After a few soothing moments, I released Luke and maneuvered until he couldn’t escape my gaze. “Tell me what happened to her. Maybe I can give you a fresh perspective.”
My fiancé tried to speak but failed in his abject guilt. He motioned to Cassio to tell the tale for him.
“Isabella possessed a very strong will. Nobody would refuse her anything. What she wanted, she usually got. And yet, she was the least spoiled girl I had ever known.” A smile crept over Cassio’s lips. “So giving. So kind. Always wanting to look after others and their needs first before her own.”
“Sounds a lot like her brother,” I said, trying to get Luke to ease up on himself.
Cassio raised an eyebrow at his friend. “I don’t know. This one tends to brood a lot more than Isa did.” He shoved Luke in jest. “Remember?”
A smile replaced my fiancé’s grimace. “She would tease me and do things to try and make me smile. The game became how long we could both hold out. She almost always won.”
Cassio joined Luke in light laughter until he mused, “Isabella was the best of us. But her headstrong ways got her into trouble she could not easily escape.”
Luke cleared his throat and turned his haunted eyes to mine. “When she became of age, my parents presented suitor after suitor, wanting to marry her off. And back in those days, they focused on matches that would strengthen the family’s power.”
“So, other vampire royals,” I guessed, trying to imagine what life would be like as a female having her life bartered and traded for position. “Let me guess. She wanted to marry for love instead, which upset Mommy and Daddy.”
With a nod, Luke confirmed my suspicions. “It wasn’t so much that she fell in love. My parents would have understood that since they were a love match. But it was about the person she chose.”
“He was a witch,” I finished for him, a knot of dread twisting in my stomach.
“She kept her lover a secret for far longer than I would have guessed,” Cassio added. “The three of us shared everything with each other. But not him.”
The cold way he spoke about Isabella’s boyfriend concerned me, but I didn’t want to derail the conversation to explore his personal issues.
“What happened when your parents found out?” I asked. “Because in my experience, secrets don’t stay secrets for very long in a family.”
Luke looked off to the side as if seeing the scene he described. “Mother chose her timing well when she confronted Isa with the fact that she knew. Told her that a temporary dalliance was okay but that she needed to think about her obligations as a de Rossi. That marriage and love did not have to exist together if she so wished.”
After considering his words, I gaped at him in surprise. “You mean, your mom suggested she should marry to further your family’s power but keep her witch boyfriend on the side?”
Luke shrugged. “She thought as any vampire would. At some point, Isabella’s love would perish where we would not.”
His easy dismissal of the life of the witch that Isabella loved chilled me, and I shivered. I would return to that topic another time, but I needed to hear the rest of the story.
“How does all of this connect to Isabella’s death?” I pushed.
Cassio volunteered more information. “Luke’s father was not as understanding as his mother, and he demanded that Isabella give up the witch. He would not settle for anything less than her obedience in the matter.”
“And my sister did what was in her nature. Maybe in both of our natures,” Luke said with a little self-loathing. “She made plans to leave the family life and join her witch.”
“But somehow, your parents figured it out and caught her before she left,” Cassio added.
Luke stepped away from both me and his friend. He paced over to the window and stared out into the darkness. “Father wanted to force her. To bend her to his will. So, he placed her in the tower.”
“Like Rapunzel? Locked away from the rest of the world?” I asked. “But she was a vampire. Couldn’t she just jump out of a window and not die?”
“Isabella was caught between what was expected of her and what she wanted.” Cassio’s eyes flashed to Luke. “I think she thought that if she waited long enough, her parents would accept her feelings for her lover.”
“How long was she in the tower?” I asked in a quiet voice, already guessing the time to be long enough to cause a disaster.
Luke leaned his arm against the window. “By the time I came to talk sense into her, she had been isolated for over six months. No contact with anyone, shut away from all stimulation.” He cocked his head to the side so he could see me. “The locals called the tower Torre del Pianto. It means Tower of Tears because the residents down below could hear her cries.”
“That’s terrible,” I uttered, trying not to cry from sympathy for his sister.
Cassio closed the distance between them to stand beside Luke. He placed his arm around my fiancé. “You tried to get her to change her mind. You did your absolute best, from what you told me.”
“But it wasn’t good enough.” Luke banged his fist against the frame of the window with a dull thud. “I will never forget her words to me, that I wouldn’t understand why she couldn’t give in until I had experienced the same kind of passionate love myself. Instead of being sympathetic, I said that her stubbornness would be her undoing. And that she should stop acting like a child. My final words to my sister were those of anger, not sympathy she so desperately needed from her brother.”
Guilt dripped off of every word Luke uttered, and I wanted to be the one to console him. I approached and waited for Cassio to move out of the way.
Slipping
