Chapter Two
Even though they made that deal last night, it still didn’t stop Dante from doing his duty. Aria woke up the next morning and took a long shower before making her way downstairs toward the kitchen.
She had pinned her hair on top of her head, and she wore a skirt and a shirt that she felt emphasized her curves. In the past couple of months, she’d spent a little money on some new clothes, and was trying to work with her body. Her mother’s advice was to hide it. Juliet, one of the women who’d befriended her who worked in the house, gave her different advice.
She wanted to try something new and she did like the way she looked now. At least, she had accepted how she was supposed to look. She was never going to be the svelte figure of her sister, or the models that graced the covers of magazines. Her ass was always going to be too big, as were her hips and breasts. Her stomach was never going to be quite so flat. If a lifetime of diets hadn’t taught her that, nothing would.
She took several steps into the dining room and came to a stop. This was odd. Dante sat at the head of the table, breakfast already laid out, and he was reading the paper.
“You’re up early,” he said.
Aria wanted to pinch herself to see if she was dreaming, but she also didn’t want to show that kind of weakness in front of him.
“You’re still home,” she said.
“Yes.” He closed the paper and put it down on the table. “Would you like me to give you a round of applause for that observation?”
“Why are you home?” she asked.
“It has been brought to my attention, sweet wife, that the only way to knock you up is to spend a little more time doing the deed.”
She clenched her hands into fists.
“What? No, you don’t need to do that at all. The arrangement we have is fine,” Aria said, and she felt her head start to pound.
Dante didn’t say anything, he just stared at her for several moments. “Sit down. Eat.”
She had been hungry before her encounter with her husband, but now, any kind of appetite had vanished.
The urge to run away was strong, but instead, she walked toward the table, pulled out her chair, and sat down.
She could do this. It would be easy. Dante would get tired of taunting her, then he’d leave, and she could come up with a plan to get what she needed. Freedom was within her grasp. All she needed to do was take it.
Looking at the food available wasn’t helping her sickness. She never had an elaborate breakfast. Usually, she was a bowl-of-cereal kind of girl, or some toast. She also loved a nice cup of coffee to get her day started.
She tried her hardest to ignore her husband and glanced over at the food on offer. Picking up the first cereal, she began to pour herself a bowl, being cautious on how much she ate in front of him. She might have started to accept her body as her own, and appreciate it, but eating in front of Dante was a whole other problem.
With her cereal poured, along with the milk, she made herself a cup of coffee and took a long sip. This was all she needed in the morning.
She was pretty sure she felt Dante’s gaze upon her, and when she turned her head, he was there, staring. The temptation to ask him what he was staring at was strong. Instead, she gritted her teeth and looked back down at her cereal. She could barely taste it, her nerves were getting the better of her, and she knew it was because of Dante.
Did he enjoy making her nervous?
Was this some kind of twisted game to him?
Aria had no idea, but ever since they had struck that deal last night, she’d been determined to figure out a way to find the evidence he needed. She knew, if she succeeded, there was no way she’d ever be able to go and see her family again. At first, that made her incredibly sad. Then, once she took the time to think about it, she didn’t care. The only person she cared about, who had been kind to her, and if she was honest, the only person she actually loved was her sister, Isabella. Once she was free, their family couldn’t stop her from going to see her sister.
“What has you smiling?” Dante asked.
She hadn’t even realized she was smiling. “I am?”
“Yes. You look happy. If I had known my presence was going to bring this much joy to you, I’d have stopped by sooner.”
There were two options for her to take. One was to simply ignore his taunting and let him believe what he clearly wanted to believe. The other was to tell him the truth.
“My smiling has nothing to do with you being here and everything to do with our deal last night.” She wasn’t trying to be cruel.
“You’ve thought about our deal.”
“I’m going to make it work, and when I do, you’ll have your freedom and I’ll have mine.”
Dante didn’t move and Aria continued to force herself to look at him. It wasn’t easy. All she wanted to do was run, get the evidence, and put as much distance between them as possible.
It wasn’t like Dante had been cruel to her. He’d not done anything other than fulfill his duties to what was expected of him.
“And I think if I have a shot at being able to find … the evidence, I think it’s only fair that we put duty off the table,” Aria said. She didn’t even know where she was finding this backbone to make demands. This wasn’t her. She’d never asked for anything in her life.
Her parents had always told her she had a responsibility, and her only duty was to fulfill her husband. This was breaking everything she had ever known, but she just couldn’t bring herself to live like this. Not anymore.
Dante smirked. “And you really think you’re capable of getting me what I need, whereas trained professionals have failed?”
“I’m Phillip Lewis’s daughter, Dante. I have access to things no one else does.” It has also helped that she had been invisible for a long time. Her parents’ disappointment with how she looked had helped with that. She had learned to stay in the shadows and never draw attention.
Dante couldn’t seem to remove the smirk from his face, which she found equally insulting and scary.
“Aria, I would love to agree to your terms, but as it is, I’ve got my father as well as the whole Pesci family looking my way. Every time I’ve been given an assignment, I’ve completed it without fail. I am expected to further the Gallo line. The only way to do that is to fuck. Until you can hand me that evidence, you will continue to submit to your duty. Am I understood?” he asked.
She wanted to argue with him, but how could she?
Dante’s reputation far exceeded him. Everyone knew of the youngest man to take his first kill. He’d joined the family at a young age, and from what she knew, he’d been preparing to take over from his father as capo just as long. He was a man known for action.
They’d been married long enough now that she should be on the verge of giving birth. That hadn’t happened. Now, she had no choice.
Aria didn’t know when she would be able to make it to her father’s place, and until then, she would have to submit to her duty. There was no way she was going to incur Dante’s wrath.
He’d never raised a hand to her. She knew other wives were not so lucky. He’d not even embarrassed her the way her sister’s husband did her. She had been lucky.
There was no other choice for her. She could only hope she didn’t end up pregnant while waiting for her chance to escape. That would be a disaster.
****
Dante stared out across the city, looking at the many different buildings. The streets were filled with people bustling around, going about their business. His thoughts kept drifting to his wife, which was rather unusual.
She had submitted to her duty and he’d spilled his seed in her an extra four times over the weekend. He decided to give her the reprieve today, seeing as it was Monday, and well, he did have a business meeting with his father.
“So what you’re saying is, you’ve failed,” his father said.
“I wasn’t able to locate—”
Bang!
The sound of a gun exploding didn’t even surprise Dante. Another man, this time an amateur, had failed to acquire what they wanted. Amateur locators were more liable than properly trained professionals. They couldn’t allow their latest man to be taken and questioned, and someone would have been curious about why one week he was working for the Lewises and the next, he wasn’t. Killing him was the only way.
The only problem was, this had made a mess.
Dante glanced over at his father, who was already picking up his phone and making the arrangements to have everything cleaned up. Seconds later, cleaners entered his father’s office. No one would even bat an eye at what they saw, but then they were all paid to look the other way.
“Please tell me you have good news for me,” his father said.
“I haven’t killed anyone today that I wasn’t supposed to.”
“I don’t appreciate jokes, Dante. If we cannot figure a way of getting that evidence, then the least you can do is stop embarrassing me with not filling that woman with your child.”
This was the first time in a long while that Dante Gallo Sr. was close to losing his shit. He’d seen his father get angry, and normally when that happened, he did kill. What didn’t help this situation was the fact they couldn’t kill Phillip. With Phillip being the bastard son of The Boss, even though he’d never earn the title of Boss or Capo, he was still protected. He’d managed to earn the respect of his father, and that was rare.
They were in a bind with nowhere to go.
Dante thought about Aria. He doubted she’d follow through with her end of the deal. It was strange, until Aria arrived at his office the other night, he had absolutely no interest in her. She was nothing more than a problem to him, one he needed to deal with. Now, she’d done the unthinkable and made herself appear far more interesting to him.
He didn’t need to keep fucking her. Well, according to his father, he did, but he knew he just needed to knock her up once, and hope it was a son. Where would the fun have been in that?
Watching her at breakfast, Dante had been unable to look away from her. She seemed so … fragile. It was strange. With Phillip Lewis being her father, he figured she would carry his manipulating bullshit ways. Instead, she didn’t strike him as that kind, which was strange. In the last eight months they had been married, Aria hadn’t been difficult. She hadn’t made waves. She had played the part of the perfect wife. In fact, his father would have been proud of her, if he’d given her a chance, but Dante knew that would never happen.
Aria was not the woman they wanted him to marry.
Dante didn’t want to marry anyone. He knew the time would come when his parents would find him a bride. He didn’t know for sure if his dad was pissed that the choice was taken out of his hands.
Phillip Lewis, other than being an asshole, was still the son of The Boss. It did open potential doors and create a new alliance. Just not one they were expecting.
“You and Mom had an arranged marriage, didn’t you?”
“Son, it’s rare for anyone within our world not to have one,” his father said.
“When did you realize you were in love with her?” Dante asked. His parents were an odd sort of couple.
He was aware of the early days of his parents’ marriage. His father had taken a mistress, screwed around. Dante had never paid close attention to when all that changed, but his father did. He would know his father had a mistress, and in all the years he’d been working for him, Dante Sr. had not so much as looked at another woman. Unlike many of the men of the Pesci family, his father didn’t beat or harm his wife. They had a loving relationship.
“You’re not about to tell me that you’ve fallen for the Lewis girl?” his father asked.
“No. I’m not.” He couldn’t deny that his wife had intrigued him. Her father had trapped him in this marriage, and because of that, he hated her.
Right now, he was curious about her.
She was terrified of him and by her own admission hated their marriage, but she had still found a backbone to stand up to him. That had been one of her biggest mistakes because now he was curious about her.
“Just curious about you and Mom.”
Dante Sr. chuckled. He put a hand on his son’s shoulder and they walked out of the office so the cleaners could get to work.
They kept moving, heading toward the elevator. “Your mother was considered the most beautiful woman in the Pesci family, and at the time, I was the animal. I wanted to earn my title as Capo, and the sooner I did it, the better. I killed first and asked questions later. I made deals, I earned my title, and as my reward, I got your mother. Our wedding night was a disaster. Virgins are prized possessions but … they’re useless to a man who wasn’t meant to be gentle.”
Dante couldn’t help but think about his own wedding night. It had been a nightmare. Aria had laid there, even though he’d felt her pain. She’d been drier than any woman he’d ever been with. It was why he used the lubrication on her.
In that moment, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be with a woman who wanted to be with him as well. Not just any woma n— to have Aria hold him, grip him, be drawn in by him, to beg him for his cock. He pushed those thoughts from his mind because that was never going to happen. Not to him, not to them. Aria didn’t want him.
“This didn’t bode well for the start of our marriage. Your mother was terrified of me, and that also meant I wasn’t ready to make it so that she wasn’t afraid. I was young, an asshole, and thought I knew best. We didn’t mesh well. Your mother was out of my league, and well, as you know, I found solace elsewhere. Any woman that would have me, I was there. I didn’t care who she was or what she’d done. She was mine, and I wanted her. Then … your mother got pregnant with you, and one day I got home from work to find her tied to a chair as one of the women I’d slept with had a gun pointed at her swollen stomach. Your mother had blood on her face. The woma n— I can’t even remember her nam e— she’d beaten her up, and now she was going to kill her right in front of me. In that moment, faced with my wife being killed, I knew I couldn’t let it happen. I had fallen in love with her, and it was all my own fault. All my fuckups that had led us to this path. I’m not a good man, Dante. I tried to be, but I fucking failed. One of the soldiers had been able to take aim, and he killed the bitch instantly. From that moment on, I vowed I would never touch another woman, and I haven’t. The difference between your mother and your wife is that mine was a gift. Aria is nothing but blackmail, and one day, you will be rid of her.”