Chapter 38 – Amanda
Holed up in the loft with a cat hater was hell.
I didn’t know who hated it more, me or the darling little angels.
Grigio and Bianco warmed up to me instantly.
I brought them into the bedroom to sleep with the moment Bill took a second dose of Benadryl.
I would have felt bad for the henchman, who couldn’t quit sneezing, if he hadn’t used his toe to flip Grigio across the room whenever the poor darling was unfortunate enough to get in his way.
For breakfast, I fed them tidbits of egg whites, and our friendship was solidified.
“You know they’ll eat your body if you die,” Bill grumped, snot rag balled in his fist as he watched me from the couch. “Dogs will lie by your side, but cats eat their owners.”
I pointed my pencil at him. “A dog is a natural scavenger. If they were hungry enough, they’d eat your corpse too.”
“Nope—” sneeze “—they would never.”
The door opened with a thud.
It wasn’t Vincenzo. He hadn’t come back for breakfast the other morning, like he said he would. I refused to let myself wonder why. Answers to that question hurt, and I didn’t like that reaction.
“Thank—” sneeze “—fuc—” sneeze sneeze “—king, hell!” Bill shot to his feet. “I’m going to burn these clothes and take a detox—” sneeze “—bath.”
As Nicole and Cristiano came into the loft, Bill shot past them. The bang of the closing door echoed with silence. My sister and I stared at one another.
It’d been far too long.
Her cheeks were fuller, her hips wider. But the glow shining around her made my baby sister look angelic.
I didn’t know which one of us rushed to the other first. In a tangle of arms, a protruding belly, and a fit of manic laughter, we embraced, squeezed, and rocked one another.
“Oh, you’re here, you’re here!” Nicole sang.
“I’m here.”
“I’m going to like you so much better now that you’re not working,” Nicole sighed happily. “That damn phone won’t be glued to your hand. No more lawyer emergencies to send you into a frenzy.”
I stilled. “You know?”
Nicole winced. She cast a look to where her husband cuddled Bianco in his arms. “I know—everything.”
While I’d left it up to Cristiano whether he wanted to tell his wife, now that she knew, I wanted to wring my brother-in-law’s neck. “What were you thinking?”
Nicole smacked me upside the head. “What were you thinking!” she wailed. “Planning to marry some dictator to save me without telling me? That stunt with Steven was bad enough, but this?”
I grimaced and rubbed the back of my head. “Ouch.”
Nicole crossed her arms. It pushed her incredibly large breasts up and accentuated her belly.
When did my sister get such nice tits? I stared at her.
“What?” she demanded.
“You’re pregnant.”
Nicole gaped at me. “Duh! You’ve known for months.”
But it was just now sinking in. “I can’t let Dad’s fuck up hurt you. If that means paying his debt, so be it.”
Cristiano interrupted us. “Did you ever stop to think there might be another way?”
“Yes!” I snapped, while at the same time, Nicole drawled, “Of course she did!”
We looked at each other. Tried to fight back smiles. And ended up laughing.
Grigio wove between Nicole’s legs, meowing softly. Squatting, because she couldn’t bend, Nicole picked him up.
“It’s a good thing I have such strong legs,” she muttered, hefting herself back upright.
Grigio rubbed his head against her boobs.
“You look incredible,” I beamed.
“And you look sickly,” she deadpanned. “You’ve been working too much.”
I shrugged. “None of that matters right now. Keeping you both safe—” I placed my hands on her belly “—is what’s important.”
Nicole closed her hand over mine. “Come on, we’re going for lunch.”
I shot a look at the clock. “That’s not a good idea. In fact…,” I rounded on my brother-in-law. “She shouldn’t be here!”
Cristiano’s glare could have turned a lesser woman into a pillar of salt. “She’s with me. She’s safe.”
I shook my head. “There was an assassination attempt.”
As I said the words out loud, I paused to wonder.
I didn’t remember who the people in the car were shooting at.
Why hadn’t they hit us? We were right there, in the open, right?
Would Vincenzo go so far as to lie to me?
I tried and failed to recall exactly how he’d phrased it.
Words were tricky. Keep them vague enough, and the listener could create their own meaning from them.
“My brother will always protect you.” Cristiano’s statement eased the knot of worry forming in my chest. “But you’re in Morelli turf. No one would dare interfere with our lunch.”
I frowned.
“Oh, come on,” Nicole insisted. “Mama Ana’s is just a few blocks away.”
That seemed as logical an argument as any.
“Fine,” I grumped.
“Yay!” Nicole set the cat on the counter and tugged my hand. “Let’s grab some grub. Baby’s hungry.”
***
It was painfully obvious, the more time I spent around Nicole, that I would do anything to protect her.
I made the right choice when I told Dad I would marry so that the criminal didn’t come after my sister.
If I could meet with the F.B.I. later this week, if they could help us nab the bad guy, then I wouldn’t have to do that.
But if there was no evidence for them to act on….
I’ll do whatever it takes.
Checking my phone as the hostess sat us in the back, I frowned.
I hadn’t heard from Dad. Wouldn’t he have texted me with an update by now?
Or at least had his secretary or her assistant give me wedding details?
Marrying the foreign crime lord was ten times more important than marrying Steven, and that had happened in the blink of an eye.
As I debated excusing myself from the table to call and check in, Nicole slapped my phone out of my hand. “Stop it.”
“What?” I scrambled to grab my phone, but she held it out with her other hand.
“No phones at the table.” Her lips tipped up in a wide grin. “It’s the rules here.”
I waved to the other tables spread around us. Mama Ana’s Bar & Grill was full, even though it was after the lunch rush. “Literally everyone else is!”
“Literally?” Nicole arched a brow. “Come on, Amanda, is that the kind of language you use in court?”
I fumed.
Thankfully, the waiter chose that minute to come and take our order.
Nicole and her husband fell into an easy conversation about a prize fight coming up. I let them carry the bulk of the conversation while my mind played with other thoughts. Maybe it was a good thing she had my phone. It prevented me from calling Dad for an update.
And saved me from embarrassing myself by begging him to find another way out of this.
What if he wouldn’t listen? Dread swirled through me. I didn’t feel the rise of another panic attack, but I felt sick. I didn’t want to find out. It was easier to believe he didn’t want to do this. That he didn’t feel like there was another way.
No, calling Dad, working with him, wasn’t an option.
If I wanted to avoid the impending marriage, I would have to save myself.
Until then, I just needed to hope Dad continued to delay giving me an update.
He would call when it was time, and I needed a plan in place to be ready.
I wasn’t dumb enough to think the foreigner would keep his word.
Once I was in the crime lord’s clutches, he could threaten Nicole at any point, and I would be powerless to stop him.
How am I going to manage this?
I had to get out of this deal and save my sister, my dad, hell, even my idiotic stepmother. At least my mother was probably safe, living off the grid with her tree-loving friends.
The few bites of food I managed to take turned sour in my gut.
Nicole leaned over. “What’s wrong?”
Not wanting to worry her, I tipped my head as if to crack my neck. “That woman over there is glaring at me.”
Nicole snorted. “Not you—both of us.”
I turned to my sister. “Why?”
“Merda, fratello,” Cristiano muttered, getting up from the table.
Nicole ignored her husband, sounding more cheerful as she said, “She’s the daughter of Morelli’s other capo. She hates our guts.”
I rolled my hand to elaborate. “Why?”
“Her dad wanted to marry his daughters to the Messina boys—the sons of a capo destined for the daughters of the other—and well, we sniped them.” Nicole held up the gorgeous rock on her finger.
I cupped my empty left hand with my right. Nicole hadn’t mentioned my wedding to Vincenzo. Maybe she didn’t know, but I found it hard to believe that her husband hadn’t told her that part of the story.
“Incoming.” Nicole sat up straighter.
I felt it then. The shift in the air. The energy crackling around me—directed at me. I didn’t have to look to know who’d arrived.
Tension roiled through me. A frantic buzz, it pushed and pulled against the hollow place in my chest. I lifted my gaze.
Twin pricks of midnight caught me. That savagely handsome face was a thing of beauty.
His presence seemed to dominate the space.
I swore every pair of eyes flicked in his direction as he glided through the tables.
Cristiano, moving beside him, cast the same dark spell, but the result seemed different.
Whereas the younger Messina brother had the potential for danger, the elder embodied the energy. Vincenzo was danger incarnate.
It was not something that should have left me breathless with a wild anticipation.
I cleared my throat and tried not to fidget. We hadn’t properly seen one another since….
Since we were teens.
We hadn’t sat down to a meal without an interruption—or sex. Hadn’t had a full, real conversation without going for the jugular—or hotter sex. I wasn’t sure how to act in this normal setting.
Just be yourself.
Okay. Yeah. I could do that.
To my left, the mobster folded onto the open seat. His back was to the wall. Every exit was in his line of sight, the whole of the restaurant at his mercy. Nothing happened without him watching.
Something about his calculating reign over the space irked me.
“Welcome back. How long do I have to stay at your place?” Great going. That wasn’t the fun, breezy Amanda. I worked too long in mergers, so I was able to cut through the fluff and drill into business. That opening line was neither friendly nor casual.
Maybe we weren’t able to exist without sparks erupting. And there was no privacy, no bed to channel them into something other than verbal barbs.
Beside me, Nicole groaned and scooted her chair closer to Cristiano.
“You’re free to leave when the threat has been neutralized,” Vincenzo conceded. His gaze was hard. The usual softness he reserved only for me wasn’t there.
I don’t miss it. I don’t.
I leaned forward, not backing down from his stare. “So, you do admit there is a threat?”
Something flickered in his eyes. “There’s always a threat. Right now, it’s a big one.”
The deduction was obvious. “By your admission, then, I’m not leaving.”
“This is off to a good start,” Cristiano muttered, and Nicole nodded.
I ignored the jab. “Answer the question, Vincenzo.”
The devil in black leaned forward. This wasn’t the same thoughtful man who’d taken me for midnight pancakes. Before me sat the king of the underworld, and I was playing with fire to bait him like this.
“You are mine, Amanda.” His hand splayed on the table, fingers tapping one-by-one in a controlled rhythm. “You may leave when it is safe, but I will always be watching over you.”
“I can handle myself,” I snapped. They didn’t understand! Nothing could happen to them.
“No, you can’t.” Nicole gave my arm a gentle squeeze. “That’s the whole point of this intervention. You’re making stupid, reckless decisions, and you’re going to get hurt.”
Her words knocked the wind out of my negotiations. How did I not see this for what it was? They’d rallied as a group to save me.
“I was working on a way out of this mess,” I insisted. Frustration pulsed through my mind, seeping into my muscles and making me tense. “This whole ‘make Amanda a prisoner’ is only preventing me from fixing it!”
“But there’s part of you that will do it.” Nicole leaned forward. “Admit it, you’ve resigned yourself to the worst-case scenario, even though you’re trying to find another way. We’ll help you! That’s what family does.”
My eyes pricked, but I refused to let tears form.
“And we’re going to take Dad down a peg or two,” my sister added quietly. “After everything, he can’t have the power to meddle with us anymore.” She swept a hand around the table. “He’s done.”
That’s why.
If I was kept under lock and key, I wouldn’t go running when my father called. They knew me. Knew I was desperate for his approval. The logical part of my brain had to admit it was a smart fail-safe to tie my hands.
In Vincenzo’s case, probably literally tie them.
I shifted in my seat, thighs rubbing together.
No, no! I have to fix this. Which meant I had to play along and not get distracted. I latched onto the frustration, using it to banish the rush of heat.
“Okay, well, fine then,” I conceded…for now. “What do I do in the meantime?”
The monster’s lips tipped up. The small smile sent an instant wave of something unwanted through my veins.
“I’m sure we can find something for you to do while you stay here.”
The ‘with me’ was implied.