Chapter One
Blood.
Gallons and gallons of wine-red blood rushed like a stream, gushing, flowing, moving fast enough to create a current.
At first, she watched it like a bystander on a riverbank, staring at the ruby-colored torrent in wonder. But watching wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be enough.
She had to touch it. Crouching down, stones jabbed her knees, some sharp enough to make her cry out as she thrust her hand into the warm, sticky liquid, shocked at the thickness of it. She hadn’t expected it to be the consistency of clotted cream.
Suddenly, behind her, a push. Hard. A grunt. A cry. She tumbled forward, falling into the rushing blood, drawn under, unable to fight or swim or breathe. She sucked in a terrified breath, but that just meant a lungful of blood choking her. She was dying. This was death. This was—
“Mummy!”
Lila’s body jerked at another hard shove on her back.
“Mummy, wake up! It’s wedding day!”
One more gulp of bloody…air.
Clean air. Breathable air. Lila inhaled sharply and pulled herself out of the depths of the foul, dark dream.
“Rafe,” she murmured, turning on her pillow and blinking into the morning light, focusing on the deep-blue eyes that never failed to give her a jolt of joy.
And this morning? Those eyes gave her raw relief while adrenaline pumped through her. That bloody, gross, ugly dream had no place in her lovely world on her…yes. She was marrying Gabriel Rossi this very day, at sunset on Barefoot Bay.
There was no room in Lila Wickham’s heart for anything but bliss.
“Mummy and Dad are getting married!” His wiry little five-year-old frame slammed up and down, making the mattress bounce. “And I am Dad’s Ring Man.”
She smiled at the title that, of course, Gabe had cleverly made up for their son, the ring bearer. She reached out to touch Rafe’s face, the soft skin and realness of her little boy like a balm on the memory of all that blood. Who on earth would dream of drowning in a river of blood on her wedding day?
“We are getting married,” she murmured, frowning as her brain fully engaged and sleep disappeared. “And you, young man, are not supposed to be here at my bridal villa. You’re supposed to be with Dad and your great-grandpa down in the bachelor pad.”
Which was their home, in truth, but the owner of Casa Blanca Resort & Spa had offered Lila this sumptuous villa for the whole wedding week. It was truly a luxury, made better by the fact that the resort was packed full of friends and family who’d come to celebrate the nuptials of Gabriel Rossi and Lila Wickham. Lila had stayed here alone last night, but only because Poppy, a resort housekeeper, had insisted.
Poppy said it was bad luck for the bride and groom to spend the night together the night before their wedding, despite the fact they already lived in the same house on the south end of the island while they ran Gabe’s privatized witness protection program under the cover of the resort security firm. After years of being apart, and Gabe thinking Lila was dead, they hated to be anything but together.
Still, Lila had given in to Poppy and convention, but with the dregs of that dream swirling in her head, she wished she hadn’t. If Gabe had been holding her, she wouldn’t have had such terrifying images haunting her slumber. With him, all the darkness had been taken away, replaced by light, hope, and a family.
Her eyes stung and she squeezed her lids shut. No crying today. No letting a silly dream, the power of her emotions, or the knowledge of just how important this day was make her eyes well up. No, she would not shed a tear on this, the happiest day of her life.
“We came for breakfast,” Rafe announced. “Great-Grandpa said everyone needs his peppers and eggs on their wedding day. Oh, and Poppy got mad because Dad said a bad word.”
“Why should today be different than any other day?” she teased, giving him a kiss. “Go tell them all I’ll be out in a second.”
A few minutes later, Lila joined the gang in the villa’s kitchen. Nino, Gabe’s grandfather, was at the stove, as always. Poppy was on the patio setting a table so they could eat poolside, and Rafe had gone out to help her.
But it was Lila’s beloved fiancé, Gabriel Rossi, who caught her eye as she entered the room, his own gaze a piercing cobalt blue and unwavering. God, she loved that man. Loved his muscular body, his sharp wit, his dirty mouth, and loyal heart. His handsome features never failed to thrill her, and she still swooned at his touch. Would any of that change when they were married? No. It would get even more intense.
“Morning, blondie.” He winked, and Lila felt a thousand butterflies flutter around her stomach.
“Hey.” She slid into his arms and looked up at him with a satisfied smile. “Couldn’t stay away, could you?”
“Nino was sure Pop-Tart would poison you with wild oxtail pie dipped in gizzard juice and that would ruin the whole wedding.”
Poppy came bounding in through the open French doors. “I heard that,” she muttered, her Jamaican accent always a little bit thicker when Nino or Gabe teased her. Which was every time they had a chance. “They are not supposed to be here, Miss Lila. On this one day, you two are not supposed to see each other until you walk onto the beach and say your vows.”
“Ah, the vows.” Gabe gave Lila a squeeze. “Love, honor, cherish, and obey.”
She rolled her eyes. “As if you, or our son, know the meaning of that word.”
“Obey is definitely not in Rafe’s dictionary.” Gabe threw a smile over his shoulder at the boy, who seemed to be settling down since Gabe and Lila had reunited, but would be an easy child. “He climbed the stairs again,” Gabe said. “And I don’t mean the conventional way.”
Lila groaned softly, knowing exactly what he meant. Last week Rafe discovered that the curved staircase in their home was more fun if you climbed outside the rails. Which was probably a metaphor for how that kid would live his life. “Was there a consequence?”
“I flipped a shit.” Gabe smiled. “But you probably mean like time-out or no TV or something. Nino handled that.”
“Nino?” Lila asked, already knowing that meant no one did anything to discipline Rafe, because Nino was putty in that child’s hands.
He didn’t turn from the stove, but shrugged his shoulders. “Ehhh. He’s a boy. Gabriel was the same way at that age. You know those machines with the claws and the stuffed animals? I once caught him inside the hole where you get your prizes when he was four.”
“Only because my oldest, evil brother stuffed me in there.”
“JP did that?” Lila asked, not totally surprised considering the bursts of animosity between the two brothers.
“Bad is in the blood, baby,” he said.
But she didn’t feel like discussing discipline challenges of their wild child today. “Speaking of blood,” she said. “I had a wretched dream I’d like to forget. Is there coffee made?”
“Right here,” Nino said, grabbing the pot to pour with his left hand while still stirring his signature breakfast with his right. The oldest living Rossi was spry, although no one, not even Nino himself, who was born on a kitchen table in Southern Italy with no official documentation, actually knew his true age. Living in Barefoot Bay and working for Gabe, plus running a household that included Poppy’s Jamaican nephews, had given the eighty-something year-old Rossi family patriarch a new lease on life. And Uncle Nino—as almost everyone, even his own grandchildren, called him—would certainly make a handsome best man tonight.
Gabe eased Lila onto a barstool at the counter, eyeing her a little more closely. “You do look like you had a rough night.” He stroked her hair and gave her head a kiss. “Whose brainless idea was it for us to sleep on opposite ends of this island, anyway?”
“It was just a bad dream, but so vivid. And…ugly.” She turned to see where Rafe had gone, spying him out on the patio, walking very slowly, cupping something in his hands, uncharacteristically slow and focused. “What is he doing?”
“Practicing,” Gabe said, following her gaze and grinning. “Little dude wants to be the world’s best ring bearer. And if we can convince him to wear a suit and not a Pokémon costume, he will be.”
“Oh, he will be.” Her heart swelled with love for her son and awe at the thought of how close the three of them came to never having this life together.
When the woman she’d been—the spy she’d been—had disappeared from Gabe’s life to assume a new identity, face, personality, and even a British accent for a long-term anti-terrorism assignment, she wouldn’t have given a dime for their chances of being a normal family. She’d endured the unexpected pregnancy alone, worked a dangerous undercover mission for four years, and all that time, Gabe hadn’t known if she was dead or alive, and certainly didn’t know they had a son. But they overcame the odds, and she was certain that, together, they would continue to do that for the rest of their lives.
Lila was still the “new” person, accent and all, on the outside. Inside, she was the woman Gabe had always loved and the one who’d always loved him back, mind, body, and soul. He didn’t care about her new face, changed name, or British accent, and she couldn’t “change back” to Isadora for fear it would have a lasting, negative impact on Rafe, who knew only his blond, British mum.
None of that mattered now. They were together. They were forever. And they were blissful.
“Tell me about your dream.” Gabe rounded the counter to get her coffee.
“It was disgustingly full of blood.”
“I’m cooking here,” Nino called out in warning.
Next to him, counting out silverware, Poppy elbowed him. “Let her tell the dream. It helps to say it. Makes it go away.”
“This one won’t go away easily,” Lila said. “Nothing happened, really. It was just so much blood. Like a raging river of blood.”
Gabe made a face as he handed her the cup, but Poppy whipped around with a loud gasp. “You dreamed of a river of blood?” Her voice rose with the question.
“That’s exactly what it was. Like the Mississippi River, only filled with gushing red blood, not water.”
Poppy stared at her, her giant ebony eyes growing wider. “Did you touch the river?”
She snorted. “I nearly drowned in it, but then Rafe woke me up.” She lifted the cup and smiled over the rim. “And all was right again.”
“Oh, Miss Lila. Oh no. Oh, that’s no good.” Poppy tsked, shaking her head.
“What do you mean?”
“Just…” She heaved a noisy sigh. “Not good.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Nino exclaimed. “It was a dream. She probably ate too much of that jerk chicken at the rehearsal dinner. I told you to go with my nice cacio e pepe. I make that just for your jittery nerves, Lila.”
“I’m not jittery,” Lila told him, but her focus was on Poppy. “Why isn’t it good, Poppy?”
“It’s…” She gave a full-body shiver. “Just an old superstition. Black arts. Evil things.”
“It’s Jamaican voodoo time,” Gabe joked, sharing a look with his grandfather who hummed The Twilight Zone music in response.
“Oh, scoff all you want,” Poppy said. “I don’t believe in anything but my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but…” She averted her eyes, suddenly focused on the silverware she’d been counting.
“But what?” Lila pressed.
“That dream,” she sighed. “Not good.”
“It’s a sign,” Nino said, more to Gabe than anyone else.
“A sign I’m bleeding money for this wedding,” Gabe lobbed back.
Poppy glared at him and moved her wide girth out of the kitchen. “There are people who do believe in Obeah,” she said.
“Some ancient Jamaican religion?” Gabe asked.
She shrugged. “They believe the supernatural cross through your dreams.”
Behind her, Gabe stole a pepper from the pan and dangled it above his lips. “I’ll tell you what’s supernatural. This food, old man. And it’s crossing through my dreams into my mouth.”
He patted Nino’s shoulder, but Poppy harrumphed as she went back out to finish the table. “Where are you going, Rafael?” she called.
“I want to come in and out of the gate to practice. Can I, Mummy?”
Lila turned to look out the French doors, seeing her son opening and closing the gate that led out of the patio to the grass and trees that separated this villa from the next. “Just outside and right back in, Rafe,” she said.
“This dream really bothered you, didn’t it?” Gabe, always in tune with Lila’s feelings, leaned over the counter, his handsome face serious now that he’d stopped teasing Poppy. “Just let it go, babe.”
“I will,” she assured him. But when Poppy walked back in, Lila turned to her. “What does dreaming of a river of blood mean?”
Gabe barely managed not to roll his eyes.
“Nothing if you didn’t touch the blood,” Poppy said without hesitation. “But…”
“But I did, at least in my dream. It wasn’t real.”
Poppy’s brows flicked in silent disagreement. “Then it means three things.”
“Let me guess,” Gabe interjected, standing to deliver his jokes to Nino. “Snow is piling up in hell, a fleet of pigs is taking off at LaGuardia, and… What else, Gramps?”
“The Cubs will win the World Series. Oh, wait. They did.”
Poppy’s eyes shuttered in disgust. “Some people take Obeah very seriously.”
Lila looked over her shoulder to check on Rafe, watching him go in and out of the gate and walk slowly down the patio, pretending to be in a wedding.
“Something will be lost,” Poppy said, pulling Lila’s attention back. “Something of great value. That’s the first thing that happens after you dream of a river of blood.”
“Well, I’m losing my mind listening to this,” Gabe said. “Does that count?”
“What else?” Lila asked, ignoring him.
“Something will be broken,” Poppy replied. “Something that is not easily fixed.”
“I just broke an egg,” Nino added, making Gabe snort with laughter.
“And someone will die.”
That shut the two men up. And sent an unnatural chill down Lila’s spine. “That’s…terrible,” she whispered.
Poppy lifted a thick shoulder. “I told you I believe in God, not sorcery. But many people in Jamaica know this superstition.”
Lila lived in Cuba a long time before she was able to return to Gabe and finally introduce him to his son. She knew that some of those superstitions were founded in…something. Maybe not reality, but something. And that dream had freaked her out in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. She might not believe in curses and spells, but she respected the black arts and otherworldly powers.
“I’m the one who’s going to die,” Gabe finally said, breaking the silence, “if those peppers and eggs are not in my belly, stat.”
Nino chuckled and made two plates. “I have you covered, Gabriel. I’ll—”
“Mummy! Mummy! Dad!”
Everyone pivoted toward the patio at the sound of raw panic in Rafe’s voice. He stood in the middle of the patio, holding out both hands, spread wide, a look of sheer horror on his face.
Gabe launched across the living area in a few long strides, and Lila was right behind.
“What’s the matter, bud?” Gabe asked, reaching for him.
“I’m sorry!” he exclaimed. “I’m s-s-sorry!”
“Rafe!” Lila bent down to him. “What’s wrong?”
He opened his mouth to talk, but all he could do was suck in some air and wail on the exhale.
Gabe scooped him up and held him close. “Are you hurt? What happened?”
He still didn’t answer, looking from Gabe to Lila and back. His eyes, the same blue as his father’s, registered nothing but…fear.
Lila reached for him, too, automatically putting her arms around both her beloved men, aching to fix whatever made her son so scared. “Honey, it’s okay. Tell us. Why are you crying?”
“I ruined the wedding!”
“What?” They both asked the question at the same time.
Was he worried about not doing a good job? “Rafe, you’re going to be great tonight,” Lila reassured him.
“No! I t-t-took the rings from the drawer at ho-ho-home,” he managed to say between sobs. “To pra-pra-practice.”
“You took the wedding rings?” Lila said, inching back in surprise. This was bad—even for Rafe, this was serious.
“Why?” Gabe asked.
“So I could hold them.” He wiped some tears and snot with his forearm and shuddered.
Very slowly, Gabe lowered him to the ground, bending over to stay the same height. “You took our wedding rings from my drawer?” he asked, more disbelieving than angry.
“I put them in my pocket,” he said, sniffing. Then he shook his head. “Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad, bud,” Gabe said, holding out his hand. “But I want them back. Now.”
Big blue eyes blinked, then shifted up to Lila, still wide with horror. “I lost them,” he confessed on a ragged whisper.
“You lost them?” Gabe choked the question.
But Lila slowly straightened, pressing her hand to her mouth as an ice-cold realization hit her heart.
Something will be lost. Something of great value.
For a moment, she fought a wave of dizziness, then turned to share a long look with Poppy.