Grinded (The Invincibles 3)

“We were just talking about your mother not feeling well.”

I didn’t believe her. If that

were the case, she’d have no reason to end their conversation because of me. Something else occurred to me.

“Why did you bring Mamma her breakfast today instead of Gabriella?”

“I usually do, just to make it easier.”

“Don’t you have work of your own to do?”

Both she and Mylos appeared stunned at my tone. I didn’t care. I sensed they were hiding something, and it angered me.

“Mi scusi,” she muttered and went inside.

“Pia?”

I walked over to the railing and looked out over the vineyard. “What were you talking about?” I waited, knowing that if he lied to me, we were finished. There were too many people in my life I couldn’t trust.

“There is a lot I need to tell you, but this isn’t the time nor the place.”

I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

“When and where?”

He walked over and took my hand. “Now. The farmhouse.”

I almost wept in relief. It would’ve broken my heart if he hadn’t responded the way he did.

24

Grinder

As we walked down the hill from the villa, I thought a great deal about what I should and shouldn’t tell Pia.

Many things were happening behind the scenes of her life, more than I’d thought, based on my conversations with Lucia this morning and my follow-up call with Decker.

Part of it needed to stay in place for the time being—mainly regarding Georgio and the fill-in cook, Gabriella—and neither could suspect anything was out of the ordinary. Could Pia pull it off? I wasn’t certain. Her life depended on me being so. But, could she trust me if I didn’t tell her everything?

Instead of going inside when we reached the farmhouse, I led Pia to the terrazza. Once she was seated, I moved a chair over and sat in front of her.

“There are things I can tell you now and other things that would be best if I didn’t.”

She slowly nodded her head.

“I need you to tell me if you can be okay with that?”

“I don’t know.”

That was fair, and I said so.

“You’re frightening me.”

“There is danger in regard to what I’m about to tell you, Pia. I won’t hide that from you.”

She gripped my hands with sweaty palms.

“The struggles you’ve been experiencing have not been mere accidents,” I began. “They happened systematically in an effort to make one of two things happen. First, that you would turn to Paolo Viticcio, perhaps even agree to marry him. Barring that, the second would be that you would agree to sell Valentini. There is reason to believe Georgio is involved as well.”