Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
They weren’t cold.
They were warm.
They were her.
“Thank you.” I touched them and turned to face him. “For letting me wear these.”
He stared at the pearls for a long second before meeting my eyes. “I think they were meant for you too.”
Sergio walked off just as Santino came out of his bedroom and approached. “You look beautiful.”
“I’m wearing my half-sister’s pearls.” I clutched them between my fingers.
Santino gave a small nod. “Beautiful.”
I walked into his arms and sighed. “We should go.”
“I’ll hold your hand the entire time.”
“I know you will.”
We walked hand in hand down the stairs; it was still cold out, so I grabbed a black pea coat from a waiting Alice downstairs.
I looked around. “Where is everyone?”
“They’re already waiting.” Alice smiled and reached down, lifting a black basket with several red stemmed roses. “Here, you each take one. Just follow the light.”
It was already getting dark, but I listened. I’d learned with this family that even if you’re completely out of the loop, it’s always for a reason. So I took my rose and linked arms with Santino as we walked to the waiting car and got in.
The ride wasn’t long, maybe ten minutes before we arrived at Sergio’s house, of all places.
There were cars everywhere, and it was getting extremely dark by now. The fountain in the middle of his driveway had little floating lights, and then toward the back of the house, lanterns.
“She said to follow the light.” Santino gestured toward the lanterns. “I guess that’s where everyone is?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Are you okay?” He wrapped an arm around me.
I sniffled against his chest. “Yeah, I will be once he’s at rest.”
Santino kissed the top of my head as we rounded the house and walked by the pool toward the backyard. Once we made it down the hill in the back, there were more lanterns, and over two hundred, maybe more people.
All dressed in black.
Roses lined a pathway with the lanterns down to the middle of the field, and a small Christmas tree farm seemed to have been planted just beyond the brim of the hill.
“It’s time,” Santino whispered.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Some faces I recognized from the different families, Abandonato, Nicolasi, Sinacore—but one Family I didn’t; it was a Family standing toward the front next to Andrei. There was a man with dark hair, another woman with brownish hair who had my features, and a few others, who were not Italian, and the closer I looked, the more I saw.
Once we made it to the front, I realized everyone was holding a rose. Andrei stepped out from the front and nodded to Santino, taking my other arm as we walked toward the black casket. “The Petrovs,” Andrei said with a thick voice, “have come to honor their own.” He held up a single white rose, dropped it onto the casket, and then pulled me aside. No grand words were said at the funeral and no amazing speeches that made people cry.
No, it was all action.
As the entire Petrov crime Family—my Family, one I never even knew—one by one, paid tribute to my brother, they each laid a white rose on his casket and, as they walked past it, dropped a red rose to the ground.
“They honor them both.” Andrei stared straight ahead as a tear slid down his cheek, falling off his chin.
I touched my pearls, then looked up. There was a headstone. “Andi?” I asked.
“Andi Petrov Abandonato,” he confirmed. “Pace won’t be alone anymore, Katya. He’s next to Andi. She’s bringing him home.”
I broke down and started to sob against my brother. Santino rubbed my back as I cried and as every single person paid tribute to him, honored him with a single white rose.
When the final person walked up, I knew in my soul it was Sergio. I glanced up, and there he stood with Val, his wife, clinging to him. They stared at Pace’s grave and then at Andi’s.
“You can finally rest now, Pace. Don’t let Andi give you too much hell, and know how much you were loved, Pace, without even realizing it. Thank you for saving your sister.” Sergio pulled out a card from his pocket as Nixon, Phoenix, Chase, Dante, and Tex approached. Each of them, my brother and Sergio included, slit their palms and squeezed a drop of blood onto the card. “We give you the saint of Saint Kolbe as a memory of how you sacrificed for love.”
He took a step forward along with the rest of the men as they surrounded the grave. He lit the card with a lighter and held it over the casket. “As burns this saint so burns my soul. I enter alive, and I will have to get out dead.” He dropped the card onto the casket.
“What does this mean?” I asked Santino in a shaky voice.