An Aria in Venice: A Musical Interlude Novel (30 page)

“What’s
he talking about? Please tell me he’s not referring to Julia,” Adriana says to
Luca, the weight of my words hanging over our heads, ready to pelt us to death
like a hail storm.

“I
was going to tell you about all this. About Leona and the baby.”

“You
mean Julia’s daughter, Leona? Oh my God. Mother was right. I thought it was
just another of her lies.” Adriana covers her mouth with both of her hands. “At
least tell me you knew nothing about the baby.”

“Not
until a few weeks ago,” he answers.

My
dark days couldn’t have gotten any brighter than they have after hearing him
say those words. The fucking loser knew about the baby the whole time. I should
have known.

“A
few weeks?” Adriana asks, slamming her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to
hear anymore.” She spins around and starts walking back toward the house. “Do
not follow me,” she snaps, and he obeys. Now Luca Martuccio gets to see what it
feels like to experience the heart wrenching agony of defeat and helplessness;
to have the woman you love turn her back on you.

~Adriana~

I
hate Mother’s guest bathroom, even though it’s the size of a small bedroom, a
girl’s paradise. It’s decorated with blue tiles the color of the ocean on the
bottom and a band of white ones on top, a frozen sea and a plain ass sky, the
perfect place to drown inside. Being in this room heightens the aftereffect of
Luca’s words.

Or
maybe it was Nikolai’s words.

Damn
it. I’m not sure.

The
world starts spinning, a merry-go-round from hell, and I’m not sure which one
of the two men I left standing in the backyard is pushing it the hardest. With
Jojo and Lis guarding my door, I don’t think any men will be bothering me right
now. Good. I need time to make sure my food stays down. No more drama. No more
lies. No more pain. Only tears.

I
slide down to the floor on the wall opposite Mother’s spa-sized tub and pull my
knees up to my chest, the darkness closing in, coming closer. It’s choking me.
No. Life is gagging me. I’m drowning inside the big, blue bathroom. Simona,
Luca, Nikolai, Father, and Mother will be the last faces I remember. Tears come
next. I’m tired of those, too, so I will them to stop and close my eyes.

~Luca~

“Bas-tard!”
I spit at him before I can rein in my temper. “You want her for yourself.
That’s not true, is it? You want her heart. Her soul. To lock the best parts of
her away in a tower, leaving her to cry over you while you watch like some
sick, sadistic psycho.” He flinches. There’s some truth in my words and he
knows it. I suppose that’s why I haven’t found myself eating a fist yet. It’s
no secret that Nikolai Belikov’s family breeds assassins the way mine does
poets. For the life of me, I cannot understand what my little Maia sees in this
man.

“Careful,
designer boy. You have already lost a great deal tonight, I should think.” He
lifts his glass and smiles. Suddenly, I lose my shit. I charge at him, sending
the glass flying. Somehow we wind up on the ground, my fists pounding him, his
punches landing on my jaw. Alek charges onto the scene, pulling us apart.

“What
the fuck? Somebody want to fill me in on why Mother’s designer and my troupe
leader are beating the shit out of each other?” Alek asks, his eyes, which
remind me of a darker version of Adriana’s, boring into me. I’ve fucked up
again. I can’t seem to do anything besides upsetting people these days.

Nikolai
and I both keep quiet as we stand there huffing and glaring at each other.
“You’re off the gig,” Alek says to me. Right now I couldn’t give a shit. The
most important thing in this world to me just learned I’ve been keeping secrets
from her.

“That
is not necessary, Sasha,” Nikolai says, much to both our surprises. “It is too
late to find a new designer.”

“Are
you sure?” Alek asks, his strange eyes assessing the situation. His exotic
looks, the dark hair and skin, remind me of my Maia, the woman whose trust I’ve
probably lost forever.

“Do
I still have a job?” I ask, feeling desperate to go after Adriana.

“For
the time being, yes,” he answers, his gaze hard. “But let me catch you doing
something like this again and the deal’s off. I won’t care about what Nikolai
or Mother says, either.”

“Got
it. If you’ll excuse me. Nice chatting with you, Belikov,” I say, tipping an
invisible hat to the man I now know is my archrival.

“Anytime,
Martuccio,” he sneers.

I
turn and head toward the house, massaging my jaw. I learn from her friend
Lisbeth that Adriana has locked herself in the guest’s bathroom. I make my way
through the house. Jojo’s blocking the bathroom door, watching over it as
though she’s a soldier of the Imperial guard.

“I
need to see her. Let me by,” I demand.

“No
way I’m letting you go in there. You’re sexy and everything, but Adriana’s my
girl. And right now, she’s upset because of you and Happy Legs,” Jojo says,
crossing her arms. She might look dainty with her pink hair and dress, but I
have no doubt this girl would probably kick my ass worse than Nikolai Belikov
just did.

“You
never told me about a baby,” Adriana’s small voice says from inside the
bathroom. She has opened the door the tiniest bit. I move around Jojo and lean
against the wall beside the doorway.

“I
said the mother was dead to me. I was told she miscarried shortly after we
broke up five years ago. This is news to me as well. I wanted to wait on the
paternity test results before I said anything to you. Giovanni told me he found
out about the baby the night before you and I left to head out to the Piccolo
Mundo. I had every intention of confronting Marcello about his sister’s secret.
Even Giovanni wanted answers. However, when we got there and I saw how hostile
Marcello was becoming, I dropped it for the moment. Didn’t want to cause a
scene and get you caught up in my fucking mess.” I slam my fist against the
wall. “We ordered paternity tests. Either one of us could’ve been the father.
Looks like I’m the one.”

“You’re
telling me you didn’t know about your own daughter.”

“Leona
told me she miscarried five years ago. Said it was my fault because I broke up
with her. Giovanni blamed me, too. He was ready to be a father. My own brother
chose to believe in manipulation over supporting his own blood.”

“How
does Julia play into all this?”

“She
was at a party Mama was having a month or so later. I was told to take her home
because she was drunk. She and her daughter hadn’t been on speaking terms for a
long time. Leona is Marcello’s half-sister. She and her mother had this war
going on I didn’t know about.”

“And
you got caught up in it,” she says in a flat voice. “Have you— Please tell me
you haven’t seen Leona since we started ...”

This
is killing me, but I need to get all of my secrets out there. “Once. The day
after we left the club she called asking to see me so we could talk about taking
the paternity test.”

She
gasps, her face crumples, and she starts shaking her head. “And that would be
the day after the red gondola. Oh my God.”

“Adriana,
please. Come out here so we can talk.” I’m close to begging. What the fuck is
wrong with me? I should just walk away.

“What
happened to no more secrets?” she asks.

“I
know. I’ve fucked up, but this is exactly what Belikov wants. Can’t you see
that?” Silence. She’s thinking about what I just said because she’s smart, so I
know she can see through what he did. What most worries me is that Maia doesn’t
know what she wants. The way I caught them all tangled together earlier has
planted enough doubt in me to make my head spin.

“Please
just go, Luca.” She closes the door before I can respond. I consider trying to
get her to come out one last time before I make the decision to honor her wish
and walk away.

Luca

The
Gothic Ballerina showing has gone well tonight. All of Milan’s most notable
fashion paparazzi have made the effort to purchase front row seats. Even a few
of my former students from F.I.T. have stopped by to offer their
congratulations. Dressed in his trademark dark purple show suit, my brother,
Rafe and I, along with Erin and our assistant, Carla, stroll down the stage
until we reach the end, the music playing overhead making me think of the night
Adriana chased after Nikolai at the Alcatraz. The crowd stands as applause
roars around us—a standing ovation, a formal acceptance into the world of
design. The feel of success saturates the air around us. What more could a man
ask for? A lot apparently, since I have never felt this empty in my entire
life.

The
next day at Black Butterfly, I throw myself into my work, counting down the
hours until I get the chance to see Adriana, my calming force, my feisty little
ballerina. I have sent text after text, apologizing and explaining how I knew
nothing of the daughter’s existence with no progress. Just when I fall into
that comfort zone of thinking the day has finished shooting bullets of
heartache and pain at me, I hear the shop’s entrance bell ring.

Katerina
walks through the doors, a rush of wind blowing inside behind her. She’s
dressed in a light gray business suit and has her hair pulled back in a tight
bun. The bumbling woman who put on a show at her daughter’s expense last
weekend has vanished.

“Katerina,”
I begin, using her first name because the tactic usually works well on calming
the tempers of other women. “To what god do I owe the honor of a thank you for
providing me with such lovely company?” I walk over to her, take her hands, and
kiss both of her cheeks.

Glancing
around the shop with a critically cool gaze, she says, “Always equipped with an
arsenal of charm, aren’t you, Luca Martuccio? I bet that silver tongue of yours
gets you far in life.”

Fuck.
She’s smiling, but I know it’s not because she likes my poetry. “I take it you
aren’t here to discuss last night’s showing.”

“We’re
both business folks, right?” she asks, taking a seat in one of the new red
leather chairs sitting in the middle of our showroom. Erin chose them to go
along with Black Butterfly’s ruby and onyx color theme. “I’ll get straight to
the point of why I’m here. Adriana, my lovely, headstrong, but gullible
daughter. The girl who happens to be worth more than this shop, and everything
else you and your family own, has taken up a new hobby. Slumming. I want it to
end, this thing the two of you are doing.”

The
woman pulls no punches. I admire that even though I don’t appreciate her tone
or her words. “With all due respect, signora, I do believe Adriana is old
enough to make up her own mind.” I struggle to edit what I really want to say.

I
get a hard glance passed my way, even though she seems to be more interested in
the Elle magazine lying on the table between the two chairs. “I’m not giving
either of you a choice. Nikolai is the most suitable match for her. The best
man. Surely you know this.”

I
rake my hand through my hair and inhale deeply, grounding the anger for the
sake of my employees. I don’t want to lose my temper and ruin everything for
Erin, Carla, and Rafe.

“And
if I refuse?”

“Your
mother has a serious condition, I do believe. Am I correct?” she asks, setting
her magazine down on the table and focusing on me.

“What
are you playing at?”

“Would
be a pity for her to go unburied and wind up needing cremation. Plots in Venice
are expensive these days, considering the whole dank of a hole is sinking. The
Spirelli’s need my ex-husband’s help now more than ever to maintain their
land.” She frowns when she sees me working out the details of what she just
said in my head.

Fuck!
She owns the damn plot. With a sarcastic laugh, I say, “Dostovsky blood money
taints everything in this place.”

“You
didn’t know, did you, dear boy? Antonio Spirelli has always had a gambling
problem. To keep that sprawling mansion of his, he had to call in favors from
his friends. My husband being one of them. To pay his debt, he sold his portion
of the land rights to San Marcale to my husband.”

“Mi
Dio,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck and finding it hard to believe my
shitty luck. I think of the only card I have left to play against this shell of
a human being. “Your daughter loves my mother. You should be careful. Plotting
my demise by targeting my mother will make you the enemy in her eyes.”

She
hesitates, as though considering my words, and says, “I’ve been on Adriana’s
shit list for the last eight years. What’s one more ding?” Suddenly, she stands
up and walks away, leaving me to wonder how a woman as cold as Katerina
Dostovsky has managed to give birth to an angel.

I
head out to
Arnie’s Villa
after I’m done working. Situated on the corner
of
Via Gallone
and
Via Caterelli
, the pub owned by an American
man, surprisingly, carries some of the strongest grappa in the city. Sitting at
the bar, which is modeled after an old American show called
Cheers
, I
sort through all the things crowded in my head. “The past fucking sucks.”

“Yeah,
it’s a tortuous little shit,” the bartender, an American guy with a slight
Southern American accent, says. “Skeletons in the closet. That’s what old folks
back home call it. Gotta find a way to get those suckers under control.”

“That
right?” I take a gulp of grappa and it almost gets stuck in my throat because I
drank so much at once, trying to drown out the shitty little voice that keeps
repeating Katerina’s words about Nikolai being the better man for little Maia.
“Well, I intend to crush every single bone under the weight of each gulp of
grappa I take here tonight. Know what that means? You need to hit me with the
heaviest weight you got. None of that watered down shit you hand out to the
tourists.”

He
laughs, deep and throaty. “All right, my man. You got it.”