* * *

Two thugs were waiting for us in a big silver van once we cleared customs. They piled our suitcases in the back and took the highway into town. I checked my phone. I still hadn’t heard from Sydney in spite of sending her the text when we landed. We dropped off the overtly jealous, sexpot cousin at her parent’s house in Trapani, said “Hi” to everyone, then got back in the car. We left the main roads and veered onto a narrow two lane highway that headed up a mountain.

“This isn’t the way to Papa di Giuseppe’s house,” Violet frowned. “He lives in town.”

“He moved. He bought a place a few towns over,” Jeanie said. “I haven’t seen it yet.”

“Is it related to the family business?” Violet asked.

“No. He’s seventy-eight and he’s done with all of that,” Vincent said. “He purchased something on his bucket list.”

“What’s that,” Florentina asked. “Tearing the wings off butterflies and selling them on the Internet?”

“Florentina!” Jeanie said. “You’re here in Sicily as Papa’s guest. Why did you agree to come on this trip if you hate him so much?”

“Because St. Jude the Apostle came to me in a dream.”

“The saint of lost causes did not come to you in a dream,” Vincent said.

“Oh yes, he did. He hovered over my bed so closely I could see the signature flames around his head. He said, ‘Florentina. You must go to the island of Sicilia and stop that man from messing things up.’ You don’t argue with a dead saint. So, I’m here.”

“Who are you supposed to stop from messing up?” Jeanie asked.

“I don’t have a clue. I can’t know everything going into this, for God’s sakes. I asked St. Jude a similar question. ‘But how will I know the right time to intervene?’ ‘You’ll know, Florentina,’ he said.”

The van’s wheels ground around steep switchbacks as we wound up this byzantine path up a craggy mountain. Thick fog enveloped the vehicle. We finally broke above the clouds and were rewarded with a spectacular view: a sweeping vista over the Mediterranean Sea, the city of Trapani far below us.

The driver turned off the highway at a sign that said “Erice” and entered the outskirts of a quaint, medieval town. We squeezed through a stone archway that served as an entrance to the city. The van slowed, its wheels clip-clopping as it maneuvered increasingly narrow cobblestone streets until it opened up on the town square. A small cathedral was perched imperiously in its center. Vans and cars lined the perimeters as people unpacked tables and erected booths, snapping framework in place, adding multi colored tarps.

“A fair?” Jeanie asked.

“Papa mentioned a food festival was happening this week,” Vincent said.

“This place is pretty,” Violet said. “I’d love to explore but I am beyond jet-lagged. I need a good nap and decent Wi-Fi.”

“Tell me about it,” I said and checked my phone. Still no return text from my sister. I glared at Vincent trying to size him up, but he studiously ignored my gaze. Was the goon hanging out with Sydney and Nora in the Instagram post really a bloodthirsty killer? Or was he just lying to get me over here?

We drove up a narrow street and parked in front of a petite stone castle with a café with small round tables and chairs out the front. Painted in gold lettering on the windows was “Papa Giuseppe’s Pasticcerie.”

“This is it.” Vincent exited the vehicle.

“I’m so excited!” Jeanie slung her purse over her shoulder and made her way toward the chateau.

“I’d lower your expectations. I don’t know for certain if Papa really can bake,” Vincent said. “It might be just a pipe dream. It’s a good thing he keeps a few rooms for rent upstairs. Something to keep him busy.”

“Probably filled with money launderers, and thieves,” Florentina said.

“Florentina!” Jeanie said. “I don’t care if he can cook. I just want to see my father-in-law. It’s been too long.”

The goons, supervised by head meathead Salvatore, unpacked the luggage and piled the bags high on the cobblestone street. Vincent rapped on the poppy red door but no one answered.

“He knows we’re coming, right?” Jeanie asked.

“Yes,” Vincent said, and smacked the lion-shaped knocker harder. “Flying you here for Christmas holidays was his idea.”

“I’ll go around back,” Florentina said.

“You can’t,” Jeanie said. “He has armed guards.”

“I’ll go with her,” Salvatore said. “I will beat them if they touch her.”

“They have guns, Salvatore,” Vincent said. “Guns generally win over fists.”

“What are they going to do?” Florentina asked. “Shoot an old lady? That’s bad karma.”

The front door burst open and a short, muscular man with a shock of white hair poked his head out. “Benvenutto! Just in time to eat.”

“Papa Giuseppe!” Jeanie’s face lit up. “Buon Natale.”

He enveloped her in a bear hug and kissed her sweetly on both cheeks. Two bodyguards appeared in the vestibule behind him.

“I’m so happy that you’re all here. Even you, Florentina,” Giuseppe said, and gave her an appreciative look. “It’s been a long time.”

“I was offered a free trip,” she sniffed. “Don’t read into this.”

“I read everything into it.”

“Fool!” Florentina pushed past him and the thugs into his house. “I need coffee.”

Giuseppe kissed Violet on each cheek. “My bellissima granddaughter. I’m excited for you to meet your new fiancé.”

“I’m excited for you to meet him as well.” She smiled at me and beckoned.

I moved the few feet toward them when a twenty-something, dark, muscular, handsome man walked up behind him. The guy looked awfully familiar and acid suddenly churned in my stomach.

Violet tugged on my arm. “Papa, I’d like you to meet—”

“Violet,” Giuseppe said, “I am pleased to introduce you to—”

“Aiden Black.” I held out my hand to the older man, trying to place how I knew the swarthy guy.

“Flavio Santini,” Giuseppe said. “Your future husband.”

I swiveled and faced Vincent. “Is this the same Flavio you told me about? My sister’s tour guide?”

He laughed. “Yes.”

Flavio dropped to one knee and took Violet’s hand in his. “Marry me, Violet Accardi. Make me the happiest man in the world.”

“I’m sorry?” she asked. “Have we met?”

You mean the happiest hitman in the world. He was a six foot two inch hunk of tanned muscle with chiseled cheek bones and flowing black hair. He could have modeled for those men’s fitness magazines. He was probably as dumb as an ox. I hated him on sight. There was no way I was letting this guy anywhere near Violet. “She’s taken, buddy.”

“Or course we have not met, Violet. I am the man who has been dreaming about this moment. I am the man promised to you.” Flavio kissed her hand.

“Sadly, some promises are meant to be broken,” I said. “She’s already engaged. To me.”

Violet pulled her hand back, and looked up at me, confused. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, darling,” I said. “Ignore this, this…. person.”

“Looks like one hundred percent man to me,” Jeanie said and fanned her face.

“He is the man I was telling you about,” Uncle Vincent said.

A woman walked out of the shadows. “Aiden?”

“Sydney?” My sister was here in this castle of thugs, hitmen, and pastry chefs? Oh great. “What are you doing here?”

She ran into my arms and hugged me. “You came to Sicily after all. I’m stoked!”

“Aiden, don’t you love celebrating the holidays with family?” Vincent asked. “I thought it was the least I could do.”

“We need to talk,” I whispered into Sydney’s ear. “But first, an introduction. Just go along with me. Ask questions later.”

“Okay?”

“Violet, I’d like for you to meet my sister, Sydney.”

“Great to meet you,” Violet said as they shook hands.

“Violet and I just got engaged,” I said.

“Get out!” Sydney said and did a double take. “Congratulations!”

“But this is not possible,” Flavio said.

“Syd! The butter cookies are amaze-balls! Here.” Nora, her cute wife popped her red head out from a doorway and startled when she saw me. “Aiden! Dude, you’re here. Oh my God. The vote is in. Flavio Santini is the best tour guide ever!”

* * *

I gave Sydney the Cliff Notes version of this story. That I was trying to help out a friend but things had grown complicated. I didn’t bother telling her their tour guide might be a mafia hitman. As always, she was cool with it.

Now Flavio and I carried the luggage up the marble stairs to the second floor. He deposited Jeanie’s bags in front of one door.

“Thank you, young man,” Jeanie said. “If it doesn’t work out for you with Violet, I know other ladies who would love to make your acquaintance. I have one in mind.”

He bowed his head. “Grazie mille. I love older women.”

“Not me,” she said. “That would be just plain weird. But thank you. I think.”

I continued down the hallway. Florentina keyed herself into her room. “Do you want some help?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

I pulled her rickety bag into the room. It was an explosion of purple. Purple pillowcases. Purple walls, Purple bed coverings. “Where do you want me to put—”

“On top of that bureau.” She pressed one finger to her lips and beckoned to me with the other. “I hope the old fool didn’t decorate this room because of me.”

I placed the suitcase on the chest “What do you mean?”

“He knows my favorite color.” She gestured to her peacock purple suitcase. “No doubt he’s playing head games with me. Trying to shake my game.”

“What’s the game?”

She gripped my shoulders and whispered, “I don’t know yet. What I do know is there’s something off with this Flavio guy. Vincent’s an asshole. And I don’t trust Giuseppe.”

“Okay. Why are we whispering?”

“Giuseppe always believed information was power. Fifty years ago he used to bug the rooms. I doubt that’s changed.”

“Good to know.” I swept my gaze across the room looking for places recording devices could be hiding. Then I realized I was buying the ramblings of a crazy lady.

“I get a good feeling about you, Aiden. The shit’s going to hit the fan. I don’t know what the shit is—but trust me it’ll be flying like blood in a splatter movie. Protect my third cousin.”

Protect Violet.

Protect Sydney and her wife.

Protect myself.

Could I hire a plane and get us all the fuck out of Dodge? Where was the saint of lost causes when you really needed him?

“Got it.” I turned and walked toward the door.

“And Aiden?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll let you know if I get any more tips from St. Jude.”

* * *

Flavio and I carried Violet’s two suitcases up a thin flight of stairs to the single door leading to the room in what was probably the renovated attic.

“Thanks guys.” Violet opened the door.

The model wannabe pushed in front of me to enter the chamber first. “Where do you want the suitcase, my beautiful fiancé?”

“Not your fiancé,” I said.

“In the closet,” Violet said. “Thank you. Sadly, Flavio, we are not engaged.”

Flavio moved to the far side of the room and I placed her other bag on the floor close to the window. “Florentina thinks something’s up,” I whispered.

“I told you about Accardi holidays,” she said. “Bloodshed, fighting, Machiavellian dealings.”

“I thought you were exaggerating.”

“If anything, I underplayed it.” She plugged her phone charger into a wall socket.

“Marry me, Violet and our families will reach a truce that has been needed for generations,” Flavio said.

“She’s already engaged. To me.”

“She was promised to me before you.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because our grandfathers made a blood pact fifty years ago.”

Violet yawned. “If I’d heard about one blood pact, I’ve heard about them all. Why don’t you guys take this up some other time? I need to get some shut eye.” She pointed to the door and sat down on the bed. “Bye!”

“But—” he said.

She shook her head.

“But—” I said.

She shook her head. “You too.”

We shuffled out of the room.

* * *

The hitman – who could be the cover boy for a romance novel – and I walked down the stairs to the second floor. I looked at the number on my key. Seven. Lucky number. “What was the blood pact?” I asked.

“Family firstborns could marry whomever they wanted,” Flavio said. “But second-borns were promised to a rival family to heal old wounds. Mend fences.”

“Wouldn’t that plan apply to Violet’s father?”

“Sì. Something screwed up the plan and he didn’t marry into my family.”

I spotted the number seven in gold lettering on the door. “Great talking with you, buddy. This one’s mine.”

“Me too,” he said looking up from his key at the door.

No.

“Let me see that.”

He showed it to me. Indeed, number seven was inked on his key. “Super.” I swiped the key fob. I walked inside and Flavio followed on my heels. “Pick your bed.”

“This one.” He sat on the one closest to the door and laid back. “I can be closer to my beautiful Violet.”

“Whatever.” I dropped my bag in the corner and sat down on the twin mattress next to the window. We were directly underneath Violet’s room. I got up and stared out at the medieval town beneath us. More booths had been erected along the piazza’s perimeters. The square outside the church was a sea of red, blue, yellow, and orange umbrellas.

The church at the deep end of the plaza spoke to me. I’d love to see the art, take in a service, but no—that wasn’t possible. I was feeling nostalgic. Why? It had to be Sydney and Nora. In spite of all the drama going on around us, I’d be spending holiday time with family.

A bird fluttered at the window and I peered out as it flew off. A thick trellis of vines outside the window practically twisted into the castle. The vines grew from the earth below, wound up past my window and Violet’s window to the roof.

Hmm.

Would it hold my weight if for some reason I felt like climbing out the window and climbing up nature’s ladder to her window?

“What are you looking at?” Flavio asked.

“Nothing.” I kicked off my shoes and laid down on the bed, fully clothed, too tired to undress. “Hey roomie.”

“What?”

“You’re already on Sicilian time. Why are you napping?”

“Signore Vincent Accardi hired me. I’ve been at your sister’s beck and call for a few days now. Do you know how much sightseeing we have done? My Fitbit registers 25,000 steps every day. My calves are killing me. My feet are cramping. I fear I am getting an unsightly, how do you call it? A lump on the side of my big toe.”

“Bunion.”

“Ick. But they insist on seeing every ruin. Every precioso shop. Every grotto. All the museums.”

“That sounds like Sydney.”

“She’s the best,” he said. “Don’t take this the wrong way but she and her wife are exhausting.”

“I know. Are you really a hitman?”

“What do you think?”

I looked at him. Muscles. Fake tan. Coiffed hair. Sharp cheekbones. One could throw a ham at his face and end up of with thinly sliced cold cuts.

“Nah,” I said. “I think you’re a model. Or a model who wants to be a photographer.”

“Men can multi-task too,” he said. “Are you really engaged to Violet Accardi?”

“She’s hot isn’t she?” I stretched on the lumpy mattress and pulled a blanket over my legs.

He pressed his fingers to his lips, kissed them, and then held them out to the air. “I saw photos but I never dreamed she would be this beautiful. Thank Jesus I am promised to her.”

That ridiculous twist of jealousy stabbed my gut. “One small problem, buddy. She’s mine.”

“Sad,” he said. “I didn’t really want to have to harm you or your sister.”

“Touch my sister and you’ll know the meaning of pain.”

“Sleep with Violet, my future wife and mother of my children, and I’ll destroy you,” he said.

“Good to know, Fabio.”

“Flavio.”

“I’m taking a nap, first. You don’t kill men in their sleep do you?”

“You’d be the first.”

For some reason I believed him.