Faber and Firenze grab me as I try to follow Mia out of the party. My eldest brother’s expression is filled with cold fury, while Firenze looks like he’s swallowed a lemon and a couple of rusty nails.
“Get your hands off me,” I growl, but they drag me into a side room and throw me onto a sofa, standing over me like I’m a disobedient child.
“Are you serious? Did you get your stepdaughter pregnant?” Faber seethes.
“I don’t know yet. That’s what I’m on my way to find out.”
I try to stand up, but Firenze pushes me back. “Screwing your wife’s daughter. You are unbelievable, Lazzaro.”
“Hey, I was only doing as I was instructed. Settle down, Lazzaro. Start a family, Lazzaro. You two are never fucking satisfied.”
I haven’t got time for this. Mia needs me, so I duck under Firenze’s arms and stalk toward the door.
“Where are you going?” calls Firenze.
“To find my woman and ask if she’s having my baby.”
“What about your wife?” Faber replies.
“You like her so much? You talk to her. I have nothing to say to that snake. The next time I hear her name, I’ll be signing divorce papers.”
Faber growls in frustration. “I’m not helping you. You are on your own with this shit. You’ve made your bed, now you lie in it.”
Bitterness floods my mouth, and I turn back to glare at him. “What about my inheritance?”
“You can kiss that goodbye.”
My hands curl into fists, and I consider throwing a punch at my brother’s handsome face. I can feel him wanting me to hit him and justify all his bullshit. “You know what? I don’t care. As long as I have Mia and our baby, nothing else matters.”
Faber’s expression goes slack with shock as I stride out of the room.
That’s right, asshole. I’m not going to let you control me anymore. I’ll find a way to make my ambitions come true on my own.
Everyone’s crowded around a sobbing Giulia as I pass by the party guests and head out the door. I don’t have my car, so I guess I’ll walk until I can flag a taxi down. Rieta will have taken Mia to her house, so that’s where I’ll go.
I make it three blocks before I hear someone behind me.
“Hey, asshole.”
I roll my eyes and don’t bother turning around. I recognize the voice of Marzio Bianchi, and I can guess what he wants. “Not now. Fight me after I’ve talked to Mia. I’ll even let you take the first swing.”
“You’re a dead man, Rosetti,” Marzio growls, and footsteps pound on the sidewalk.
I dodge to one side, and he goes flying past me, but before I can pat myself on the back for getting the better of him, someone else grabs me and shoves me into an alley.
Tomaso Bianchi, with Roberto behind him. Tomaso snatches up a piece of two-by-four and brandishes it like a baseball bat. Marzio blocks my exit.
I look from one brother to the next and then glance behind me. Dead end. I’m penned in. These men aren’t wannabe kick-fighting himbos. They’re grade-A murderous assholes, and this situation is too sticky for my taste.
I guess I’ll make them so angry they can’t think.
“I’m on my way to find out whether Mia’s pregnant or not. Don’t you want to know how much I’ve shamed your family before you beat me to a pulp?”
“I always hated your fucking face,” Marzio sneers. “It’s about time we rearranged it for you.”
“Like I rearranged your niece’s guts?” I ask with a smirk.
All three men turn shades of red and purple.
Roberto lunges at me, and I plaster my back against the alley wall. He stumbles past me, and I duck as Marzio tries to grab me. I’m about to push past them all and make a break for freedom when Tomaso smashes the two-by-four into my temple. Pain erupts through my skull, and black spots rage before my eyes.
Jesus fuck.
It would be too easy to pass out right now.
But I’m not going down like this.
I’m getting to Mia before these gargoyles do.
I fight my way through the men, just clinging to consciousness with my arm raised above my head to protect myself from more blows.
But I’m not thinking about my legs.
Marzio kicks me sharply in the knee, and my leg crumples uselessly under me.
I try to crawl toward the alley entrance, but they all start kicking me in the guts and kidneys. They’re not going to just hurt me. These men are going to murder me and bury my body in a shallow grave.
Mia.
I have to get to Mia.
Tomaso raises the plank of wood above his head, malice burning in his eyes, and I know I’m finished.
Just another dead Rosetti with his blood running over the dirty, wet streets of this godforsaken city.
I’m so sorry, Bambi.
I wanted more than anything to stay. I . . .
. . . love you.
Shards of glass are driving their way through my skull. Strobe lights are pulsing in the darkness behind my closed eyes.
If this is death, it sucks.
I slowly drag my eyelids open and see the world from a strange angle. I’m lying on a cold concrete floor. There’s not a lot of light wherever I am, but I can see a grille in front of my face like I’m in a cage.
I lift my head and take a look around, groaning as my heartbeat pounds in my ear, my temple, and the back of my skull. Everywhere those assholes beat me.
Yeah. It’s a cage. A storage cage where you might lock up valuable things like wine, but a cage just the same.
“Look who’s awake. Hello, Sleeping Beauty.” Marzio gets up from a chair and strolls across the cellar toward me, a gloating smile on his face.
I push my fingers through the metal grille and drag myself up to sitting. The world spins and my stomach threatens to turn itself inside out. I haven’t taken a beating like this in years. My face must be red and purple, and I probably have a concussion.
I cautiously move my limbs and extremities. No broken ribs, legs, or fingers that I can tell. All I have to do it break out of here, get a weapon in my hands, and beat Giulia’s brothers to death with it.
I glance up and around. Easier said than done. The cage goes all the way to the ceiling and is bolted into the floor. There’s one door with a massive padlock. Everything looks shiny, new, and strong.
I turn my attention to the piece of shit in front of me. “Either kill me or stop wasting my time. I need to talk to Mia.”
“That girl is none of your business, and she doesn’t want to speak to you.”
I haul myself to my feet and rattle the bars of the cage as hard as I can. “That’s a lie!”
Marzio pulls a baseball bat from behind his back and slams it over my fingers. I gasp in pain and yank them back through the grille, lose my balance, and fall painfully to one knee.
“Listen up, you piece of shit. You’re never laying eyes on that girl again. You’re never seeing daylight again. You’re going to rot down here.”
We’ll see about that. I wonder why they haven’t killed me, but I suppose they can’t murder a Rosetti without bringing Faber’s wrath down on their heads. They’re stuck with me until they can figure out what to do with me.
Which gives me time to figure out an escape.
Marzio flashes a nasty smile and heads toward the door.
“Wait. I need to take a piss,” I call after him.
“What do you think the bucket is for?”
There’s one empty bucket in my cell, and one with some scummy-looking water. Great. Just great.
I splash water on my face to get the blood off and take a drink, then lie down on the cold floor. The world spins around me, and I close my eyes, vowing to make every Bianchi but Mia pay for what they’re doing to me.
Mia.
I’ve left her at the center of a clusterfuck and she’s all alone.
I must pass out again because the next thing I hear are high-heeled footsteps approaching. There’s an ominous ring to the sound.
I crack open an eye and see a dark-haired woman dressed in a red pantsuit, heavy gold jewelry around her neck and in her ears. I wonder how angry she is with me.
My wife lays a stack of papers on the table near the door and folds her arms across her chest, gazing down at me like I’m a worm. “You just keep on digging that grave for yourself, don’t you, Lazzaro? Look at you down there. Almost six feet under already. Soon it will be time to shovel dirt over your rotting corpse.”
I’d say her anger is about a ten.
Too bad I don’t give two fucks. I haul myself upright, my head spinning. “I need to speak to Mia.”
Giulia examines her manicure. She’s got fresh red polish, I notice. My wife has entered her supervillain era.
She’s trying to appear casual, but she’s burning up from the inside. “Mia this. Mia that. It’s been like that ever since you entered my house. Why are you so obsessed with my daughter? Why is it that every time she’s in the room, all you can look at is her?”
“Because I love her.”
Giulia sneers and rolls her eyes. “Please. Stop making up stupid stories. You’re a lowlife piece of shit who fucked around in my house, and you’re finding out what happens to unfaithful men.”
Like she’s so perfect. “I love her. You do remember what love feels like, don’t you, Giulia?”
She pinches her brow. “I don’t care what—”
“Mia’s father. You were in love with that kitchenhand.”
“Restaurant owner,” she says through her teeth.
I think I’ve touched a nerve. “If I’d had the chance to meet Mia and get to know her before I married you, I would have—”
Giulia slams her palm against my cage. “You would have what? Passed over me for that little slut?”
This poisonous bitch. There’s no telling what she calls Mia to her face while I’m stuck in here. I stand up, my chest heaving with fury. “Don’t talk about Mia that way.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please. Like you care how I talk about Mia. All you care about is tainting my family with your shame.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to get this through your thick skull. Let me break it down into tiny fucking sentences. I love Mia. Mia’s the one I want. Not you. Not revenge. Not anything else. Just Mia and my baby.”
Giulia stares at me like I’ve gone crazy. “You really expect me to believe that? Fabrizio has told me everything. You live to cause trouble, and you always have.”
She didn’t deny that there’s a baby.
Mia’s pregnant.
I want to shout with joy and jump around my cage, but now is not the time.
I growl in frustration and push my fingers through my hair. “For fuck’s sake, Giulia. Is someone loving Mia so impossible to you? If you’d paid one scrap of attention to your youngest daughter you would have seen that not only is she beautiful, but she’s sensitive, sweet, and funny as well. How could I not fall for her?”
Giulia’s shaking her head, but she’s turning pale.
“Mia is ten times the woman you are. Maybe she’s the black sheep of your family, but I’m going to make her the queen of mine. When I get out of here, I’m divorcing you, marrying her, and getting the hell out of here with my wife and baby.”
“Your baby? We’ll see about that,” she seethes.
“What?”
Giulia recovers from her shock and her eyes glow with malice. “Mia is not going to make the same mistake as her mother. She’ll make the sensible decision, and then forget all about you. In fact, we’ve already talked it over this afternoon when I showed her my divorce papers. We’re both washing our hands of you.”
My blood runs cold. “What do you mean?”
“The world doesn’t need any more Lazzaro Rosettis.”
I start breathing faster. “Mia would never do that to our baby. She knows this is all part of the plan for us to be together. She trusted me to make this happen for us.”
Giulia smiles wider, glee etched in every line of her face. “Mia’s been crying on my shoulder night and morning about how you tricked her into getting pregnant. What a cruel and stupid man you are, Lazzaro. Do you suppose that any woman on the planet could forgive you for such an appalling thing?”
I expected Mia to be angry with me. I knew she’d shout and call me names, but I thought once we got through that, she’d see that it solved all our problems.
I’m locked in a cage, and I can’t remind her she’s loved. Our baby is loved. She’s not alone because she has me.
“Mia, darling,” Giulia says in an affected voice. “I’m so sorry that your twisted, disgusting stepfather was sleeping with both of us, trying to get us both pregnant. You got caught up in his sick plan to humiliate the Bianchis. And now where is he? He’s run away.”
My chest heaves. “You lying bitch. I haven’t laid a finger on you in months.”
Giulia gives an eloquent shrug, smiling from ear to ear. “That’s not what she thinks now, and who’s going to tell her otherwise? Who’s going to tell Mia that she’s loved and she should keep the baby?” She glances up and down my black-and-blue body, scorn filling her eyes. “You?”
I slam my fists against the bars, trying to smash my way through them and get to her. “Why are you doing this, Giulia? Why can’t you let us be happy? You don’t care about me, and you never have.”
“You humiliated me in front of my friends and family. I’m the laughingstock of this city, and you’re going to pay for my humiliation. First, I’m going to make you suffer, and then every trace of you is going to be wiped off this planet. It will be like you never existed. It’s not like you achieved anything in your worthless life. No one is going to mourn you. Not me. Not your brothers. Not your precious Mia.”
This bitch really knows how to go in for the kill. “My brothers will wage war on your family if you murder me in cold blood. They hate me most of the time, but blood is blood.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I guess we’ll find out.” Giulia turns on her heel and strolls out with the confidence of a woman who’s getting everything she wants.
Rage boils over in my chest, and I shout after her, “You don’t know your daughter very well if you think she believed anything you said to her about me.”
My wife turns back to me. “I’ve known my daughter for eighteen years. I know every single one of her weaknesses. Her fears. Do you really think that you learned all there is to know about my daughter while she was giving you a lap dance in a lilac wig?”
I wasn’t expecting that, and Giulia smirks as she witnesses my shock. There’s no way that Mia told her mom about working as a stripper. There’s no way.
Giulia gives me a pitying smile. “Don’t fool yourself that you know Mia better than I do, Lazzaro.”
I beat my fist against the bars. “I want to talk to Mia.”
“In your dreams. Enjoy your little holiday down here. While it lasts.”
I stick my fingers through the bars of the cage and rattle them. “Then I want to talk to Rieta. Send Rieta down here.”
Rieta is the only other reasonable member of this family, and she knows how much Mia and I care for each other. She’ll be mad at me for the trick I pulled with the birth control pills, but she’ll listen to me. I’ll explain that it was the only way for Mia and me to marry and become a family.
She starts walking again. “What you want doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Screw you, Giulia.” I pull the wedding ring off my finger and throw it through the bars. It bounces twice, rolls across the concrete, and comes to rest at her feet.
My wife glances at it, and just keeps on walking.
As Giulia disappears through the door, I hear her say, “You can go in now. I’m finished with him. Get the papers signed before you break all his fingers.”
A moment later, Marzio, Tomaso, and Roberto step into the basement. All three of them are carrying baseball bats and are wearing protective gear.
I sneer at them. Three against one, and they’re still terrified I’m going kill them with my bare hands. “You three stink of fear.”
Roberto unlocks the cage and steps back. “Come on then, dickhead. Fight your way out of here if you can.”
All three are hitting their palms with their bats. I stare past them to freedom. Mia’s out there.
I pull open the door and step out of the cage, unarmed and unprotected, and spread my arms, the hunger to get to my girl fueling my appetite to fight.
“Bring it on, assholes.”
