He picked up the bottle again and drank.
This is a nightmare, thought Bianca.
Vittore had hired a trio of limos from the funeral directors. One, of course, for Mama and himself (he was her favourite, they all knew that), while Fabio would have a limo to himself, leaving Bianca to share with Maria, Vittore’s poor doormat wife, who didn’t comment but must surely notice that she had been relegated, separated from her husband by his overbearing mother, yet again.
Now the limousine Bianca and Maria were travelling in was stuck in the traffic, crawling along, prolonging the agony of this day. The other two limos, travelling behind the hearse, were lost to view. The driver had said he knew a better route to the church, and had turned the car around. He was sweating, the idiot, he didn’t know the way at all. Now they were sitting, unmoving, in yet another line of cars.
Inch by inch, the car crept along. Bianca sat there like wood, gazing out at the matt dove-grey of the sky, thinking This cannot be happening.
But it was.
Today the family was saying its final farewell to Tito, who had been murdered in cold blood by some piece of scum – she spat on them, whoever they were.
Tito was dead.
She couldn’t believe it, but it was true.
Her eldest brother, the one she’d loved so much, idolized, was dead and gone. She knew that it was mostly Tito’s doing that she had been entrusted – at last – with Dante’s. Vittore would never have entrusted her with any responsibility. Vittore had always seemed indifferent to her; he was secure in his position as Mama’s firm favourite. As for Fabio, he had mocked the very idea.
‘Bianca? What, you joking, Tito?’ he’d laughed when the possibility of her running a club had first been broached.
All her life, Fabio had mocked her. Resented her. Cuffed her around the ear, punched her when Mama wasn’t looking, because she was the interloper, the new baby, and she’d taken his privileged place.
Only Tito had loved her as a brother truly should, indulging her, showing her the noble old Italian ways, accepting her unstintingly into the family. He’d taught her everything, even how to shoot. She remembered how he’d taken her hunting rabbits on farmers’ fields, and how she had treasured that time alone with him.
Now, her heart was broken. He was gone.
A sleek Bentley paused alongside the limo, heading in the other direction. Her eyes caught and held the stare of the man sitting behind the wheel. Even sunk deep in grief, she was arrested by how amazingly handsome he was: dark-skinned, black-haired. And his eyes were a startlingly clear bright blue – but they seemed full of some private pain.
