Francesca
I expected Wolfe to either show up at my home or blow up my phone with texts, but he did neither of those things.
Days of silence passed. He was off from the vineyard for two of the days, so I wasn’t surprised he wasn’t around.
And then on the third day, when he was supposed to be back on the property, I only caught a glimpse of him once.
He stood outside with Leo, both of them smoking cigars while they waited for another guy to join them. Wolfe didn’t look up at the house or the window to my office. His demeanor gave no indication that he was upset about anything.
Not the reaction I expected.
One of the other guys joined the crew, and they put out the cigars on the ground and left.
I expected him to pursue me to the ends of the earth, but he didn’t.
I wasn’t sure if I was relieved…or disappointed.
At the end of the workday, I sat with my father in his office. As spring stretched further into summer, the weather warmed, the evening insects grew louder across the fields. Tourism would start up, and the roads would be congested and the beaches busy.
“Did you make a decision about Luigi’s business?” I asked as I sat on the couch.
“Wolfe and Leo found a ton of product in his warehouses, and another shipment is on the way. It’s a waste of money to dump it, so we’re going to sell it off before we pivot in another direction.
” He moved to the couch across from me, wearing a collared white shirt with the top button popped.
“You’ll head over there tomorrow to start. ”
I gave a nod.
“Then we’ll absorb his sauce business.”
I understood taking the criminal business, but a family-owned one seemed a bit heartless. “What about his son?”
“He said he wanted nothing to do with this life.”
“But if he knew it was just sauce, he might feel differently.”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “We all know his sauce tastes like shit. Only started the operation to get everything through customs. We’re going to change the name and the recipe and just use his factories. And we’ll use it to help sell our guns.”
So my father had taken Wolfe’s advice.
“You think you can handle both?”
I nodded. “Yeah, just need to get organized.”
“Good. Then you’ll head over there tomorrow.”
Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside, and then voices drifted into the office.
“Your Range Rover is really bulletproof?” Leo asked.
My heart did a weird somersault when I knew who my brother was speaking to.
“Your car isn’t?” Wolfe asked.
“Didn’t know the manufacturer could do that.”
“They can do anything if you ask for it—and pay for it.”
My core tightened as I automatically took a breath before the two of them walked inside. I kept my eyes on my father and didn’t look at Wolfe, because I thought my heart might explode if I did.
“Swept the factory,” Leo said. “It’s clean.”
“Workers are on their best behavior,” Wolfe said. “Don’t think there are any traitors in our midst, but only time will tell.”
I looked at my brother, with Wolfe at the edge of my vision. I couldn’t directly see him, but his presence was more profound than my father’s. He had this aura that was both comforting and terrifying at the same time.
“Frankie is going over there tomorrow to do the books,” Dad said. “Leo, I want you to come with me to see Charles tomorrow. Said he’s going to switch buyers if we don’t drop their prices. Wolfe, I want you to watch Frankie’s back while she’s in the factory.”
“Consider it done, Don Mancini.” Wolfe turned and headed out of the office, his footsteps growing lighter until he was gone.
Leo fell into the armchair, hanging one leg over the armrest like an obnoxious kid.
“Heard anything?” my father asked.
Leo shook his head. “If there’s a retaliation, we’ll be ready for it. Like we always are.”
The next day, I was in my office when he walked inside shortly before eleven.
I knew it was him coming around the corner before he appeared, just by his gait. The sound of his boots implied it was a big man with a long stride. I could feel his energy too, smoke that wafted down the hallway and burned my lungs when I took a breath.
He rounded the corner but didn’t actually take a step into my office.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
There wasn’t a smile or affection in his gaze. He spoke to me like I was anyone in the world, nothing special. “I’ll be at the car whenever you’re ready to go.” He turned back into the hallway without waiting for me to reply.
When he was gone, my breaths were uneven and a little haywire. My hands were suddenly clammy and my fingertips numb. I wasn’t sure how I could sit in the car with him for half an hour without combusting.
I gathered my laptop and workbook in my bag before I headed downstairs to where he leaned against his Range Rover, wearing dark sunglasses on the bridge of his nose while texting on his phone.
I wondered who he was texting.
I opened the door to the back seat and placed my bag on the floor before I got into the passenger seat.
Without looking at me, he walked around to the driver’s side and fired off his text before he got behind the wheel.
I buckled my safety belt and stared straight ahead, painfully aware of how strange my breathing was. I felt like I had a gun to my head because the tension was paramount.
He started the engine with the press of a button and then buckled his safety belt. With one hand on the wheel, he left the property, resting his arm on the center console…and not on my thigh.
He pulled onto the road and drove in silence.
I kept my eyes on the road and wondered how we’d survive the most awkward drive of all time.
He reached for the radio and turned on music, the first time he’d ever done that.
But it didn’t help. Still awkward as fuck.
At least for me. I couldn’t tell how he felt.
It was a thirty-minute drive to Lombardi’s sauce factory, the sun bright on a cloudless day in Sicily. Anticipation was in the air as everyone waited for the summer season to officially start, when the sun didn’t go down until almost nine in the evening every night.
That short drive felt longer than a flight from Rome to New York. We drove through the city until he approached the open gates to the factory that still had Lombardi’s name plastered everywhere.
Wolfe drove his Range Rover to one of the buildings—I assumed the very one where Luigi had died. He parked the car outside, steam absent from the machinery because production seemed to have come to a halt with the handover.
He wordlessly hopped out and didn’t wait for me as he walked to the main door.
I got my bag from the back then headed inside.
Wolfe was already up the stairs to the gallery overhead, his t-shirt tight on his arms and across his shoulders. He was dressed in a gray shirt and black jeans, always looking good in the color because of his ink.
I took a breath before I followed him upstairs then stepped into an office that was cluttered with loose paperwork everywhere, stacks of it on the desk, the filing cabinet wide open like someone had recently rummaged inside it. It was a complete shitshow.
Wolfe stayed by the door. “I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.” He walked out and shut the door behind him.
I set my bag on a nearby chair and sighed as I looked at the mess. The last thing I wanted to do was sift through disorganized clutter as I tried to make sense of his business and profit margins and their supplies and all that bullshit. But it was my job.
Though I was more deflated by the indifferent man downstairs.
Hours later, Wolfe walked back into the office. “Gotta get going. I’m needed elsewhere.”
I’d barely scratched the surface of the chaos here. “Pick me up on your way back—”
“I’m not leaving you here alone.” He walked out of the office again, leaving the door ajar as he disappeared down the stairs.
If this were a week ago, he would have christened the place by fucking me on the desk. Now he treated me like we’d never kissed.
I packed up my things and left the mess before I headed back downstairs.
He was a short distance away, talking on the phone. “I’ll meet you there after I drop off Frankie.”
Frankie? I’d never heard him call me that once.
He hung up and turned to me, indifference in his eyes. “Ready?”
“Um, yeah.”
He didn’t open the car door for me like he had in the past. Just hopped into the driver’s seat and started the engine while he waited for me to get settled in the passenger seat. Then he took off and headed back to Caltanissetta to get me home.
It was another awkward drive, somehow more awkward than the first one.
After he’d told me there was no escape from him and I asked the real estate agent to take me home, I’d thought he would unleash a storm of rage, a wrath so fiery he would scorch the earth.
Thought he would tie me up and not let me go until I apologized.
I wasn’t sure exactly what he would do, but this cold facade had not been on my bingo card.
Thirty minutes later, he returned to the winery and pulled up in front of the house. He left the engine on and didn’t unbuckle his safety belt. He kept one hand on the wheel like he intended to get out of there the second I stepped out of the car.
I grabbed my bag from the back seat, and as soon as I shut the door, he took off.
Leaving a cloud of dust behind him.
I sat alone at my dining table with my dirty dinner plate in front of me. I enjoyed half a bottle of wine for company and stared at the empty seat across from me. I’d been so scared of Wolfe a couple days ago, but now…I missed him.
He acted like I hardly existed. Treated me like we didn’t have a past. I was just his boss’s daughter and nothing more.
He somehow rewrote history without saying a single word.
I still remembered the look in his eyes when he told me he would never stop hunting me if I tried to leave him. And then he dropped me.
Acted like I’d never meant anything to him.
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to make a point, or if he was pissed off at me.