Amalfi, 1939
Nino pushed in the clutch and shifted gears, steering the Lancia sports car down the steep, tightly curved cliffside road. Lauro gripped the leather seat to steady himself. Though the brisk night air blew through the open windows, a cold sweat bathed his flushed skin.
“Why the hell couldn’t you have left Isabella alone?” Lauro yelled.
Nino clenched his jaw as he leaned into a sharp turn. “You’ve got that backward.”
“Conceited bastard,” Lauro sneered. But it was probably true. Resisting Isabella’s passion until their marriage took every shred of restraint he had.
Nino slowed as he wound around a hairpin corner. The acrid smell of burning rubber hung in the air. When they cleared the turn, Lauro’s pulse quickened.
The headlights shone on a mangled car smashed against an outcropping of boulders. An older man sat on the pavement cradling a limp woman in his arms, sobbing over her.
“Dio mio.” Lauro pressed a hand against his chest at the sight of such a sobering calamity. “Do you think that woman’s dead?”
Nino blew out a ragged breath. “I’ll check on her.”
A flash of red farther down the road caught his eye. “There’s the car Isabella was driving.” His throat tightened so with fear he could hardly speak.
The front edge of the car was dented, but it was nothing like the damage the other vehicle had sustained.
In the beam of headlights, Nino gestured toward a tragic silhouette standing like a lone sentinel near the edge of the cliff. “There she is.”
Across the narrow road, Isabella hovered with her arms wrapped around her midsection. Her head was bowed, and her shoulders shook while the wind whipped her scarlet dress around her legs.
“Grazie a Dio, she’s alive,” Lauro said. Too many people had lost their lives over the sheer drops of these treacherous cliffs, which plummeted to a rocky shoreline. Most never made it to the dark waters beyond, falling victim to the craggy descent long before they reached a burial at sea.
On the hillside above them, a light in a villa blinked on, and a man called out. “Anyone hurt?”
Nino flicked his lights in response and yelled from the car window. “We need help. Someone’s hurt.”
Before Nino could ease to a stop, Lauro flung open the door and leaped out. “Isabella!” Panting with trepidation, he raced toward her, but she threw out her hands.
“No, Lauro, no,” she cried out, stepping back toward the edge of the precipice.
Noticing just how close she was sent a chill through him. “I’m not angry, Isabella.”
Sniffling, Isabella angled her chin toward the lifeless woman who lay in the old man’s arms. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Glancing back, Lauro saw Nino hurry toward the couple. He knelt beside the woman and pressed his fingers against her neck, then lay his ear against her chest. He couldn’t hear what Nino said to the old man, but his brother embraced the old man, whose weeping intensified.
“I’m sure she’ll make it.” Despite his belief otherwise, Lauro forced himself to appear calm. “See? Nino’s tending to her.” He nodded to the house above them. “A neighbor is calling for help right now.”
Isabella shook her head, and her face contorted with a mixture of grief and shame. “I know I killed her,” she sobbed, her voice cracking with hysteria. She wavered on the rocky ledge.
“No, no, no,” Lauro said. “Please, come to me. Let me hold you, amore mio.” He took a cautious step toward her. Must reach her. Three more paces, and he’d have her in the safety of his arms. Even on this chilly evening, sweat beaded on his brow.
She flung her hands up again. “I can’t. I don’t deserve your love. Not after this, not after your brother.”
“Of course you do.”
“No, I don’t,” she cried, her wail echoing off the mountains. “It was my fault. I crossed the center line. That poor, poor woman.” She buckled over with grief, gasping for breath between guttural cries.
When she wasn’t watching, Lauro slid a wary foot toward her. Almost there.
She turned into the stiff wind off the ocean, her sleek black hair streaming behind her like satin ribbons. One foot slid toward the edge.
“Isabella, I love you. Please don’t think of that.” He held out his arms to her. “Come back to me. Together, we can work out anything.”
As she glanced down, the wind buffeted her slender frame.
“Isabella, please.” The wind tossed his words back to him. No, no, no! Another step.
She whirled around, teetering on the edge, her scarlet dress billowing like a sail. “Stop. I’m not like you. I can’t face it all,” she cried. And then she leaned back into the wind, her hair whipping into a dark halo around her fine, anguished features.
With his arms outstretched, Lauro flung himself after her. “No!” Landing just short of her onto rocky ground, he caught the hem of her dress and grappled for her legs. For a moment, he had her.
Then the thin fabric ripped, and Isabella took flight like a wounded bird down the craggy cliff into the blackness beneath him.
“No!” Lauro screamed into the night, but she was gone. He collapsed at the edge of the cliff, his tears staining the thin scarlet fabric he clutched, his trousers torn and his knees bloody.
Minutes later, Carmine and Isabella’s father rushed onto the scene.
“Where’s my daughter?” Signore Guardino was frantic to find her.
Standing among the rocks at the edge of the sheer drop, Lauro shook his head and shifted his gaze down the cliff. While her father cursed and broke down, Lauro confided in his father that Isabella had stepped off the cliff of her own accord.
“She committed suicide, Papa.” His breath came in short gasps, and he choked out his words. “I tried to catch her, but she stepped off the ledge.”
Carmine wrapped his arms around him. “Don’t tell anyone else that. Not even the police. I’ll talk to her parents.”
“But that’s what happened.”
“Shh.” His father stroked his back with calming force, but his words were urgent. “Suicide is a mortal sin. If you want her to have a funeral mass and a proper burial, you must say she was thrown from the car. Give her parents that much.”
“But the old man knows.” Lauro nodded toward the couple. The older woman had regained consciousness. Nino sat with them, monitoring her heartbeat with his fingers wrapped around her frail wrist.
Carmine grimaced. “I’ll speak to him. For Isabella’s sake, we must never speak of this again. Understand?”
A short distance away, Isabella’s father stood at the edge of the precipice. Signore Guardino’s large frame dwarfed by the mountains around him. He stared into the void below, silently weeping.
With quiet resolve, Carmine approached Signore Guardino and embraced him. They spoke, although Lauro couldn’t hear what was said.
Then his father strode across the road and knelt by the old man. After a few words, Carmine slid a card into the man’s breast coat pocket. The old man nodded.
Lauro squeezed his eyes shut. In the end, his papa would pay dearly to protect Isabella’s soul, but only Lauro’s atonement for her mortal sin would help his beloved reach her heavenly repose.
Isabella was laid to rest the day after Christmas, and Lauro had been consumed with grief. At the funeral mass at the Duomo, he and his parents paid their respects to Isabella’s memory and the Guardino family. For all Lauro knew, Isabella’s broken mother believed her daughter had died in the accident and not by her own will. Only he and Nino had witnessed the truth of that night.
Nino had left before sunrise that day, neglecting the funeral mass and burial. For all Lauro cared, his brother could leave and never return. If not for him, he and Isabella would be engaged and planning their wedding.
After a restless night filled with despair, Lauro rose and dressed hastily. What he had to do today was crucial—if Nino was still here. Filled with rage over Nino’s carelessness, he grabbed a pair of leather boots from beside the armoire.
Lauro gazed from the window across the jagged point where Isabella had died, vowing to pray for her soul to pay the penance for his brother’s misdeed. He clutched his chest, feeling as if his heart had cracked. After stomping his heels into his boots, Lauro crumpled under a wave of grief. Never would he forget Isabella.
Never would he love another. He crossed himself, ending with a solemn kiss.
How long would it be until he could think of her without feeling such intense longing?
Lauro pushed from the chair, knocking it against the wall. He staggered into the bathroom where he splashed cold water onto his face. Isabella chose to plunge to her death because of Nino, and he would never forgive him for that. His brother would pay for what he’d done to her.
Hastening from his room, he called out for his parents, but there was no answer. He expelled a sigh of relief. During the holidays, a family breakfast and horse ride was a tradition in their extended family, but he’d ignored the early knocks on the door.
Had Nino done so, too?
Making his way through the villa, he spied Nino on the terrace, leaning against the stone wall that enclosed the patio area. His eyes were trained on the cliff beneath them.
Where Isabella fell. Clenching his jaw, Lauro stormed outside. At his footsteps, a seagull startled and lifted off, flapping its great white wings until it was soaring against the brilliant blue sky toward the sea.
Nino turned. His eyes were bloodshot. Had he been crying over her? Isabella was the love of his life, not his brother’s.
“Thought you had gone riding with the rest of them,” Nino said.
“As if nothing had happened?” Lauro gritted his teeth. “You should’ve paid your respects to her family.”
“No one wanted to see me there. But I did send a condolence telegram.” Nino spread his hands in apology. “I’m truly sorry. I know how much Isabella meant to you. I grieve for her, too.”
Hearing his beloved’s name on Nino’s lips sent a flash of fury through him, and he advanced toward his brother. “Bastante! Don’t ever say her name. You don’t deserve to even speak of her. Never, you hear me?”
Nino bowed his head against the vitriolic gush.
His brother’s passivity was infuriating, and Lauro sliced the air with his hand and cursed. “I thought you’d gone yesterday.”
“You mean you’d hoped.” Nino brushed sand from the rock wall. “Papa wants me to stay.”
“I don’t.” A surge of anger shot through Lauro, and he could no longer contain himself. “All my life, I’ve lived in your shadow.”
“I can’t help it that I’m the older one, but you’re closer than a brother, Lauro. You’re my best friend. Surely we can get through this.” Nino offered an open hand to him.
Lauro ignored his gesture. Nothing would ever be the same between them again. “You said you’re leaving.”
“A few months ago, I applied for medical school. In Rome, of course, but also to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and Harvard in Boston. This is what I really want to do.”
“And leave your family? The business that will belong to you?” He let out a coarse laugh. “You’ll be rich one day.” His words came out more bitter than he’d intended. It wasn’t about the money.
As the elder son, Nino had all the advantages. It didn’t matter that Nino had little interest in the family business. Someday Nino would lead Cioccolata Savoia, and the family estate would pass to him. Every girl from every good family knew it; every mother had calculated the two brother’s disparate worth. The truth? Even Signore Guardino would have preferred Nino to him for his darling Isabella.
Nino let out a sigh. “I wish you’d been born first. You have no idea what a burden it is to try to live up to so many expectations. You’re the lucky one.” His voice changed and became impassioned with possibility. “You can do anything you want with your life. Travel anywhere; marry anyone you want.” He paused and shook his head. “Not me. Papa’s counting on me to take his place someday. To step into his life. Maybe I should stay, but…” His voice trailed off.
“Now you develop a conscience. But you’re right about one thing. I should be the one running the company.” Lauro jerked his thumb toward his chest. “I’ve always loved it more than you did.” Just like Isabella.
“You’re right. Maybe I’m a self-centered bastard.” Nino shifted his remorseful gaze toward the ocean. “I don’t belong here. I want to live my own life and make a difference in others’ lives.”
“Just not your own family’s life.” Lauro closed the space between them. “Then go. If you stay, I promise I’ll make your life hell. Not a day will go by that I won’t remind you of what you did to Isabella.”
“And I deserve that,” Nino said quietly. “I don’t know how I can ever repay her death to you, or to her family.”
How could Nino be so calm? Fury swelled within Lauro. On impulse, he shoved Nino against the stone wall, clenching the lapels of his brother’s jacket in his fists. “I could send you over this cliff right now. But I won’t. You’re already dead to me. Instead, you’re going to leave before our parents come back. And don’t bother sending letters or telegrams. I’ll see to it that none of them reach our parents. You’ve hurt them enough already.”
Nino gaped at him, speechless, but Lauro wasn’t finished.
“Go, live your selfish life. And don’t ever return.” Lauro released him. “That’s how you pay for Isabella’s death.”