Seduced in the City by Jo Leigh

Author:Jo Leigh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

13

SARA WAS SEATED across from Armanda Jacometti and her husband, Gaspare, in the living room of what used to be a notorious tenement in the heart of the old Little Italy. It had once been three apartments, but Paladino & Sons had remodeled the building, and made it a comfortable home for them and their four children, all of whom had moved out of the city.

The room itself was a tapestry of their family history, from the Victorian flocked wallpaper behind the plastic-covered couch that would have been at home in the 1930s, to the yellowed photographs in frames and on the walls. While there were some new things like a flat-screen TV and leather recliner, the overall feeling was of the past.

Sara had learned all of this before she’d asked her first question. But the wine was excellent, and Armanda Jacometti was turning out to be fascinating. A very good thing since Sara was having the worst time keeping her mind off Dom.

“Regina never really listened when Bisnonno, my great-grandfather, told his stories. She was too busy with boys. Obsessed with them. Day and night and day and night. But I listened. That’s how I know what kind of life it was in the early days. He would tell us how, when he was a boy, they had no heat in winter, no air in summer. His parents worked all the time, and they barely could feed the family. He dropped out of school, which wasn’t even a real school, when he was ten, and started selling papers on a street corner. Then he says nothing happened until he got married at seventeen, but I know a lot happened.”

She glanced over at Mr. Jacometti, but his chin had hit his sizable chest and his eyes were at half-mast. So she probably wouldn’t get to ask much about his family. Turning back to Armanda, she remembered something Regina had said. “I thought your great-grandfather worked for a newspaper.”

“Worked? He made next to nothing. He had eight brothers and sisters, and they all lived in three rooms, and there wasn’t even a toilet inside. But how he made some money that actually helped was doing work for la Mano Nera.”

“The Black Hand. I read about them, but I thought they were only in Naples in the eighteenth century.”

“They came here, too.”

A movement caught Sara’s eyes, but it was just Mr. Jacometti waking up a bit. Probably not for long.

“No one likes to talk about the Black Hand, let me tell you. You ask most of the people in church, and they’ll say they never heard of it, but I know better. I found a letter once. Nonna caught me with it and burned it in the sink. Told me to forget what I’d read.”

“Do you remember the letter?”

Armanda glanced at her husband, who hadn’t said one word yet, but he was awake, eyes narrowed.

When Armanda looked at Sara again, it was with a sense of excitement. “It had a big picture on it.

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