Episode Four
“ W hy are we here?” Dante asks me.
“I’m here because I need to get into that building, and you’re here because you’re going to hack the alarm system and get that door unlocked for me,” I tell him.
It’s partly true. I could have gotten someone else to do it, but my parents are out of town and Pops instructed me to keep Dante busy and as far away from Josie as I possibly could. Which, considering how those two are joined at the fucking hip, isn’t an easy task.
“What’s in there?” Dante asks, peering up at the building we’re about to break into.
“Something I need,” I tell him. “Can you disable the alarms or not?”
Dante scoffs as he pulls out his laptop. “Please, I once hacked into the Secret Service database,” he says. “This is like child’s play.”
“Why the fuck would you need to hack the Secret Service database?”
“To see if I could.” Dante shrugs. “Turns out I could.” He smirks.
I shake my head. “How long is this going to take?” I ask as he taps away at the keyboard.
“You’re in. System’s disabled. Front door’s unlocked.”
“Good. Now, you think you can crack a safe?”
“A safe?”
“I didn’t fucking stutter, Dante. Can you or not?”
“I can give it a try,” he says, shutting his laptop and shoving it back into his bag.
“Follow me.” I jump out of the car, jog across the street, and walk right through the front door of the building like I own the place.
“Why are we breaking into a jewelry store?” Dante questions from behind me.
“Because the fucker tried to rip me off by giving me a lab-grown diamond.” I point towards the back of the shop. “There’s a stone in there I want.”
Without question, Dante walks that way and heads straight for the safe. I pace around the room for thirty minutes before he finally gets it opened. I step inside, shifting through ten drawers before I find the one I’m looking for.
“Got it. Let’s go.”
“What’s it for?” Dante asks as we each slide back into the car.
I pull out the diamond and inspect it. “Cassidy.” I smile. “She’s going to marry me.”
“Are you planning on asking her first? She could say no.”
“Unlike you, little cousin, my girl isn’t going to say no.” I laugh at him.
The fucker is sixteen and asked his girlfriend to marry him. Josie was smart. She turned him down and said they’re not getting hitched in high school.
“Fuck off,” Dante grunts. “Drop me off at Nonno’s.”
“Can’t. We got one more stop to make,” I tell him.
“This was your stop? You couldn’t have done this without me?” Dante groans, and I grin.
“I could, but then you’d miss all the fun.”
Enzo and Orlando are already here. They’ve got the fat fucker who sold me a fake stone hanging from the rafters.
Retrieving the diamond from my pocket, I hold it up in front of the jeweler’s face. “See this? I found what I paid for. Guess where it was?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “I didn’t know. It wasn’t me. My staff…”
“There’s no point trying to weasel your way out of this, dipshit. You sold me a fake. Do you take me for a fool?” I drop the diamond safely back into my pocket.
“No, Mr. Valentino, I swear I didn’t know.” He shakes his head from side to side.
“Even so, the problem we have is that you did rip me off. What kind of punk would I look like if I just let you walk out of here?” I pull the gun from the holster under my jacket and disengage the safety mechanism.
The fat fucker’s eyes bulge out of his head the second he realizes he’s staring down the barrel of my nine.
“Don’t look so surprised. You knew who I was when I walked in there,” I remind the dead man walking while aiming right between his eyes.
“No, I swear. I didn’t do this!” he yells, desperate to try to save his pathetic excuse for a life. Those screams land on deaf ears as my finger pulls back, sending a bullet tearing right through his head.
“Fucking idiots. You’d think people would learn by now.” I turn towards my cousins, who are all staring at me. “What?”
“You got a little something…” Enzo smirks while gesturing a hand above his right eyebrow. Orlando hands me a towel and I wipe the contents of that fucker’s brain matter from my face.
“You two, dump him in his shop and then burn the fucking building down,” I tell Enzo and Dante. That should keep them busy for what’s left of the night.
Not waiting for a response, I walk out of the basement and straight to my car. I need to make a quick stop home before I go and find my girlfriend.
I tug my shirt over my head and climb into Cassidy’s bed. “Alessandro?” she whispers, her voice weighed down by sleep.
“It better be me. You expecting someone else to climb into your bed, babe?”
“Mmm, no, but I’d probably accept a Hemsworth,” she hums.
“Pfft, only if you want to see them in a shallow grave.” I shift closer and pull her body up against mine.
“Where have you been?”
“I had a thing to do,” I say before kissing her forehead. I avoid telling her the gritty details of the family business. Not because I don’t trust her or because I think it’ll make her see me differently. I know Cassidy is end game. It’s for her. I don’t want her haunted by the images that are locked inside my head. I don’t want her tainted by them.
“You know I’m your ride or die, right? I don’t care what you’ve been doing. I wouldn’t ever judge you, Alessandro,” she says, rolling over and straddling my waist.
I reach up and tuck her hair behind her ear. “I know that. And I love you. Some things you’re better off not knowing. I’m not going to spend our life together burdening you with shit you don’t need to be burdened with.”
“As long as you’re not keeping it in because you think I can’t handle it. I don’t want you keeping shit in if it’s going to affect you either. If you need to talk about something, you talk to me.” Cassidy leans forward and captures my lips with hers. “Promise me you’ll always come to me,” she says.
“Marry me?”
Her eyes widen. “W-what?”
I stretch an arm off the bed, pick up my jeans from the floor, and pull the diamond out of my pocket. Probably not the best place to leave a seven hundred-thousand-dollar stone. But here we are. I hold the diamond up to Cassidy and repeat, “Marry me?”
Her brows pull down. “Um, Alessandro, usually the diamond is set in a ring for situations like this,” she says instead of answering me.
“I know, and it will be. We can design the ring together,” I tell her.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes.” She smiles as her eyes flick from the stone back to me. “I will marry you, because I can’t think of a single reason not to.”
“Well, thank fuck for that.” Taking hold of her head, I pull Cassidy’s face down and slam my lips on hers. “I love you.”
“I love you.” Then, all of a sudden, Cassidy jumps out of the bed. “Oh my god! I have to call my mom. We have to call your mom. Oh shit, is your dad going to be okay with this? Like, does he have to vet me or something before I become a Valentino?”
I can’t help but laugh.
“It’s not funny, Alessandro. I’m serious.” She scowls at me.
“I can tell,” I say while trying to hide my amusement. “Pops loves you, Cassidy. Both of my parents love you. They’ll be thrilled. And as for being vetted, I did that the first week I met you, babe.”
“You did? How?”
“You know, the normal way. Running background checks, pulling financials, all that.”
“Find anything interesting?” She lifts a challenging brow.
“Yeah, I did. The most amazing, stunningly beautiful woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”
“Smooth.” She laughs while swiping her phone off the nightstand— guess we’re making those calls right now.
“You know we could tell everyone in the morning, when people are awake,” I suggest.
“Shit, you’re right.” Cassidy drops her phone back down. “Sorry. I just… got excited.”
“I’m glad.” I pull her onto the bed and roll my body on top of hers. “I think we need to practice the whole consummating part of the marriage.” I smirk.
“We’re probably going to need to practice that a whole lot,” Cassidy agrees, wrapping her legs around my waist.
As I look down at this woman, I thank God for sending her to me. I could not think of a single person I’d rather spend my life with.
My lips trace along her jawline until a buzzing from the nightstand has Cassidy reaching over for her phone. “It’s for you,” she says.
“Huh?”
“The phone. It’s for you.” Tapping my arm, Cassidy holds my phone out to me—my cousin’s name staring back at me from the screen.
“Dante, I swear to God, there had better be a damn good reason why you’re calling me,” I grunt.
“It’s Tilly. You need to come to General Hospital. Now,” he says.
My blood goes cold. “What happened?” I ask him.
“She’s been shot. I don’t know. Just get here.”
“Fuck. I’ll be right there.” I cut the call and look down at the woman who just promised me forever, the reality that forever isn’t always a long time suddenly sinking in. “My cousin’s in the hospital. I have to go.”
“I’ll come.” Cassidy jumps up and throws on her clothes. She doesn’t ask any questions. She simply places her hand in mine and walks by my side as we leave the apartment.