Gian’s father was an admirable man who could not heartlessly send the woman who’d once been his life partner to an institution, in spite of the instant and undeniably rich attachment he and Francesca had shared since she’d first interviewed him for a story she’d done on the debilitating impact of fashion in America. This was the man she’d tell Gian about when he grew up and asked questions about the father he didn’t know.
Folding, stuffing, Francesca remembered that last scene in Sacramento. Another retailer had told her that Antonio was married, that the company she’d thought his own actually belonged to his father-in-law. He hadn’t tried to deny it. To lie. And in the end, after she’d heard the heart-wrenchingly sad story of a fairy tale gone wrong, she hadn’t been angry. Just devastated. And had left the States to get over him. He’d known that. But he’d been as lonely as she….
The sound of dishes rattling in the kitchen across the small villa brought Francesca back to the task at hand. Her grandmother Sancia was up from her siesta and would be expecting Francesca to join her for an afternoon snack. And she still had all her own clothes to pack into the other half of the second duffel.
Although she’d spent more than nine months in Italy before she’d contacted her father’s mother, introducing herself to the grandmother she’d never known, Sancia was probably the real reason Francesca had come to this country. Looking back, she could recognize the quest that had driven her halfway around the world at a time when her mother had needed her at home.
Nothing in life had made sense anymore. Nothing, other than her career, had made her happy. She’d begun to question her basic beliefs, her decisions and motivations, even her ability to offer compassionate stories to the world.
So she’d come to Italy with some half-formed hope that she might find what she was missing among the people of her father’s land. That the culture, the values, the heart and soul of Italy would give her what she could not seem to provide for herself. A solid sense of self. Of direction.
Almost a year later, contemplating her trip home, she wasn’t sure they’d produced anything quite so significant. But these long months had given her Gian.
And he’d given life meaning.
Finished packing, she went to wake her son.
Five weeks later.
God, it was sweltering. Carrying a single duffel filled mostly with cameras she hadn’t used in more than a month, Francesca climbed the steps of Lucky Seven, an extended-stay motel off the Strip, to the room she’d just rented. Las Vegas in July was hell.
She’d forgotten that.
Just as she’d forgotten anything of value in taking pictures. She hadn’t picked up a camera since that last day in Italy, when she’d packed them in the bottom of a bag. Nor did she intend to.
She’d buried any meaning her life held in a little old cemetery a couple of miles from Sancia Witting’s home.
The phone was ringing as she pushed her way through the door of her two-room suite.
“Hello?”
A cursory glance told her the room was clean.
“This is José at the front desk, Ms. Witting.”
“Yes?” What was he bothering her for? She was tired. Hot. Lacking even an ounce of the capacity it would take to be civil to other human beings.
“I have that number you asked for. The one for the used-car dealer.”
She wasn’t planning to be in town for more than a week. But she had to get a car now that she was back in the States—she’d sold her Mustang before she’d left for Italy—and figured that, rather than paying for a rental, she’d buy one here. She’d drive Autumn back to Sacramento when they returned together.
“That was quick,” she told José now, duffel still on her shoulder as she scribbled the number on the envelope he’d given her downstairs with her receipt.
“My friend’s at work tonight. He’ll be there all weekend, too.”
“Great, thanks,” she said, conjuring up enough energy to say a pleasant goodbye and get off the phone. Car-shopping on a Friday night in Vegas. Just what she wanted to do.
But then, she thought, dropping her duffel on the bed, there was nothing in the entire universe that Francesca Witting wanted to do. Except not think about that crib with the too-still infant. That Italian cemetery.
And she wanted to follow up on the phone call her mother had received that week from her younger sister. A runaway, Autumn had been missing for more than two years. Earlier this week, she’d been in Las Vegas. Francesca was going to find her.
And get Autumn’s ass home where it belonged.
“Luke, have a seat.”
He’d rather stand. But he sat in one of the lushly upholstered high-backed chairs across from his boss and mentor’s oversize mahogany desk. The chairs were gold now. The year before they’d been maroon.
Luke preferred the maroon.
“How’s your mother?” Amadeo asked.
Fingers steepled at his lips, Luke shrugged. Luke Everson didn’t talk about his mother. Amadeo Esposito knew that.
And still, without fail, every time he saw Luke he asked.
Glancing beyond Luke’s left shoulder, Amadeo gave a slight nod, dismissing the two “companions” who were never more than a few feet away. Their feet moved soundlessly on the plush maroon carpet that had recently replaced last year’s golden brown. Maroon and gold were Esposito’s colors. Always had been.
When the heavy wood door clicked shut behind them, Amadeo met Luke’s gaze, his dark eyes narrowed. “You want to tell me what’s going on at the Bonaparte?”
A lesser man might have been intimidated. Most men who came in contact with the owner and CEO of Biamonte Industries—a conglomerate that owned a tenth of Las Vegas—were intimidated. Italian-born Esposito, while having no Mafia affiliations or connections, was a very rich and sometimes ruthless man who knew how to use his money to get what he wanted.
Amadeo Esposito did many things Luke wouldn’t have done—or would’ve done differently.
But Luke had known the man all his life. He’d seen Amadeo cry at his daughter’s funeral fifteen years before. And then again at his wife’s.
Amadeo had cried with Luke at Luke’s father’s funeral three years before.
“There’ve been too many big wins.” Luke told Amadeo what he already knew.
The Bonaparte, one of the Strip’s newest and most elite casino-hotels, was Luke’s personal responsibility.
Esposito waited. He was not a patient man, something Luke had never respected about him.
Leaning forward, Luke rested his forearms across his knees. “There’s no apparent pattern,” he reported. “The winners come from all over. All ages. An eighty-year-old woman from a retirement village in Phoenix, a twenty-two-year-old Wall Street wannabe and everything in
