It’s like waking up into a dream.
Elisa is on my arm, still as pure as any angel. Her innocence truly is incorruptible. Last night, I put my theory to the test. I made her trust me and then I stripped away all pretenses.
Our lust was raw and exposed and when it came out on the other side of the pressure cooker, it wasn’t lust anymore. It was a diamond. Something more than physical desire and sultry attraction.
Elisa said she was falling. Falling for me. I said I’d catch her. It’s the truth, but the only reason I’m there on the ground waiting to catch her is because I’ve already fallen.
I’m in love. I just wasn’t strong enough to say it.
Even this morning, as the soft sunlight drifts in through the windows of our bedroom, I have a hard time admitted it to myself. I definitely wouldn’t dare tell her. Still, I think she knows.
That’s why I can’t stick around. I’m too vulnerable when I’m with her.
After a quick shower, I check my phone and see that Nolan has called. I immediately call him back, desperate for a distraction.
“What’s up?”
“Manuel Vignotto says he has Dmitry Gazin.”
Even through the steamy warmth of the bathroom, my blood runs cold.
“Has he confirmed it with you?” I don’t trust that bastard Manuel any further than I can throw him. He’s the one that Ciro supposedly ‘ran’ to after he ‘escaped’ the Russians. The whole story has sounded fishy from the start, but Manuel has stuck to it. So has Ciro. And none of the Russians we’ve caught and interrogated have had anything different to say on the matter.
My phone buzzes. “Just sent you the picture they sent me,” Nolan says. “It should already be in your inbox, but let’s compare. It looks legit to me.”
I put him on speaker phone and check out the image. Sure enough, a man who looks like Dmitry Gazin is in it. He’s bloodied and tied to a chair, flanked by two heavily armed Italian body guards who look like they could belong to Manuel. Still, “I don’t trust that fucker, Nolan. Do you? If we’re going to see him, it should be with a small army.”
“I agree. I’ll get into contact with Shane and the Bulldog and tell them to put together a task force for that very purpose. They’ll have a little bit of time, because there’s another meeting we need to go to first. I’m assuming you just woke up and haven’t checked your email yet?”
He’s right, but I don’t want to admit it. That would make me appear sluggish. Even though Nolan is my right-hand man, and part of his job is to check out every lead even before I can so that he can lend his educated opinion on them in real-time, I still eagerly pull up my inbox and find the email. It only takes a quick scan to get the gist of it. “The Family wants to meet again already?”
“They’ve requested your presence. Are you looking at it now? I’ve gone over it. Seems as though your display of the D’Ignoti princess last night really got through to them. They’re scared and they want to re-commit to you, Aiden. None of them want us to do anything to their precious daughters. They saw the way Elisa looked at you last night. They know it’s no joke…”
“The Kilpatrick princess,” I mumble, my mind suddenly drifting.
“What?”
“She’s the Kilpatrick princess now,” then I snap back to reality. “But never mind, I’ve read the email. Contact Shane and Niall and tell them the plan. You help them with that. I’ll call Dad and bring him to the meeting with The Family. We’ll meet up in the afternoon and see if Manuel is really telling the truth.” I check out the signatures at the bottom of the email and see one from every head, including Manuel. “Looks like Vignotto is cc’d on the email,” I point out. “Put a trail on him right now. If he shows up at the first meeting, I want someone on his ass right afterwards to follow him to the second one. If he’s pulling any funny shit, we’ll put a bullet in his head the second he steps out of his car.”
“How many men do you want to trail him?”
“Just put a couple of skilled marksmen. One or two shooters who know how to use a sniper. Save the big army stuff for the Dmitry Gazin meet-up location. This tail needs to be quiet. I want Manuel to show his true colors.”
“Yes, boss. Anything else?”
The bathroom door squeaks open and Elisa walks in. She looks too pure to be part of this dirty world, but maybe that’s just because her sultry naked body is covered up by one of my oversized t-shirts. She must have rummaged through my closet after waking up. I don’t mind. She looks smoking hot.
But I don’t have time for that right now.
I immediately take Nolan off speaker and press the phone up to my ear. “That’s all. Let me know when everything is set up.”
“Is everything alright?” Elisa asks the second I hang up.
A useless struggle kicks up inside of me. Part of me just wants to stay in bed with her again for the rest of the week, at least until the wedding. But that part of me is weak, and I quickly crush it under the weight of my responsibilities.
“Everything is fine,” I grumble. Stepping forward, I palm Elisa’s ears and give her a strong kiss to the forehead. “Today will be a busy one. I’m sending you back to the hills. I’ll be home tonight.” Before she can answer, I’ve sent the order to my pilot through a text.
My insistence hardly matters. Elisa doesn’t put up a fight. “Okay.”
I grab her wrist and lead her back to the bedroom. Sure enough, my closet is open. “I don’t have any girl clothes here, but you can grab my sweatshirt and some sweatpants.”
Elisa looks out of the floor-to-ceiling bedroom window, puzzled. “It might be a little warm for all of that,” she notes.
“On the ground, maybe.” I smile “But you’ll be traveling by air.”
“The helicopter?”
As if on cue, the sound of approaching rotors rumbles the floor. “Hurry, princess. Your carriage awaits. I’ll be back before midnight. I promise.”
I immediately regret saying that. It’s not a promise I can keep. Who knows how this day will go? It was a foolish thing to promise, but when I see the hope sparkle in Elisa’s autumn eyes, I realize that the promise wasn’t really for her. It was for me. I want to be home before midnight. I want to be with her again as soon as possible.
Elisa is quick about choosing her baggy outfit and I lead her up onto the landing pad on the roof. Three guards help her onto the aircraft as I signal to the pilot that he’s carrying precious cargo. Be fucking careful.
We say goodbye and I stand in the wake of the rising helicopter as it takes off again and flies Elisa back off to the place that we both now call home. I don’t take my eyes off of the aircraft until it disappears into the horizon. Only then can I focus back on the task at hand.
Dad and I meet at the office before heading to The Family’s lair.
“Looks like you finally had a good night’s rest,” he teases when we meet out front at the car.
“Now I’m going to pay for it,” I grumble. We slide into the backseat of the limo and set off.
“Always so negative,” Dad plays. He’s in a good mood this morning, he must have had just the right amount of wine last night. I imagine the relief of finally retiring from one of the most stressful jobs there is also has him feeling quite a bit lighter. Well, he deserves it. I don’t mind the pressure. Really, I just want to do right by him. “Your plan is working. The emergence of your princess last night has whipped those Italian bastards back into shape. They saw how she looked at you. They know you have your figurehead. There will be nowhere for them to hide after you’re married at week’s end. How’s the planning for that going, by the way?”
My response is a grunt. “The women take care of that. Meave has been arranging everything. I’m focusing on business.”
“Good. Good. Just make sure to enjoy it while it’s happening, it should only come around once.”
“None of this is for my enjoyment, Dad. This is business.”
“Of course. But that doesn’t mean you have to deny yourself.” Dad sinks into his seat and fiddles with his watch.
“Deny myself?”
“Elisa wasn’t the only one looking at her date with a twinkle in her eye,” he smirks.
A hot javelin of embarrassment spears through me. I tried to play it cool last night, but I guess my feelings for Elisa are getting too strong to hide. I’m falling…
“I was acting,” I lie.
“There’s no pretending when it comes to that. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, son. You care for the girl. That’s a good thing. I was worried that I’d doomed you to a loveless life.”
“I don’t love her,” I growl.
Dad just smiles and shakes his head. “I’ve seen that look before, Aiden. I see it whenever I look at old pictures of your mother and me.”
My heart stops. Anger and shame and sadness swirl around behind my chest. “Now is not the time, Dad.”
“Just know that it’s alright. Love doesn’t make you weak. Love makes you strong.”
That’s not the first time I’ve heard him say that. But thoughts of Elisa are only distracting me from the task at hand. We’re so close to getting what we want. What I want. But if I falter at all, everything could come crumbling down again.
I won’t allow that to happen.
“Love can wait,” I say.
Dad sighs. “When I was young, I used to think the same thing. The first time, it almost made me lose your mother. The second time, it did.”
More talk of Mom is the last thing I need. But Dad has a way of talking about her that just makes me want to hear more. I just want to see her again. It’s impossible, I know, but through Dad, I can at least feel her, remember her.
“What do you mean?” I ask, heart clenched and ready for more pain.
Dad peers out of his window, lost in the past. The cheer he greeted me with is gone. On second thought, the time that his retirement has gifted him may be more of a curse than a gift. “I suppose this is all coming to a head,” he says, eventually turning his attention back to me. “What do you plan to do with Ciro after the marriage?”
“I plan on killing him,” I growl, remembering the way he had lunged at Elisa when he saw me coming to end their happy little reunion. He had been rough enough with my bride to tear one of her straps. He’s lucky I didn’t end him on the spot.
“Will Elisa allow that?”
“It doesn’t matter what Elisa allows,” I sneer. Of course, that’s not true. She’ll have a say in what happens to her father. I owe her that much. It’s just that I’ll have the final word.
“You know, I’ve known Ciro for so long, and I’ve hardly ever seen him care for anyone as much as he seems to care for that daughter of his. The desperation in his eyes the other night was palpable. I’d only seen it in him a few times before. And one of those times was when he tried to stop me from marrying your mother.”
My scowl is harsh. I sit up a little straighter, at attention. “What? I never heard about that. The bastard even tried to ruin your wedding?”
Dad takes a deep breath. “I don’t know that he thought of it that way. It wasn’t necessarily a cruel act. It was a desperate one. The kind you make when you’re about to lose a person you love.”
That last sentence floors me. Even before I can process the meaning behind it, my heart seems to know. “No…”
Dad nods. “He loved her too. And if I had waited a second longer, he might have been the one up on that alter with her, promising his heart and soul to the woman of my dreams.”
An empty hole rips through my chest. “Ciro loved Mom?”
“Desperately. We both did. Bree came into our lives at the same time, and when she left, she took both of our hearts with her. But I always put too much thought into everything. I told myself to focus on work, then maybe, when I was successful enough, a woman like her might actually consider me.”
“Ciro was never so bashful. He pounced immediately and for a little while, your mother relented. God, the city was a haven during those few short months. Ciro’s cruelty was put on hold. But my heart had never been darker. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore, I made my move. Tuns out, I showed up just in time. Ciro may have been in love, but behind it all he was still the sick possessive bastard he always was. And though the streets were largely being spared of his cruelty, Bree wasn’t.”
“He may have loved her, but he couldn’t fight off his own nature. I saved your mother, and she saved me. But the consequences were dire. Ciro never forgave or forgot. He even crashed our wedding and tried to drag Bree home with him. I wasn’t about to wait any longer though. I took matters into my own hands. Only my mercy saved Ciro. That mercy seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but it has haunted me ever since. You suffered because of it. So did your brothers. So did Bree…”
Dad’s glassy gaze turns back to the window, and he leaves me sitting in stunned silence.
“Why are you telling me this?” I finally manage to ask.
“Because I don’t want you to make the same mistakes,” Dad says.
But the mistakes seem contradictory. Do I show mercy or not? Do I let myself fall in love and weather the pain of it all or do I avoid it for the sake of those I already care about?
There isn’t enough time to ask, because before I know it, our car has stopped outside The Family’s lair. That old familiar run-down deli façade.
“We’ll talk more after,” Dad says, his mood somber but focused. “For now, let’s remember only the bad. These people don’t deserve our sympathy. We’ll crush their throats and then return home with a gentler step. Ready?”
“Ready.”
I try to put aside what I just learned, but it’s impossible. I’d never heard that story before. Ciro loved Mom? That bastard was even capable of love?
It’s so shocking that I can hardly process it. With the confusion comes a thousand different questions. At a moment like this, my head should be on straight. Instead, it’s spinning like crazy.
Why did Dad tell me this now? Didn’t he know that it would put me on edge?
I want to ask him more. But now is not the time. Our empire is at stake. Everything we’ve worked for hangs in the balance.
Still, only one thing manages to settle on my mind. An unanswerable question.
What else don’t I know about my family?
