Chapter 28 – Amanda
Ican’t believe I’m doing this.
Of all the twists and turns in my twenty-eight years of life, walking into Mama Ana’s Bar there were hard lines drawn, and you knew who your people were.
No, nothing had changed. The people were fueled by the same grit. This restaurant still bustled with life. That was Ana Morelli’s vision for this place, and her son, the don, kept it exactly how she designed it. Being here felt like…home.
My gaze trained on the corner table, right where I knew he would be.
Damn, but he was beautiful.
Vincenzo sat with a group of men at the back table.
He wore street clothes. A black tee hugged muscles that the athletic boy I once knew didn’t have.
Vincenzo was a man in every sense of the word.
The harsh lines of his face were cut and hard.
Ink spilled over his arms, crawled up his throat.
An eager little part of me wanted to know where else it marked.
I hadn’t truly had the opportunity to study him.
Time seemed to still, and I ate up the opportunity to soak it in.
Always the dangerous one, he sat with his back to the wall. It made my lip twitch to remember why. No one snuck up on him. Being with him meant never having to worry. The neglected part of me reached out to him, to the memory of what being in that space felt like.
What could have been….
“Miss, are you looking for a table?” The hostess interrupted my thoughts. “We have an hour wait because it’s the Sunday night supper rush, but I can try to squeeze you in at the bar?”
I didn’t even look at her. “Thanks, but my party is already here.”
“Oh, okay. Do you need a menu?”
Vincenzo looked up. Dark eyes, the color of a starless sky snagged me. The very air seemed to vibrate across the space.
“No, thank you.” The words ended with a catch in my breath.
Energy crackled along my skin. The empty spot in my chest panged hard. My heart beat fast, blood rushing excitedly through my veins. Even now, as I fought to remember my determination and reason for being here, I wanted to dash forward, fold into the proximity of that man.
I don’t know this version of him.
That thought was chilling. Head held high, I walked toward him. Every encounter in the past few weeks had been a collision. There’d been no quiet time to just exist with him. To get to know him again.
And now, there would never be. I stopped a few feet from his chair. “I need to talk to you.”
Noises, ranging from snorts to soft laughs, peppered around the table.
I ignored the other Made Men.
Vincenzo sliced a look in their direction, and suddenly they had elsewhere to look. That commanding gaze cut back to me. “Talk.”
“Privately.” We weren’t doing this here. Maybe it was safer to have witnesses, given who and what Vincenzo was, but I didn’t feel like airing my personal situation in front of the gossips.
You just want to be alone with him.
The horror!
I began to march to the backroom. The partitioned space was advertised for large groups, party rentals, or just overflow on the busiest of nights, when in reality, it was where Don Gaspare Morelli conducted business.
As I reached to slide the thick barn door open, a rough hand snagged my grip. Vincenzo spun me around, bending to get right in my face. “What do you think you’re doing?”
I narrowed my gaze. “We need to talk.”
Vincenzo’s fingers tightened around my wrist. “Not in there.”
I huffed. “Fine. Where?”
Vincenzo slid his fingers up my arm. The bustle faded to a drone. I was hyper aware of every inch of him blocking the restaurant. Those fierce, nocturnal eyes stared straight through me. It felt like they were looking for my soul.
He would only find a husk, because mine was dead.
I inhaled a shaky breath. Leather laced with tobacco, and something darker filled me. It was powerful, washing through me. Drawing me forward. Daring me to take a sip of the danger.
“Vincenzo,” I demanded, desperately trying to resist his spell.
“Mandy.”
My eyes closed at the familiarity of that word. The boy had been my best friend. This man used his name for me. Yearning shimmered through me. It had been so long—
“Outside,” he clipped.
I blinked and shook myself. “Of course.”
His touch trailed over my shoulder, latching onto my opposite shoulder. With his arm looped over me, he guided us to the kitchen. I tried to step out of his reach, but his grip tightened.
This was too much. Too familiar. Walking under the shelter of his arm. Once, it was my favorite place to be. We’d never been hand holders. He’d always been taller, but now, even with heels, I still fit perfectly under the shelter of his touch.
“Let me go,” I hissed.
“No.”
That word was packed with emotions I didn’t want to name, but I felt the possession sink into me. It made my stomach tighten.
“Enzo, we’re not doing this,” I snapped.
His breath hitched, and his grip only tightened.
Pushing through the kitchen, Vincenzo guided me around the barrel-chested cook, who looked like he hadn’t aged a day. Servers and assistants flitted around, but not one batted an eye that the eldest Messina boy was invading their space. They knew better.
Some things never changed.
My mouth watered at the scent of grilled meats, buttery vegetables, and savory sauces. The mixture of oregano, basil, and thyme melded in an enticing cocktail.
A pinch followed by a grumble formed in my belly.
Luckily, it wasn’t audible.
We passed the dish pit and then finally pushed through the back door. While the alley wasn’t silent, it was a different melody of sounds that seemed quieter.
I tugged away from Vincenzo. He let me go.
Putting a healthy distance between us, I moved to stand under the back light. The round disc created a golden circle against the thickly shadowed night.
The mobster didn’t join me.
“I don’t understand what game we’re playing,” I began, planting my hands on my hips. “But I’m done, Vincenzo. It’s been…interesting. But this is the real world. One where I can’t be your wife. I need your word that the marriage license will be destroyed. We can’t be married.”
In the gloom, a flame flicked to life. “You want a divorce.”
I motioned with my hand, the old habit of speaking without speaking coming back as a second language. “Yes!” My hands fluttered again. “Well, no—wrong term.”
Vincenzo chuckled. “Spit it out.”
I pursed my lips. No one else had the maddening ability to make me this flustered. “It’s still the weekend. If the documents aren’t filed with the courts, the marriage never happened.”
“We went to church, Amanda.” A cherry blazed red.
Tobacco burned in the night. The rich aroma danced through the space, an invisible taunt. My fingers curled into a fist.
“That doesn’t hold precedence—”
“You’re saying it doesn’t count?” Smoke exhaled from the dark, curling and dissolving in the light.
I wanted to stamp my foot, demand he come out, and quit hiding, so we could have this conversation face to face.
I wasn’t brave enough to step forward and join him over the barrier of that orange glow.
“We can’t be married,” I repeated.
“We are, and you’re mine.” A hand with a small, rolled cigar stretched out. Those long, strong fingers offered peace.
My shoulder burned with the memory of their touch.
“I don’t smoke anymore,” I said flatly.
A wry chuckle hummed from the pool of darkness. “Neither do I.” His hand jerked with insistence. “Sometimes old habits die hard.”
Because I was hungry, because I was crabby, because I just needed something, I let out a growl of frustration and grabbed the smoldering stick. The moment I put it to my lips, a wave of nostalgia hit me hard.
This was our thing. Sharing—everything.
I almost dropped the cigarillo like a poisonous snake.
Muscle memory made me suck the divine smoke past my lips.
“Good girl,” murmured the voice of sin incarnate. Vincenzo stepped into the pool of light. It cast his face in sharper, harsher hues. His hands settled on my shoulders. An unspoken claim. There wasn’t an ounce of forgiveness there. He bent over me, inhaling my hair.
“Dio sacro,” he rasped.
And then his lips pressed against my forehead.
My chest cracked wide open. Pain and longing spilled out. The feelings were black, like tar that was sticky and toxic.
I panicked, trying to stumble away.
Vincenzo held me tight, dipping to press his forehead against mine. “We’re not getting divorced.”
I fought back a cry of dismay. My voice sounded high, full of the distress I would rather have hidden. “What do you want with me?”
“Isn’t it obvious, my sweet Mandy?” His lips curved up with a cruel slant.
“No!” I gasped. “Why would you actively try to screw up my life?”
“Screw up your life?” He tasted the words. “If that’s how you see it, va bene.”
“Enzo,” I prayed.
“You want an answer that you already know, but clearly don’t understand.” He spoke more to himself. “Well, I’ll give you one. I made you mine, fiore mio, because I can.”
A full-body shudder rocked through me. My eyes squeezed shut to keep the tears back. Those words were nails in the coffin!
His voice cracked like a whip. “Mandy, what’s happened?”
“What?” I blurted out. “What do you mean?”
“You’re trembling.”
I shrugged. “I can’t be married to you. Please, Vincenzo, it’s important.”
“It’s done.” He pulled back, staring hard at me. His jaw tightened, eyes turning to pitch.
“Undo it!” I narrowed my gaze. “Or I’ll sue.”
“Something’s happened.” He shifted his hold to cup my jaw, fingers pushing into the hair at the back of my neck. “Tell me.”
The whole horrific story was right there, right on the tip of my tongue.
But I swallowed it.
In life, we played the cards we were dealt. I wasn’t going to ask someone to play them for me. There was no such thing as a knight on a steed to save the lost girl. This was my battle.
It might have been my own desperation for independence, but really, if I was being honest with myself, it was because I didn’t want him to be involved for his own sake. If he knew what had happened, he would act.
That was just who he was.
So, for reasons I couldn’t explain, I decided to protect him. “Nothing. I’ll see you in court.”
“Can’t wait,” he smirked and plucked the burning cigarillo from my fingers. Flicking the ashen tip, he brought it to his mouth. I stood transfixed for a heartbeat, as if my body knew it would be my turn to take another drag, and I waited for the ritual.
But as he exhaled, I snapped out of the enchantment. I set my shoulders straight and marched away. His gaze followed me to the mouth of the alley, and although I didn’t look behind me to see him, I felt it the entire way to the rideshare I’d paid to wait for me. I knew in my gut he followed.
Always watching. Always making sure I was safe.
It was strange to have someone look after me. I didn’t hate it. But…I needed to end it. Good things never lasted.