Chapter 40 #2
She slaps me. Hard. In the face. She doesn’t stop there and pulls her arm back for another shot.
I grab her wrist just in time.
“You’re such a liar,” she hisses. “I expected better from you. Get off me. I’m leaving, and you can’t stop me! You’re no better than my father. You’re no better than my husband!”
I know she’s intentionally provoking me, but I react, regardless. I roll above her, pinning her to the bed with my weight, and, grasping her wrists, I pin them above her head.
“Fuck you, Dante!”
“Don’t ever call him husband.” There is a dangerous edge to my voice, one I barely recognize, and which rarely surfaces. “He’s nothing. He’s dirt you scrape off the bottom of your shoe. Before this is through, you will bear my name and call me husband.”
She tries to buck me off, growling when I don’t budge. “Then give me the truth! Show me I can trust you!”
Her eyes glitter with fury and tears. Just seeing her in pain eats into me like acid in my gut. I want to kiss her so badly, to take away all the hurt, to wrap her up in me, and remove her from any and all sources of pain.
I want her trust.
Her love.
For her to be even half as obsessed with me as I am with her.
The feel of her body beneath me, pokes at the primitive center of my brain, making me want to claim her fire. Not to gain her submission, nor to break her, but because I crave her surrender.
Because only through her surrender can I take her to a place where she can forget these troubles, if only for a time. To possess her so thoroughly, there is no room for anything else but the feeling of our bodies joining together.
But she’s right. I need to give her something. Only that opens up questions about my motivations. The desire to protect her is at war with both the desire to give her the truth and yet another desire, this one entirely selfish, to tell my side of events.
I don’t want her to hate me for telling her the truth, nor for being complicit in the way her life has played out over the last year.
But I know I can’t have it both ways. She wants honesty. No, she demands it. In this world, men rarely treat women as equals. They shield them for a myriad of reasons, only some of which are good.
I feel my pulse beating in my throat. Her eyes are wounded. I can’t think about what Cosmo did to her without losing my damn mind. She’s still fighting, demanding, prepared to go toe to toe with me, the man who just instigated her capture.
My reasons behind my actions are good.
The execution wasn’t ideal. And yes, I need to take responsibility for unleashing Christian. If nothing else, I know my brother, and I should have expected his heavy-handed implementation of the plan.
“The day of your mother’s funeral, Cedro called me to see him.
He said he was stepping down as don, and that the family needed a strong leader with backing from the capos, and that leader was Ettore.
He said that I was too young and inexperienced to protect you—that our engagement had never been announced, and in light of these changes, and for your safety, he was giving your hand to Ettore.
I told him I understood his reasoning but that I believed it was faulty.
I said I didn’t trust Ettore, and neither should he. ”
Fresh tears begin to spill from her eyes.
“Your father was right about me. I had no one to back me save for Christian. My father was dead, my uncle, too; but that’s another story.
My role as consigliere was still in its infancy.
My position and influence were solid, but the capos, two of whom were Ettore’s brothers, would not have backed me—a barely-out-of-college consigliere—becoming don, even with Cedro’s approval.
Ettore would have undermined me had he stayed as underboss.
Cedro had to pick someone to succeed him and that someone was never going to be me.
At the time, we had no evidence to the contrary about Ettore. ”
“But you do now?”
I nod. “Your father hired an investigator. Not long after you…” I refuse to call that travesty a wedding. “It wasn’t the Russians. Not only them, at least.”
“Ettore?”
I’m about to tell her the man she’s married to, whom she has shared her body with, played an integral part in her mother’s death and her father’s disability. “Yes.”
I feel her pain even before it manifests in a sob. She wrenches one hand free and slaps it against my chest as she tries to twist away. “No. Not Mama. If Papa knew something about this, he would have said.”
Her pain arrests me.
Her tear-ravaged eyes stare up at me, begging for understanding.
Nothing I can offer her will soften this blow.
“He killed my mother, and you left me with him, let him touch me… Get off me, I’m going to be sick.”
I release her immediately. She darts for the bathroom, slamming the door. I follow, pushing it open just as she heaves over the toilet.
“Fuck, baby. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
I gather her hair out of the way and try to soothe her. She’s crying, hiccupping, and heaving—I’ve never felt more impotent, more worthless, for my part in this than I do right now.
She’s not got anything in her stomach and all she does is heave up bile. Then the tears win out over her urge to vomit, and she slumps on her knees with her head in her hands, sobbing and shaking.
“Come on, you can’t stay there. Why don’t you brush your teeth and come back to bed?”
Still sobbing, she nods, but with a defeated air that I don’t like one bit.
Standing her in front of the vanity, I put some toothpaste on a brush and hold it out to her.
“That’s not my toothbrush,” she says, her eyes mutinous, like sharing my toothbrush is a step too far.
My smile is sad as I brush the tears from her cheeks. “It’s this or nothing. I don’t care, if you don’t. I’ll get you a new one later, okay?”
She takes the toothbrush and scrubs her teeth vigorously before rinsing and scrubbing them again. The moment she puts the toothbrush down, though, a terrible, wounded sound—one I never want to hear again—erupts from her chest.
Cursing my decision to give her the truth, I swing her into my arms and carry her back to bed. I hold her as she cries, a sense of inadequacy swamping me again. I’ve let her down, and, somehow, I need to make this right.
He needs to die.
His empire, and everyone who helped him, needs to burn down.
Eventually her tears peter out. I brush the damp hair from her cheeks and press my lips to her temple. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I needed to know. I’m… I’m glad I do. But I slept with a man who killed my mother—the same man who put my father in a wheelchair.
Worse, my father gave me to him. How do I reconcile any of this?
It’s too much. It hurts too much.” Her voice softens to a whisper.
“I don’t know if I can forgive my father. I have a lot of rage inside me.”
She looks so fucking young and vulnerable. “Your hurt is understandable and fully justified. And you don’t have to do anything, not today. One day, when you’re ready, you can begin to heal.”
“How can I? I’m still standing in the eye of the storm.
I’m not safe. Neither are my sister and father, not while Ettore lives.
I might hate my father today, but I cannot bear for him to suffer more than he already has.
And why act now, Dante? Because of Cosmo?
I don’t buy that. You left me with Ettore, and to be clear, there wasn’t a single time with him that came with my consent.
What is this, Dante? What are we? Do you feel some obligation because I should have married you first?
This isn’t your responsibility, and neither am I. ”
“Obligation?” My gut tightens at the mention of Cosmo, even as I rail against her daring to suggest she’s not my responsibility.
I roll above her and close my fingers over her jaw, holding her lightly but also letting her feel my emotions leak through the connection.
“Do I hate what happened to you? Absolutely. But many bad things happen in the world, and I don’t suffer from any obligations to step in and right the wrong.
Make no mistakes about my motives; they are purely selfish in nature.
I want you. And now I have you. There are no choices here.
You’re in my world now. I own you in every way that matters. And I will protect what is mine.”
“You’re more like Christian than I expected.
He just doesn’t verbalize his bullshit.” Her eyes are tear-ravaged and sad, but her tone is more normal—a hint of dry humor…
and this after my mouth just ran away with my inner caveman at the helm.
“Now, get off me… You’re very heavy and I just started my period yesterday. ”
I rock back on my knees poleaxed by this announcement. “What can I do? Are you in pain?”
“Nothing… Yes…I only have a few products in my bag, so unless you want a mess, I will need more.” She rolls onto her side and tucks her hand over her stomach.
I should be getting up and getting her what she needs. And I will. Shortly. But first, I settle down behind her again, sliding my hand around her waist until it displaces hers. “I’ll get you some Advil. And the products. Anything else. A heat pack? Chocolate?”
“Chocolate?” She twists to peer back at me. “Are you for real?”
Her words and expression give me tentative hope that, with time, the sweet young woman she’s been forced to hide deep within, will return again
“You don’t like chocolate?”
Her lips twitch before she turns to face away again. “Chocolate is a given. No reason is required. And all of the rest. Just… in a minute. Your hand feels nice there. Don’t take it away yet.”
I’m slain. Gone for her. The building could burn down around us, and I wouldn’t move my hand.
I kiss her hair and settle deeper against her. The fight is not over. Nor am I forgiven for the part I played. I have no delusions on that score. She has a lot of healing and a great deal of betrayal to work through.
But I will take this, this moment, and the sense of peace, for as long as it lasts.