Dante's Dilemma (a Dante Legacy Novella) Read Online Free Page A

by The Inferno. If family legend ran true, he’d been changed by his connection to Julietta, just as he’d been changed from the youth he’d been five short years ago when he’d left home, a teenager intent on becoming a jewelry designer like his distant Dante relatives.
    The years had branded him, much as The Inferno had, while home and hearth remained as it had always been. Living in
Firenze
—Florence—for the past several years had shaken most of the rustic from his boots. And though part of him remained rooted in the rich soil of his birthplace, another part had been forever altered during his apprenticeship and University studies in the city. He thought of the letter, tucked carefully in his trouser pocket. Soon it would undergo an even more drastic alteration.
    Across from him, his mother gasped. “
Santa Maria, Madre di Dio!
”
    At first, Rom didn’t understand, not until he saw what had drawn his mother’s attention. He glanced at his hands, at the way he dug his thumb into his palm. “Mamma—”
    “It’s the Dante curse. It’s The Inferno.” She burst into tears and crossed herself repeatedly. “Who? Who have you also cursed?”
    “No, you don’t understand. It’s not a curse. It’s a…”
    The room had gone deathly silent, and his words trailed off. His stepfather glared at him in outrage, his expression mirrored by his three sons. As one, they stood. “Come, Nicci,” Luigi said. He took her arm and helped her from her chair, drawing her close. He paused in the doorway to address Rom. “You will not shame your mother further, is it understood? If you do so, you will no longer be welcome here.”
    Rom had no idea how long he sat there, surrounded by the cooling remains of their dinner. He didn’t wake to his surroundings until
Nonno
placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come with me, Romero.”
    His grandfather snagged a pair of beer bottles and inclined his head toward his garden. Rom followed, guilt waging a bitter war with defiance. They didn’t understand. None of them. What he felt for Julietta wasn’t a curse. He refused to believe it. Granted, a hint of desperation underscored his passion for her, but all men experienced that in the arms of a beautiful woman. And if his craving rose to a level he’d never known with any other, he refused to believe the connection between them resulted from a curse. Not when it felt so pure. So right.
    So eternal.
    A waxing moon, fast approaching full, cast a soft radiance over the fragrant garden.
Nonno
paused near his precious herbs, breaking off a bit of tarragon to roll between his gnarled fingers. Its lemony-licorice scent perfumed the night air. He sighed and eased himself on to a nearby bench.
    “So. It has happened,” he stated with devastating simplicity.
    Rom didn’t bother to deny it. “Yes.”
    “You do not seem overjoyed by this event. Is it because of what Luigi and your mother said?”
    “No.” He joined his grandfather, stretching his long legs across the flagstones paving the garden walkway and sipping his beer. “Okay, maybe a little. They think it’s a curse. But what I felt…”
    “Is more like a blessing?”
    “Yes!” He straightened and turned to face his grandfather. “Yes. That is what I feel when I touch her. Like I’ve been blessed.”
    “And so you have.”
Nonno
set aside his beer bottle and took Rom’s hand in his, pressing his thumb into his grandson’s palm. “Do you feel this itch? This burn that spreads deeper with each beat of your heart? That is not a curse. It is a message. You must listen to the message or suffer the consequences.”
    “What consequences?”
    His grandfather’s eyes—identical to Rom’s own—pierced the darkness. “When you listen to The Inferno, when you do as it directs, your life will be blessed. This is why Dantes, other than your poor mamma, call it a blessing.”
    “Our Dante cousins say it’s a blessing, too. Only…”
    “Only they don’t feel the burn, do