6. Chapter 6

6

I laria woke up the next morning, the sun shining brightly through the bedroom window onto her face. She tried to crack her eyes open but a searing headache forced them shut again.

She laid in her bed, and pieces of last night's news floated back into her awareness. Shot…killed…

She tried to open her eyes again, cursing the brightness. It seemed implausible to her that the sun could be shining so brightly on a day like this; that the birds could be chirping so joyfully; and the leaves on the trees waving so cheerfully against the wind.

Don't you know that my parents are dead? she wanted to scream. What right did the world have to go on living? She certainly didn't care if it all ended right now.

She should have gone to Scotland with them. Maybe she could have prevented their murders. Or you could have been killed with them , a nagging voice inside her said. Maybe that would have been better; at least she wouldn't be here by herself, feeling a truckload of guilt for lying to them.

A lie was the last thing she had told them. On top of that, it was a lie for a cowardly reason. A cowardly, selfish, ridiculous reason: to avoid a man just to save her pride.

Self-recrimination flooded her, choking her. Her parents were dead, and she deserved nothing more than to bear witness to her guilt and shame.

Well, aren't we just a pathetic lump of self-pity? Geez. She rolled over and buried her face into her pillow. Now she was feeling shame over her self-recrimination.

Ilaria considered staying in bed indefinitely, but her bladder had different ideas. Calling her urgently to relieve it, she lugged herself out of the bed and stumbled to the bathroom, feeling as if she was moving underwater. She caught a glance at herself in the mirror and winced. Just as well. She looked as terrible as she felt.

You're an orphan now, she told herself. Her parents were never going to see her get married, and they would never meet their grandchildren. Her chest tightened. In her early twenties, she had dreamed of having her children grow up with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, discovering their heritage and gaining wisdom from multiple generations.

But now, nearing thirty, with no parents, no children, and not even a partner on the horizon, she would be foolish to cling to that dream.

Maybe she should just crawl back into bed and hide under the covers.

An acrid odor drifted to her nose. She smelled her armpit and grimaced at the sweat still sticking to her skin from dancing at the club and the smell of alcohol that was seeping through her pores.

She turned on the shower and watched in a daze as steam filled the bathroom. Grateful for the hard water pressure, with the temperature as hot as she could stand it, she took a loofah and scrubbed herself raw. She may be an orphan, but at least she was clean.

As she dried herself off, another realization hit her. She was now the head of the Carosi family. Overwhelm threatened to drown her. How was she going to do this without her father? She wasn't ready to take over the entire organization. She hadn't learned even close to everything she needed to.

She wished she had more tears to cry, but she was all cried out from the night before. Noe and Emmy had stayed with her until she finally and blessedly fell asleep.

She pulled out her baggiest sweats, dragged them on, then dragged herself out of her room. Emmy and Noe both turned and went over to her, wrapping their arms around her without saying a word.

Both of them had at some point showered and changed in their own condo and had come back upstairs to be with her. Ilaria's eyes watered. "Thank you guys," she sniffed. "Don't know what I'd do without you. You're my family now."

Emmy handed her a tissue. "Honey, we've been your family since we met." That made her eyes water even faster.

Noe led her to the dining table and placed a bowl of chicken noodle soup in front of her. "Eat."

"I'm not hungry—"

Noe frowned at her and pointed at the bowl. "Eat."

Her eyes wide, she slurped a spoonful without taking her eyes away from him.

"Good girl."

She realized she was hungry and ate three quarters of the bowl before she said, "I have to get my parents back from Scotland. I have to plan the funeral." She pushed her bowl away.

"And I have to take over the family business." She put her head in her hands. "How did you handle this when your mother passed away?" she asked Emmy.

Emmy sighed. "Not that I'm saying it's easy to lose a parent, but in my case, I had time to come to terms with it. I had months to imagine my life without her, how I would take care of myself, how I would move forward."

She rubbed Ilaria's back. "This has all been very sudden for you. It's going to take time. But you're not alone, okay?"

Noe nodded. "Yeah, don't expect to do it all yourself. In fact, I have a cleaning service and personal chef on call, ready to come over at a moment's notice. So you don't have to worry about cooking, laundry, or picking up after yourself. Just say the word." He picked up her bowl, rinsed it, and loaded it into the dishwasher.

Ilaria felt gratified that her friends were helping her think of the little things. "Having a clean house and clothes would be nice," she said. She couldn't control her circumstances, but she could control how clean her house was.

"Done," he said. "I'll coordinate it. Don't worry about a thing."

"And call us anytime you need to talk or cry or throw something," Emmy added.

Ilaria smiled a little. "That helps a lot, thanks. Just knowing you guys are around is a huge relief."

Her cell phone rang. It was still in her handbag, which had been left on the floor by the front door when she came in last night. It took an immense effort to get up from the table and walk over to get her phone.

It was Vincent. "Yeah?" she answered. She didn't care about niceties at the moment.

"Ilaria, I'm downstairs," he said. "Can I come up? We need to talk."

She made a face. "Fine." She buzzed him in with her phone.

Noe and Emmy gave her another hug and made their way to the door. "We'll stop by later, okay?"

Vincent came out of the elevator as Noe and Emmy went down the carpeted hallway. Ilaria left the door open and went back inside. She curled up at the end of her sofa and wrapped a fuzzy blanket around herself.

Vincent walked in and closed the door behind him. "Ilaria," he greeted. "How are you holding up?"

She shrugged. "Fine, I guess. Did you come by for something specific?"

She wasn't in the mood for idle chit chat or even a heart-to-heart with her uncle. Not that they were capable of that. She had never been close with him to begin with, but ever since her aunt Cordelia and cousin Leo were killed in the car crash, Vincent had become reclusive, distracted, and disconsolate. It was now his permanent state. If he ever spoke to Ilaria, he looked over her head and spoke at her, not expecting a response. So she never went out of her way to seek him out.

But now, she realized with dismay, she was his boss. And he ran an entire portfolio of businesses for the family, so she couldn't avoid him now.

This was a problem for later, she decided. Today, and probably for the rest of the week, she would grieve for her parents.

Ilaria watched Vincent pace across her living room, his hands alternating between wringing and being stuffed in his pockets. His fidgeting was making her own anxiety rise.

"Vincent," she said, more sharply. "What are you doing here?"

He glanced in her direction but looked over her head. "I think I know who was responsible for your parents' deaths."

Her heart jumped. "Who?"

"The MacGregors." He stuffed his hands roughly in his pockets.

Ilaria couldn't help the furrow in her brow. "The MacGregors. Why do you think that?"

He stopped pacing and looked at her with an incredulous expression. "Isn't it obvious? He wanted your father out of the way. He wants territory in Chicago. You're easier to influence as the head of the family. He'll finalize the partnership with you and then usurp control."

Ilaria felt her temper rise. Aside from him grossly underestimating her, he was tossing out baseless conjectures about Galen.

"Dad and Galen have been—had been—best friends for decades, since college," she replied in a tight voice. "I don't think he'd be capable of hurting Dad. And as far as I know, he only wished to be a silent partner."

Vincent's face turned red. "Don't tell me you're as na?ve as Stefano was. Always giving Galen the benefit of the doubt. He manipulates every situation to benefit himself." He threw his arms out in anger. "Like how he didn't give those fucking spoiled brats who killed my family the punishment they deserved. If the situation had been reversed, he would have demanded a punishment much more severe, like death."

He was yelling now, which raised an alarm in Ilaria's head. She had never seen him violent, but she didn't trust him not to be, either.

"And your father just—" He fisted his hands. "He just accepted it. Didn't defend his sister-in-law and nephew. Didn't defend me , his own brother. Chose an outsider over his own family."

Ilaria watched him carefully. He was ranting to himself now, and she didn't want his attention back on her.

"And the ultimate insult to the family, this partnership," he spat. "Your father was going to just hand control over to an outsider." He rubbed his hand over his hair in a wild manner. "I even tried to tell Stefano before he left not to go through with it, that Galen was playing him for a fool, preying on his goodwill."

Ilaria raised her eyebrows at this news. She wasn't aware her father and uncle had been at odds about this partnership with the MacGregors.

Vincent shook his head. "For a crime family boss, your father was too gullible, too trusting. That's why the business was stagnant."

She narrowed her eyes. What was he saying? The urge to defend her father was overwhelming, but she bit her tongue.

Vincent paused, seemingly aware that he was crossing a line, outwardly criticizing the decisions of the former head of the family to his daughter and successor.

He cleared his throat. "Look, just think about what I said and you'll see that I'm right."

"Okay, let's say you're right: Galen killed my parents," she said. "Then what?"

"Then we make it right," he growled.

Make it right? "How would we do that?" she asked, keeping her face impassive, but she could feel a nervous sweat break out.

He looked up at the ceiling for a long moment, as if asking for patience to withstand the incessant questions of a child. "Look, don't worry about that right now. Just take the time you need to grieve. Between me and Silas, the business is under control." His hands curled into fists again. "I've got it under control," he repeated, almost to himself.

Ilaria nodded, taking a slow, deep breath, but her suspicions were on high alert. He was up to something.

"Get some rest," he said as he walked to the door. "We'll talk soon."

After he closed the door, she immediately got up from the sofa and set the deadbolt. Then she took a long inhale and tried to calm herself. Her mind was whirling.

In Vincent's mind, his wife and son were killed in a careless accident for which the perpetrators had not adequately atoned. Now his brother and sister-in-law were brutally murdered. And he laid it all at Galen's feet.

It was pretty clear to Ilaria that Vincent felt the blame rested on Galen. And if that were so, the only appropriate response had to be vengeance. An eye for an eye. No family in this line of business took a significant offense lying down, and, as far as Vincent was concerned, Galen was guilty of the death of four members of the Carosi family.

So it was reasonable to assume he had something drastic up his sleeve. Ilaria furrowed her brow. An eye for an eye meant going to war with the MacGregors, the biggest family in all of Scotland, much bigger than the Carosis. They had connections the Carosis only dreamed of, on top of a lethal army of soldiers that rivaled any elite military unit. It was laughable to expect that the Carosis were a match for the MacGregors.

Vincent was either an idiot, or he had something that would give him a distinct advantage.

She rubbed her forehead. Did she believe Vincent's theory about Galen killing her parents? No, deep down, she didn't believe Galen would ever hurt her father. Having observed them over the years, Galen and her father were like brothers. In fact, her father had been closer to Galen than he was with Vincent. They had a bond that was more than blood; it was chosen.

She also didn't hold the same grudge against Galen about her aunt and cousin, and she knew her father hadn't, either.

So she wasn't actually worried that Vincent's theory was true. She was more concerned about his perceptions and animosity and whatever he might be planning.

Ilaria let out a growl of frustration. Her parents had just died, she had to take on a new role, and now she had to worry about her uncle planning a war with the MacGregors. If this was what it was like to be the head of the family, she wasn't sure she wanted it.

Maybe she was overreacting, misinterpreting Vincent's anger for an intention to get revenge. She should talk to Silas. He was the voice of reason.

But her instincts told her that while she had no proof Vincent even had any plans, she should, at the very least, warn Galen. And Soren, who was responsible for protecting the family. It couldn't hurt to caution them.

Ugh. So much for shoving Soren out of her mind for good. Reaching out to him would be jumping right back into the fire.

But she would worry about that later. Right now, she needed to talk to Silas.

As she went to her closet to shed her baggy sweats for a more presentable sweater, she noticed the icon for a new text message. She tapped on it and then froze.

Soren: Ilaria, you there? Tell me you're okay.