Chapter One
The streets of Florence were almost deserted at one thirty in the morning.
Almost.
There were a few tourists and locals, groups of young people looking for entertainment, homeless people begging, and Raven Wood, limping slowly down the uneven street that led from the Uffizi Gallery to the Ponte Santa Trinita.
Raven had been at a party with colleagues from the gallery and foolishly declined a ride home. Her friend Patrick had offered, since her Vespa was in the shop, but she knew he didn’t want to leave Gina’s flat. He’d been nursing a secret crush on Gina for months. On this evening, he seemed to have succeeded in attracting her attention.
Marginally.
Raven didn’t have the heart to separate the prospective lovers. While she accepted that love was not for her, she took secret delight in the love lives of others, especially her friends. So she insisted on finding her own way home. That was how she found herself walking, with the assistance of her cane, toward her small flat in Santo Spirito, which was on the other side of the river.
Little did she realize that her decision to decline a ride home would have far-reaching consequences for herself and her friends.
Her colleagues wrongly assumed her limp was something she’d been born with, and so, out of politeness, they ignored it. She was grateful for their silence, since her limp held a dark secret she was unwilling to tell.
She didn’t think of herself as handicapped. She thought of herself as mildly disabled. Her right leg was somewhat shorter than the other and her foot turned outward slightly, at an unnatural angle. She couldn’t run and she knew it was painful to watch her walking. At least she tried to make her ever-present cane attractive, decorating it with whimsical designs drawn by her own artistic hand. She laughingly called it her boyfriend and dubbed him Henry.
Some women might have been worried about walking the streets of Florence late at night, but not Raven. She rarely attracted attention, apart from the rude stares at her leg. In fact, people often ran into or brushed past her as if she were invisible, making far too much body contact.
This was likely because of her appearance. The polite would have termed her figure Rubenesque, if they could have found it under her oversized clothes. To modern eyes she was overweight, her extra pounds compounded by baggy garments and well-worn sneakers that added little to her five-foot-seven height. Her hair was dark, almost as dark as a raven’s wing, and carelessly pulled into a ponytail that swept her shoulders. In comparison to the many attractive and well-dressed women who inhabited Florence, she was considered plain.
But her eyes were beautiful, large and deep and almost an absinthe green. Alas, no one ever took the time to notice her eyes, hidden as they were behind oversized black frames. Not that Raven would have been comfortable with the attention. She wore the glasses in order to distance herself from people, switching them for reading glasses that actually aided her eyesight, when necessary.
As she approached the Ponte Santa Trinita from the Lungarno degli Acciaiuoli, she cursed the fact that she hadn’t brought an umbrella. The rain was enough to clear the streets and bridge of pedestrians, but not enough to soak her. She elected not to seek shelter and simply continued, limping as she did everything else—with dogged determination.
She watched as a trio of rough-looking men approached the bridge ahead of her from Via de’ Tornabuoni. They were not deterred by the rain, their speech loud and raucous, their steps unsteady. The sight of drunks in the city center was not unusual, but Raven’s pace slowed. She knew too well the unpredictability of a drunk.
She clutched her old, worn knapsack more tightly as she continued toward the bridge. It was at that moment she saw Angelo.
Angelo was a homeless man who spent his days and nights begging for coins. Raven passed him on her way to and from the Uffizi. She always stopped to greet him and give him money or some food. She felt a kinship with him since they both walked with a cane. Angelo was developmentally disabled, which only increased her compassion.
As she walked, her gaze traveled from Angelo to the drunks and back again. A terrible feeling of dread passed over her.
“Good evening, friends!” Angelo’s Italian pierced the rainy darkness. “A few coins, please.”
The cheerful hope in his voice caused Raven’s stomach to churn. She knew the cruel fate of hope when it was misdirected.
She began limping faster, her eyes fixed on her friend, willing herself not to trip and fall. She was almost to the bridge when she saw Angelo lifting his hands and crying out.
The largest man was urinating on him. Angelo tried to move away, but the man followed. The other men cheered.
Raven was not shocked.
Angelo was homeless, dirty, crippled, and slow. Each of these features would kindle any latent cruelty in the Florentine men.
She felt shouts of protest bubble up in her throat. But she didn’t open her mouth.
She should intervene. She knew it. Evil flourished when good people walked by and said nothing.
Raven kept walking.
She was tired after a long day of work and an evening at Gina’s. She was eager to return to her small, quiet flat on the Piazza Santo Spirito. All the same, she was conscious of Angelo’s cries and the laughter and cursing of the men.
The largest man finished urinating with a flourish, returning himself to the confines of his jeans. Without warning, he lifted a booted foot and kicked Angelo in the ribs. He cried out in pain, slumping to the ground.
Raven stopped.
The other men joined in, kicking and cursing Angelo without regard to his screams. Blood poured from his mouth as he writhed on the sidewalk.
“Stop!” The loud cry, in Italian, filled her ears. In an instant, she felt joy at the fact that someone, anyone, had come to Angelo’s rescue.
But her joy turned to horror when the men stopped and stared in her direction.
“Stop,” she repeated, in a much quieter tone.
The men exchanged glances and the largest one said something derisive to his companions. He stalked in her direction.
As he approached, Raven could see he was broad shouldered and tall, his head shaven, his eyes dark. She resisted the urge to retreat.
“Go.” The man waved at her dismissively.