“You have to stop being sweet to me, Elijah.” A fresh flood of tears tracked down her face. Embarrassed, she tried to turn her face away, but his hand, firm but gentle, prevented movement. She had cried in front of him too many times, but her brain had simply refused to process her grandfather’s death until that moment. “I can’t pretend I didn’t say those awful things to him. I can’t pretend Paolo didn’t shoot him because he was going to change his mind and let me choose someone else.”

“You aren’t thinking this through, Siena,” he said, his thumb moving through the tears on her face. “He couldn’t dictate to you who you would marry. Both of them knew that. Paolo didn’t court you because he was certain he didn’t have to. We aren’t in a country where there are arranged marriages. All you would have to do is say no. Both of them had to know you could do that, yet Paolo felt confident enough to beat you and then calmly walk downstairs and talk to your grandfather. He didn’t act remorseful. You told Drake he didn’t even say he was sorry.”

Had she said that? Drake had asked her a lot of questions when she was there in the hospital and she’d answered all of them as honestly as possible. Elijah had been in the room because he never seemed to leave. He’d heard everything she’d said—and clearly he remembered it.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Paolo has something on you, something to connect you to the murders. He’s counting on that to force you to marry him. He’s so certain you’ll do what he wants that he hasn’t bothered to court you or pretend that he’s going to treat you decently.”

Her heart stopped and then began to stutter in her chest. Hard. The blood drained from her face and she tasted fear in her mouth. Stricken, her eyes met Elijah’s. “Oh. My. God. He does.” She shook her head. “But he can’t. I didn’t even know they were killing anyone. What could they possibly have on me?”

“The wine. It connects you to all of the murders. You show up with the wine and within hours the man you visited is dead. Drake checked into it with his police friends and there was never a case of wine at any of the houses. Marco had to have brought the wine back with him.”

She chewed slowly, not tasting the delicious cheese sandwich. “If the wine wasn’t there, how could it possibly throw suspicion on me?”