SIX FURIES AND A ROSE

CHAPTER 2

NINETEEN YEARS LATER

“He’s going to be here in literally ninety seconds,” my best friend Chloe sang from the doorway, applying a last swipe of lip gloss. “And you look like you’ve been finger-painting with the Impressionists.” She nodded at the smudge of Payne’s Grey on my wrist.

“It’s a statement,” I said, blowing a stray curl out of my face. The big, open-plan living space of the Scarlatti house was quiet, but it was a watchful quiet. I could feel it. “Where are the… you-know-whos?”

“Luca’s in the study, on a call. Marcello left at dawn for ‘the yard,’ whatever that is. Dante’s probably asleep. Gabe is at the club. And Vin…” She lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. “…is in his office. The door is closed but not locked. Proceed with caution.”

Ethan’s car horn blared from the circular driveway below—two short, cheerful beeps.

“That’s our cue!” Chloe chirped, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

We hurried down the grand staircase, our footsteps echoing in the marble foyer. I was almost to the massive front door, my hand reaching for the wrought-iron handle, when a voice froze me in my tracks.

“Raphaella.”

I closed my eyes for a brief second. So close.

Turning, I saw Vincenzo leaning against the doorframe of his office.

“Morning, Vin,” I said, aiming for casual. “Just heading to class. Midterm review.”

He didn’t smile. His gaze moved past me, through the sidelight of the front door, to where Ethan’s sensible silver sedan was idling. “Horn’s a bit impatient, isn’t it?”

“He’s just letting me know he’s here,” I said, my voice tighter than I wanted.

“I have eyes. I know he’s here.” Vin pushed off the doorframe and took a few steps forward. He didn’t need to get close to fill the space. “You’ll be home by four. Professor Almeida’s lecture ends at three-fifteen. The drive is thirty-eight minutes without traffic. I expect you by four.”

A hot spark of defiance lit in my chest. “Study group at the library after. Might run late.”

“Four-thirty,” he amended, his tone leaving no room for argument. It wasn’t a negotiation; it was a decree. “And you’ll text Luca when you get there, when you leave, and if your location changes. Understood?”

Chloe was a statue beside me, wisely studying a painting on the wall as if it held the secrets of the universe.

“Understood,” I forced out, the word tasting like ash.

He gave a single, slow nod. His eyes were the same dark pools from my memory, but the love in them was now indistinguishable from control. “Have a good day, sister.”

We escaped.

As we slid into the car, Chloe let out a long-held breath. “Holy intensity. I swear, the temperature drops ten degrees when he uses your full name.”

I didn’t answer, just glanced back at the house. In an upstairs window, I saw another shadow. Luca. Watching, always watching, a silent sentinel making note of our departure.

“You okay?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah,” I said, buckling my seatbelt, the familiar bar of the cage settling across my chest. “Just drive. Please.”

We merged into the river of students backpacks and coffee cups, the normalcy of it all a balm.

“Okay, crisis averted,” Chloe said, linking her arm through mine as we crossed the quad. “Now we can focus on the important things. Your birthday. The big two-one. It’s in three weeks and we have nothing planned.”

Ethan fell into step beside us, easy-going. “Yeah, what’s the move, Rafe? Big party? Fancy dinner? I know a great place on the water, my dad can get us a table.”

I felt a familiar, cold knot form in my stomach. “Oh, I don’t know. Something low-key, probably.”

“Low-key?” Chloe stopped walking, forcing the foot traffic to part around us like a stream around a rock. “Raphaella Scarlatti, you are turning twenty-one. The year you are finally legal for everything. This is not a ‘low-key’ year. This is a ‘we talk about this for years afterward’ year.”

“Exactly,” Ethan said, grinning. “My buddy’s band is playing at The Vault that Saturday. We could get a VIP booth, bottle service, the whole thing.”

The fantasy was tempting for a second.

Then reality, cold and meticulous, reasserted itself. “Vin would never allow a club,” I said, my voice flat. “A public club, with strangers, and alcohol… it’s a non-starter.”

“So we have it at your place!” Chloe said, her eyes lighting up. “That ballroom in your house is literally just collecting dust. We could decorate, get a DJ, a killer cocktail bar…”

The image was so ludicrous I almost laughed. Vincenzo, allowing hundreds of college students—strangers—past the gate, through the security checkpoints, into the heart of the family compound.

“My brothers,” I said, the two words containing multitudes of impossibility. “They’d… hover. It would be less of a party and more of a supervised state function.”

Ethan shrugged, still not getting it. Not really. “So we invite them! They’re cool. Intense, but cool. It’s your day, Rafe. You should get what you want.”

“What I want,” I said slowly, the idea forming like a small, dangerous bubble in my chest, “is to get out of the city. Just for the night. A house upstate, maybe by a lake. No massive crowd. Just a few close friends. Somewhere… neutral.”

Chloe’s expression shifted from party planner to co-conspirator. “A private rental. No neighbors for miles. I could look into that.”

“I could drive us,” Ethan offered. “Road trip.”

“Yeah,” I said, the hope draining from my voice as we reached the steps of the art building. “Maybe. Let me… think about it.”

Chloe squeezed my arm, seeing the defeat in my eyes. “We’ll figure it out,” she whispered.

AFTER SCHOOL

By the time Chloe and I spilled out of the building, the sun was lower in the sky, casting long, accusing shadows.

“It’s 4:37,” Chloe groaned, checking her phone. “Vin’s going to have an aneurysm.”

“We got held up,” I said, my voice thin with a hope I didn’t believe. “Business stuff.”

We rounded the corner to the usual pick-up spot. Ethan’s silver sedan was there. But it wasn’t alone.

Parked directly behind it, blocking it in, was Vin’s black Mercedes SUV.

We were too far to hear the words, but the scene was screamingly clear..

My feet felt rooted to the pavement. Chloe sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh, boy.”

As we watched, Vin took one step toward Ethan. Ethan, who was six feet tall and played intramural soccer, seemed to shrink. He punctuated a sentence by tapping his own wrist where a watch would be.

Luca looked up from his phone, adding a few quiet words, a chilling smile on his face that didn’t reach his eyes. It was the smile he used when going over inconvenient financial discrepancies.

Ethan nodded, fast and jerky, his hands raised in a placating gesture. He wasn’t arguing. He was surrendering.

Only then did Vin’s head turn. His eyes found me across the distance, pinning me in place. He gave a single, curt jerk of his chin. Come here.

Chloe gave my arm a nervous pat. “Good luck. Call me later. If you’re allowed.” She melted away toward the bus stop, wisely avoiding the warzone.

“I’m sorry Im late, the professor—”

“Ethan was just explaining the academic priorities that superseded our agreed-upon schedule,” Vin interrupted, his voice slicing through Ethan’s ramble. He didn’t even look at Ethan. His focus was entirely on me, a laser of disappointment. “It seems there was a misunderstanding about the meaning of ‘four-thirty.’”

“It was my fault,” I blurted out, stepping slightly in front of Ethan. “I stayed to ask a question.”

It was the wrong thing to do. A subtle, dangerous flare lit in Vin’s eyes. Protecting another man from their scrutiny was the ultimate transgression.

“Your dedication to your studies is commendable,” Luca said smoothly, finally pushing off the hood. His voice was like silk over steel. “But it creates… complications. Ethan here was concerned. He couldn’t reach you when you weren’t at the rendezvous point at the agreed time.” He said “rendezvous point” like it was a tactical operation, which to them, it was.

I realized with a sinking heart my phone, buried in my bag, had been on silent.

“It won’t happen again,” Ethan said, his voice too eager.

“No,” Marcello spoke for the first time, the single word a low rumble. “It won’t.”

The finality in the air was stifling. Vin finally shifted his gaze from me to Ethan. “You can go. Raphaella’s ride is here.”

“Get in.”

Luca drove. Vin sat in the passenger seat, radiating a cold fury. Marcello was beside me in the back, a solid, impassable wall of brotherly muscle