Chapter 5: What He Took

I did not scream.

I want that on the record, because I had good reason to.

I stood in a dark study at two in the morning with a stolen key.

The man I was supposed to marry watched me from a chair.

"You knew," I said.

"Since Friday."

"You let me walk down here and find it."

"I let Bruna leave her keys on a tray."

He uncrossed his ankle.

"You were always going to find it. I preferred you find it in my house."

"Why didn't you just show me?"

"Because there are four people who know that code."

He said it quietly.

"Your father is in a coma. The manager has worked for your family thirty years. That leaves two."

I felt it land.

"You think it was me."

"I think it's possible."

"I was under a table with your hand on my head!"

"I know where you were."

"My father was bleeding on me!"

"I know that too."

He stood, and he was suddenly very close, and very large.

"If you'd done it, you'd have kept quiet. If you hadn't, you'd run straight to the person you trust most."

"You'd tell them what you found."

My breath caught.

"Who is that?" he said. "Who did you run to on Sunday, Raffaella?"

I thought of Mariano's arms, and cedar and bergamot, and the word *careful*.

"That's not an answer," I said.

"It's a question."

"You're asking me to believe you."

"No. I'm asking you not to tell anyone what's on that screen. Not until I know who opened that door."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Mafia Princess Engaged to Her Father's Enemy from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.