A Dark Sicilian Secret

Pulling through the airport’s security gate, Jill caught a glimpse of a white-and-burgundy Boeing 737 on the runway. Vitt’s jet, she thought, her stomach free-falling. It was the same jet they’d flown from Istanbul to Milan, before taking a helicopter to the Bellagio villa at Lake Como.

Her stomach did another nosedive and she inhaled sharply, fighting hysteria, as the limousine pulled up next to the jet on the tarmac.

Vitt owned a half-dozen planes, including smaller jets, but this was his personal favorite. He liked traveling with his staff and security detail. He’d told her en route to Lake Como that comfort was essential while traveling, thus the jet’s staff quarters, two bedrooms, dining room, luxurious living room and snug but gourmet kitchen that could prepare everything from espresso to a five-course meal.

The limo doors opened and Vittorio climbed from the car but didn’t wait for her. Instead he walked toward the jet’s stairs knowing she had little choice but to follow.

Apprehension filled her as she followed Vittorio’s broad back up the jet stairs. What if Joe wasn’t here? What if Vitt had been just toying with her? What if, she agonized, moving past the kitchen and dining room to the living room where her heart seized with relief.

There he was. Her baby. Her world.

Joe sat on a quilt on the floor playing with colorful foam blocks. He still wore his sunshine-yellow shirt and tiny blue jeans and was laughing as a dark-haired woman stacked the blocks into a tower for Joe to knock over.

Suddenly he looked up, caught sight of her and smiled. “Mama.”

Jillian rushed to him and scooped him up into her arms. He was small and warm and he fit her body perfectly. And just having him in her arms soothed some of the fire inside her chest. She’d felt like she was dying but now, with Joe in her arms, she felt whole.

This child was everything to her. Life, breath, hope, happiness. And even if Vitt didn’t believe her, every decision she made was to ensure Joe’s safety, security and well-being.

Cuddling him to her chest, she stroked her baby’s soft black hair and then his small compact back. For the first time in an hour she could breathe. As long as she was with Joe everything would be okay. She could handle anything, absolutely anything, except losing him.

Aware that the others were watching, Jillian glanced up into Vitt’s face. His dark gaze was shuttered, his expression inscrutable, and it struck Jillian that in the last hour everything had radically changed. Joe’s life, indeed her life, would never be the same.

As if able to read her thoughts, Vittorio gestured for the young woman to take the baby. Jillian started to protest but Vitt held up a warning finger.

“This isn’t the time,” he said, his brusque tone allowing no argument. “We’re both wet and we need to change so we can depart. And then once we’re airborne, we’ll discuss what we’ll tell our families.”

CHAPTER THREE

JILLIAN stood inside the jet’s plush, tone-on-tone bedroom, listening to the door close softly behind her, knowing it was but a whisper of sound and yet inside her head it resonated with the force of a prison cell door.

She was in so much trouble. And she’d brought all this trouble down on Joe’s head, too.

And now they were en route to Paterno, Sicily, the home of the d’Severano family, and the center of their power.

Everyone in Paterno would be loyal to Vittorio. Everyone in the village would watch her, spy on her and report back to Vittorio.

Inside her head she heard the sound of a key turning, locking.

Trapped. She was trapped. And the worst of it was that Vittorio didn’t know who she was, nor could she let him discover the truth.

God only knew what he’d do if he, the head of the most powerful crime family in the world, found out her real name? Her real identity?

He’d destroy her. He’d have to. It was the code. Their law. Her father had betrayed the d’Severano family, and the d’Severano family would demand vengeance. They’d wanted blood. They’d taken her sister Katie’s. They’d insist on hers.

But what about Joe? What would happen to him in this power struggle?

Thinking of Joe snapped Jillian out of her fog of misery. She couldn’t panic. She had to clear her head. Be smart. And she could be smart. She’d proven before she’d inherited her father’s cunning. Now her life depended on staying calm. Remaining focused. But to remain focused, she’d have to control her emotions, something she found next to impossible when she was around Vittorio.

On her feet, Jillian opened her battered black suitcase on the bedroom’s sturdy luggage rack. Her clothes had all been meticulously folded when they’d been placed in the suitcase. Who had done that? Who had taken that much time to pack for her? And then she shuddered, not wanting to think of anyone going through her things, touching her clothes, folding her intimate garments. It made her feel exposed. Stripped bare.

But not totally bare, she reminded herself fiercely, peeling off her wet clothes and changing into dry black pants and a soft gray knit top. Vitt knew a lot, but he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know who she really was, or who her father was, and he wasn’t going to find out.

Jillian stared hard at her reflection in the mirror as she dragged a comb through her still-damp hair.

She’d been a redhead until she was twelve and had loved her hair. It’d reached the small of her back and the soft, loose curls had always drawn attention. Her father used to loop the curls around his finger and call her Rapunzel. Her sixth-grade art teacher had said she would have inspired the great Renaissance artists. And her mother cried when the government insisted on cutting her hair off and then dyeing the shorn locks a mousy brown.

She’d cried, too, but in secret. Because losing her hair hurt, but losing herself was worse. And they hadn’t just cut her hair off, they’d taken everything else, too.