“I had a craving,” I squeaked, shrinking away from my husband which seemed to make him angrier.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me from the vehicle. Immediately, he released me, his hands suspended in the air as though he didn’t know where to put them. Finally, they gripped my shoulders, but his thumbs rested on my neck.
“A craving.” A slew of emotions crossed his face. “For what?”
“A milkshake and french fries.” My mind raced at how pathetic that alibi sounded now in the face of his fury.
“A milkshake and—” He lost it. And I knew he lost it because he immediately dropped his hands from my shoulders and stepped away from me. He slapped a palm on the hood of the SUV. “You went out in the middle of a storm to get a milkshake and french fries!”
“Pregnant.” I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant with a bit of airhead. “And I like storms.” I couldn’t meet his eyes then, because mine were drawn to his knuckles. There was blood on them.
Panicked, and knowing what my disappearance could mean for my minders, I asked, “Where’s Tony?”
My husband’s chilling smile escalated the anxiety that was already rattling in my gut like pebbles in a rinse cycle.
“Now you’re concerned for him?” His eyes flashed colder, but his fists clenched despite the bloody knuckles. “When you didn’t even think about it when you went for this…craving?”
“What did you do to him?” I took a step toward him, but he turned around and stalked inside.
“Luca!” I yelled and ran after him.
Passing Dario, I asked, “What did he do to Tony?”
But Dario’s gaze was equally censuring, and he didn’t utter a word, merely flattened his mouth some more.
Luca continued walking without a backward glance. I ran ahead of him and stopped his progress.
His face was sculpted in taut lines, but his eyes were expressionless. “He failed to do his job, tesoro.”
The way he said the endearment dripped with malice. The pebbles spun faster.
“I swear to God, Luca.”
“Swear what?” he hissed at me. Lowering his head, he enunciated, “You think I’m in the wrong here?”
“Wrong? Let’s talk about wrong,” I shot back. “You leave me. You don’t treat me like a wife. You don’t treat me like someone who is pregnant with your child. It’s supposed to be one of the happiest moments in a woman’s life, but you do nothing except make me miserable.”
An unnamed emotion flickered in his eyes before hardening to stone. “What’s the matter? You need romance?” he sneered. “You think every day is going to be like Paris?”
“I know now it won’t be. So don’t come here mad at me for seeking my own happiness.”
“You’ve been gone for three hours. What else have you been doing besides satisfying your craving?” He crowded me. “You better not have done what I think you’re implying, baby.” His voice was soft, but his words were threatening. “You brought back the milkshake and french fries. Could that be your excuse when really you’re meeting another man?”
I laughed. Probably the worst reaction given the situation. But his accusation was so absurd, and I could only think of giving him what he deserved.
“You dare laugh at this.” His gaze transformed from black ice to dangerous. His fingers gripped my arm, not painfully, but tight enough so it was uncomfortable. He hauled me against him.
“Maybe I want to be around people my age,” I taunted. All the hurt and my guilt for lying to him made me reckless. “Maybe older men are too confusing and they have too many expectations.” My voice rose. “Maybe I’m just sick of you!”
“You may be sick of me, tesoro. But you are married to me. Till death do us part. Especially…” He splayed his fingers across my womb and it made my whole being go cold. “You’re carrying my child. You think any frat boy will be interested in a woman carrying another man’s child?”
“Did I say I went out to cheat on you?” I asked. “I just wanted to remember what it feels like to be in college. The fun of a Friday evening after classes. You promised me I could go back to school. Instead, you hold me captive in this mansion.”
“Captive?” His mouth curled in derision. “You have no idea what being held captive is, but I’ll give you a taste. You are not to leave this house except for your checkups.”
“I refuse to be a slave to your tyrannical rules.”
“After this last escapade, I’m not taking any chances.”
“You think you can control me? I have every right to leave this house.”
“You’re under a strange assumption that I’m giving you a choice.” He nodded behind me.
Two of his soldiers hauled a bloody Tony to the center of the foyer. They shoved him to a kneeling position.
A gasp sounded behind me. It was Nessa whose horrified expression probably reflected my own.
“Tony…” I choked, then I turned pleading eyes to my husband. “I’ll do anything.”
“What do you think I’m going to do?”
Anxiety became full-blown fear and sent spikes into my throat. I lost the ability to speak like Nessa.
A malicious gleam entered Luca’s eyes. One I’d never seen before, and it frightened me.
I started hyperventilating when he drew out his gun and pointed it at his soldier.
“No,” I finally gasped. “You can’t execute him for my mistakes.”
Sounds of a scuffle broke out behind me, and I saw Nessa trying to get to her uncle.
“It was his job to protect you.”
“It was my choice, Luca.”
“Again. You have no choice.”
“It was one mistake.” My voice was a strangled whisper. I was too choked up to speak clearly. “He won’t do it again. I won’t do it again.” Even Papà gave second chances. I understood the workings of the family. True terror filled my chest.
“One?” he scoffed. “You think I didn’t know about your field trip to Chicago?”
I swallowed. “You didn’t say anything.”
“I was waiting for you to come clean, but you didn’t, did you? Everyone wants to hide things from me, including the good doctor, but what everyone seems to forget is I know everything.”
He lowered his arm and looked at me. “Go to your room and think about what you did.”
He tipped his chin to his henchmen. They hauled Tony to his feet and dragged him away from our sight.
Luca took out his pack of cigarettes. “Why are you still standing there? Go. Unlike your irresponsibility with your latest escapade, I don’t want to harm my child with smoke.”
Maybe you shouldn’t be smoking in the first place. I turned away from my husband. This stranger who could easily turn from avenging angel to cold tyrant.
I went straight to the attic, fearful I’d left things lying around when I bolted in the dark. My regular phone had many messages.
Martha sent me three.
Tony sent me four.
Luca sent me seven.
I concentrated on the last four messages from my husband.
“Where are you? Tony is looking for you.”
“Baby, answer your damn phone.”
“Tesoro, I’m getting worried. Please tell me where you are.”
“If this is about the baby, we can talk, but please come home.”
The tears finally came. I wasn’t sure if it was from relief or the confirmation that my husband was a master manipulator. My husband was Lucifer. Would he have shot Tony? I was finally seeing what made other mobsters wary of him. He would shoot his own people to make a point. And the people around him would let him do it, for Dario and Martha stood by with resigned expressions on their faces.
A rap on my door had me stiffening.
“Come in.”
Nessa opened the door. In her hand was my paper bag of fries and the drink holder, carrying my milkshake.
She walked in and closed the door behind her.
“You should have just thrown them out.”
She signed something I didn’t understand, but she was clearly angry.
“I don’t—”
She yanked out her notepad and scrawled on it. Your husband is an asshole.
“That he is.”
She cleared it and wrote on it furiously. Where were you?
“I don’t answer to you, Nessa.”
She contemplated me, her lips thinning. I have your backpack.
Shit. I forgot about it.
I don’t want Martha or Mr. Moretti to see it.
“It’s really nothing,” I hedged. “I wasn’t lying when I said I missed college life.”
Next time, don’t get people killed.
She didn’t know how much her accusation stung. It was history repeating itself. Thankfully, it didn’t get too far, otherwise it might have been better if Luca turned the gun on me.
“I’m really sorry,” I said and then looked around me. “I’m not leaving the four walls of this mansion until Luca finally decides he doesn’t want me anymore.” My voice cracked at my last words because I know despite how much I hated my husband, it couldn’t erase the yearning of these past few months. Paris seemed so long ago. I longed for the tenderness I’d seen in his eyes when he saw our baby’s first sonogram.
Since then, my husband had continued to pull further and further away.
At first, I thought there was hope in seeing his fury and that he cared for me. But in the light of his text messages juxtaposed with the way he treated me after when I came home, I realized the endless cycle of stupidity I had let my heart fall into.
I still loved Luca.
But he still didn’t love me.
Luca
“Don’t you think you went a bit too far?”
I tossed back the scotch and glared at Dario. “She fucking scared fifty years off my life, not to mention there’s a lot of chatter about the Russians right now. It’s not safe to leave the mansion.” Where I fucking expected she would be.
“Carmine said their auction got hit again and an estimated hundred fifty million dollars had disappeared. Of course Orlov was saying it wasn’t theirs, but we know he has several factions to hide his human trafficking business.”
“That business is bad luck,” I said. “They blame me for not carrying the passengers to another location.”
“And as your adviser, I’m telling you, you will regret it if you’d done so. You made the right call. It’s not who you are, Luca. As much blood is on your hands, the blood of children will not be one of them.”
“How’s Tony?” I was uncomfortable discussing my morality on the subject. Drugs I could overlook as long as I wasn’t profiting from them. But if I wasn’t as cutthroat as the other players in the underworld, I worried they would see that as a weakness. I couldn’t let Natalya become a weakness. That was why I was harsh with her in front of my men. I didn’t need them reporting back to Ange how I almost tore the house down looking for her. Which was why I threatened Tony, or I would have locked her tight in my arms, maybe even broken down and told her how I was losing my mind not knowing where she was. Then she had the gall to taunt me about our age gap? My wife needed to learn her lesson.
“Martha is tending to him. Broken rib, maybe.”
“Does he need to see a doctor?”
“He said he’ll be fine,” Dario said, tapping his fingers at the edge of the table.
“Is there something else you want to say to me?”
“Do you believe what Natalya told you?”
“I do not wish to discuss what my wife said.”
“Your reaction to her saying she might be with other men begs to differ. You were jealous.”
I chuckled derisively. “That was not jealousy, my friend. That was pride and possessiveness. No woman makes a fool of Luca Moretti, and especially not in front of my men.”
“She might hate you, you know.”
“She loves me and misses me,” I said confidently. “She thought I didn’t know when she tried to surprise me in Chicago. Good thing I was in Vegas, otherwise I’d have no choice but to punish her for defying me.”
“Are you not being unnecessarily cruel? Martha says the poor girl is lonely and watches romantic films all the time.”
“I’ll make it up to her. She’s easy to sway with a bit of romance.”
“Which you negate every time you two get close.” Dario leaned forward, watching my reaction. “That girl doesn’t know which end is up or down.”
“Keep them off-kilter until they realize it’s for their own good,” I said. “When the baby comes, she’ll be busy. Then I will have fulfilled my bargain with Vincenzo to have a male heir and direct descendant.”
“But will he be your heir, too? Do you mean you’re going to hand over your son to the Galluzo?”
Guilt nagged at me. “You make it sound so archaic. If one of my sons chose to join the Galluzo, the Moretti name would be powerful. Emilio would be proud. Junior might have died, but he should rest in peace that he’d left Chicago in good hands.”
“Sons. You’re treating Natalya like a brood mare.”
“I’m getting tired of you needling me.” I checked my watch. “Call Tony. It’s time to put the man out of his misery.”
After a few minutes, Natalya’s bodyguard walked in. “Boss.”
“How’s the face?”
Tony grinned, and then winced. “Hurts like a mother.”
“Good,” I said dispassionately. I poured scotch into a fresh glass and shoved it at him. “You know Natalya could’ve gotten hurt driving in that storm.”
He took a healthy sip before saying, “Yeah. I should have known she was up to something when she checked on the generators.”
“What time was this again?” Dario asked.
“I don’t know…around nine thirty…maybe fifteen minutes after the lights went out.”
“The lights came back in another half hour,” Dario said. “Nine thirty. She couldn’t wait that long and had to get away?”
“The vehicle she used was the Explorer.” I leaned forward. I’d been so blinded by my fury and worry about her missing that I missed it. Everyone missed it, or it was becoming clearer because her lame-ass excuse about the milkshake and fries just didn’t fly.
“The vehicle was already parked outside,” Dario pointed out.
“She planned this little road trip,” I said. “It didn’t matter if the lights went out or not.”
“But if the lights didn’t go out, I would have known she was missing,” Tony said. “The alert at the gates would have notified me.”
“We’ll never know, will we?” I told Tony. “And I’ve terrorized my wife enough tonight. I will not push her.” She already thought I was a monster, probably lumped me in the same category as her father and Santino. But she loved her father, so, in my opinion, she should love me too. I just needed to give her time to adjust to my nature and the way I run the family.
“I’m really sorry I let you down, boss.”
“Last chance, Tony. I should reassign you, but the bruises on your face will make my wife think twice about defying my rules again.”
He nodded.
“So don’t let me down again. Next time, I might have to shoot you for real. Get out of here.”
Natalya would drive a man to drink. Dario told me to go to my wife and stop hiding behind a bottle. I scoffed at him. I wasn’t afraid to face her.
When I arrived at our bedroom, she wasn’t there. For a second, I thought she disappeared again, and my heart spiked into my throat. Then I remembered Tony telling me a while back that my wife had started sleeping in the attic.
Natalya dredged up too many emotions from me that made me uncomfortable. Dario said I was jealous. I refused to accept that was what I was feeling. It was a sign of insecurity. Insecurity was a sign of weakness.
But my wife continued to surprise me. She let me believe she was a meek wife these past few months, then she pulled a stunt like this. Not that I blamed her for using my own tactics of making my enemy comfortable before I struck them where it hurt.
The student was learning from the master, but I had a few more tricks up my sleeve. This game of earning her loyalty was backfiring, and the baby was due in four months. Vincenzo was eager to visit his daughter and hinted that when the baby was born, he expected me to invite them.
I didn’t want my father-in-law anywhere near my wife until I had her undying loyalty.
But I did have it. I had it under duress. Natalya was too kindhearted to let anyone pay for her sins, and this incident only gave me ammunition to hold over her. It was a tightrope to navigate. I didn’t want to make the mistake in Paris again, giving her all the romantic notions that our world revolved around each other. That time had served its purpose. She was pregnant.
The attic door was unlocked. I didn’t bother knocking, but I opened it slowly. And there was Natalya, sleeping on the couch. She looked like an angel with her blonde hair flowing over a pillow. She had changed into pajamas I’d never seen her wear.
The cat was lying beside her. Was it healthy for cats to be beside pregnant women?
“Shoo,” I told Mrs. B.
She hissed at me and took off. I was taken aback. Usually, Mrs. B rubbed against me first, but it seemed I had fallen from favor.
I walked to the edge of the attic and looked out the window. The moon had emerged from the clouds, casting its beams across the estate. I rubbed my chest because of the sudden stab I felt there. I could see why Natalya liked it up here. My eyes wandered over to the big-screen TV and the bookcases on each side, the light of the moon shining on them. I pulled out a book and inspected it. My wife’s head was full of romance and heroes, yet she got stuck with the villain.
I wondered if she went to Red Oak to look for her blond-haired Adonis when she realized she wasn’t getting the hero treatment from me. My mouth twisted in a sneer, refusing to acknowledge that it was jealousy. But in leaving my wife alone, she built her own world up here. One I was not a part of. Not sure I liked that development either.
Returning to her side, I stared at her. It annoyed me she could sleep so peacefully while my thoughts were rampaging through my head. But pregnant women seemed to sleep more. Dario had the audacity to drop one of those “Expecting” books on my desk. I shoved it in the drawer for the longest time, but finally cracked it open when we found out we were having a boy.
I should wake her and tell her she should sleep in our room. I’d had too much to drink, and I didn’t want to risk dropping her, hurting her and our child.
Leaning over, my arm reached out to feather her cheek with my fingers and wake her, but my hand recoiled and I straightened. If today had proven anything, it was that I wasn’t in control of my reactions when it came to my wife.
A weakness responsible for my brother’s failures as boss.
A weakness that got him and his wife killed, leaving my niece an orphan.
A weakness that would not be mine.
