eyes.