15. Marco
Marco
Last night at the cabin, the untouchable princess finally shattered. Usually, she can slip her armor back on before the dust even settles, but her facade is crumbling, and she’s running out of strength to maintain the ruse.
I’ve nicked the shit out of my right hand.
Forming a fist hurts like hell, but the pain is a worthwhile trade to witness her pleasure and then disgust. Eroding her self-control revealed more vulnerability than she’s ever shown before.
The emotional striptease left me hard as a rock long after she ran off.
I’ve been boxing for the last several years, and I recognize when I have an opponent on the ropes. Bianca is scrambling, trying to find purchase, which means I can’t let up. Not when I’m so close to breaking her down.
A part of me wants to take and take and take when it comes to her, so that’s what I do.
By breakfast, she’s back to her usual self.
After the experience we shared, seeing her so put together and unbothered excites rather than frustrates me.
She’s like a present I can unwrap again and again.
One day soon, there won’t be anything left to hide from me.
Until then, I decide to savor the push and pull as she tries to return things to the status quo.
“We have to leave by seven tonight if we’re going to make dinner in time.
” Bianca shoves her egg whites around on her plate without taking a bite.
When I don’t respond, she glances up to meet my eyes.
Awareness, like a bolt of lightning, spirals through my bloodstream.
Her cries from last night echo in my brain, and my good hand clenches into a fist on the table.
“What dinner?”
Bianca’s eye does that twitching thing I’ve begun to find so fascinating, but otherwise she’s painfully neutral. “At the Canary Club? With the other families in our circle?”
A blank stare is all she receives from me.
My wife rolls her eyes. “Do you not ever try to work with anyone else under the Council’s protection? Make connections? ”
I take a massive bite out of my blueberry bagel. “Am I supposed to?”
Her frustrated sigh comes from the soul.
“You could be trading in valuables other than weapons or at least finding a buyer who’s willing to pay you more for your inventory.
Plus, networking opens up the possibility of landing contracts with more legitimate businesses to help funnel your cash through, like that gym you mentioned.
” She straightens in her seat and points her fork at me.
“Talk to some people tonight and figure out a way they can be useful to you.”
It’s more of an order than a suggestion, but I get the point. She’s right. As the boss, I need to step my game up to ensure the strength and success of my organization. Leaders shouldn’t disappear for days, drowning themselves in booze and shacking up with women who aren’t their wives.
Unfortunately, being a good don will have to wait one more night. After I deleted the photos and video with the escort last week, I had Luca do some digging to find other Bianca insurance.
He came through, of course, with even juicier details. A dinner party seems like the perfect opportunity to put my new intel to use.
When the hour arrives, Bianca descends the stairs in a sleek black cocktail dress that molds to her every curve, and it’s all I can do on the way to the restaurant not to slip my hand beneath the slit at her thigh.
Will my teeth marks still be there, waiting?
My dick swells at the image. Fuck, I hope so.
Despite evening traffic through Midtown, we arrive at the restaurant at seven twenty-nine.
I’ve never been a fan of the Canary Club with the heavy red curtains draped across nearly every wall and window and the velvet-lined chairs.
The high ceiling and arched walkways set the stage for a place that leans into a different era of New York.
I can picture Al Capone sitting at the booth in the back, snorting cocaine off the glass table.
Bianca and I spot Aldo simultaneously. With her arm hooked through mine, I feel her tense immediately, and she only grows stiffer as we approach the bar.
“Aldo. I didn’t realize you would be here tonight.”
He aims a tight-lipped smile and sets his wine down. “Zanni was kind enough to issue an invitation on my daughter’s behalf.”
He eyes said daughter with unveiled disgust.
My fingers itch with the sudden urge to punch that expression right off him.
Bianca unthreads her arm from mine while plastering on a fake smile. “You go on ahead. I’ll catch up in a bit.”
I almost refuse before reminding myself that Bianca can handle herself and reluctantly head toward the other end of the restaurant, where I recognize a number of familiar faces from Club Paradiso.
I should mingle like my wife suggested, but I can’t shake my uneasiness over leaving her alone with her father.
Not after she hinted at Aldo’s tendency toward domestic violence.
I stare unabashedly from across the room as her father pulls her aside by the bar. One arm curves around the small of her back, and he’s speaking close to her ear.
She jolts abruptly, her spine straightening as if someone stuck her with a hot poker. Aldo glares before pivoting on the herringbone floor to join the rest of us.
Bianca trails behind a moment later, her cheeks drained of color. I stand to pull out the chair next to me, and my attention catches on a red welt blooming on the bare skin above the low-back.
My hands clench the back of the chair. Aldo pinched her. With enough force to leave a mark.
But why?
I flex my jaw, my eyes fixing on Aldo as a bolt of pure fury blazes through my veins. The fucker hurt my wife. If not for the Council’s displeasure, I’d lock my father-in-law in my basement and draw out his torture for days.
The incident puts me in a foul mood, and when the server comes by to take everyone’s orders, I skip the food and order a glass of bourbon instead. I try to drink less these days because you need to stay sharp when you’re dealing with a pit viper, but she’s uncharacteristically subdued.
Like the Argentos, the guests tonight are all old crime families who’ve associated with the Council for generations.
Carla Esposito and her husband Marino used to be close friends with Mamma but distanced themselves from our family after her death.
They’ve always demonstrated reluctance to involve themselves in unnecessary drama.
The Lanaros and Ubertis have graced us with their presence tonight as well, and I spy several more familiar people scattered around the table.
The final—and most important guest, in my opinion—arrives just as the server finishes passing out appetizers. Nicola Bonucci, the only survivor of the Bonucci family massacre, struts into the Canary Club, her giant sunglasses concealing her eyes despite it being nearly eight at night.
Before the Contis toppled them, the Bonuccis were a powerful crime family.
And Bianca was the one who incited their fall from grace.
Nicola’s ash blond hair is caked with enough hairspray to reopen the hole in the ozone layer, and she’s draped dramatically in a mink coat she clutches to her chest, either uncaring or unaware that mink coat weather is another two months away.
I grin into my bourbon as she scans the guests, her eyes alighting on Bianca with alarming speed. Bianca freezes like a rabbit caught in a trap, and some of my enjoyment ebbs. I’ve never seen my wife look so cornered in public before.
As Nicola marches across the room, everyone falls silent. A ripple passes through the spectators as she tugs off her sunglasses, perching the designer frames in her hair.
“Mrs. Bonucci—” The name slips from Bianca’s lips right before Nicola picks up Carla’s glass of water and hurls the contents into the Ice Princess’s face.
Half rising out of my seat, I force myself to sit back down again as Bianca closes her eyes, carefully pats herself dry, and stands up.
Several of her men begin stepping forward until she opens her eyes and lifts a hand, silently ordering them to back down. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
I have to applaud the woman’s poise. Even sopping wet and the center of attention, she remains composed and unruffled. Shatterproof. Only I know that she isn’t always that way. Her hand goes to her watch and then smooths the lines of her black cocktail dress instead.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out about your new husband?” Nicola’s chin wobbles, and tears fill her eyes as she points an accusatory finger at me. “Why does he get to live while my boy rots in the ground?”
Carla glances between the two women, her botoxed forehead as close to perplexed as she can manage. “Nicola? What’s this about?”
Mrs. Bonucci glances around at the gathered mafiosos and laughs, bitterness twisting her features. “That’s right. No one here knows what a viper she is. This…this woman is the reason my son’s dead.”
The Conti’s hostile takeover of the Bonucci family’s operations three years ago is well-known.
That attack was brazen, even by my standards.
Nicola escaped the massacre, but her son—Bianca’s former fiancé—wasn’t so lucky.
Despite the Contis not being governed by the Council, severe consequences would have followed if not for the Bonucci’s temporary ex-communication at the time.
Instead of punishing the family who acted against one of their own, the Council used the event as a cautionary tale.
This is what happens if you alienate us.
The speculation surrounding Elio’s death was widespread. Nicola’s sudden appearance after being MIA for so long is like getting a season finale for a show that was canceled.
“Nicola, that’s enough—” Aldo reaches for her elbow, but Nicola wrenches her arm away and pivots to slap him. Though the blow lacks force, the simple fact that she tried elicits several gasps.
“You don’t get to tell me what is or isn’t enough!
Not when you’re the one who raised this coldhearted bitch.
” Her voice breaks, and she whirls back to Bianca.
“My son loved you, and you loved him. He was so excited to marry you, and yet you betrayed him as soon as your bastard of a father snapped his fingers. You might be a bitch, but even a dog has more loyalty.”
My stomach churns with unwanted emotion.
They loved one another? Because their marriage was arranged, the possibility that Bianca actually wanted the union never even occurred to me.
I assumed it was easy for her to turn on Elio Bonucci.
That she viewed him as nothing more than a piece on a game board.
I never imagined that he was someone she’d cared about and lost.
The liquor transforms into acid in my middle, and my throat constricts.
What have I done?
Bianca’s body is so uncomfortably wound that I sense she might splinter at the slightest touch. She doesn’t defend herself against the accusations, but her gaze, normally so forthright and unflinching, flickers to Aldo and lingers.
My mind returns to the welt on her back, and I shove my drink away, the bourbon souring in my stomach.
Aldo stares off into space, his expression murderous and his fists clenched at his sides, Nicola’s handprint still visible on his cheek. On any other day, I might have celebrated Aldo’s public put-down, but that was before I realized the potential repercussions for Bianca.
Taking a step toward my wife, Nicola lowers her glasses back down to the bridge of her nose.
“I just wanted to come and see your face. I wanted to know if you were shameless enough to seem happy after everything you did to Elio. I see now I shouldn’t have bothered hoping you’d regret your actions.
You’re just as much of a monster as the man who’s been pulling your strings your whole life.
More so, because at least he didn’t murder Elio in cold blood like a coward. ”
Spinning on her heel, Nicola exits as abruptly as she arrived. The atmosphere in the restaurant curdles. Around us, the rhythmic murmur of high-society judgment swells in the whispers and clinking of silverware.
Bianca remains frozen in the center, her shoulders rounded as if she’s shielding herself. The perfect, untouchable Conti facade has slipped away entirely.
When her eyes finally snap to mine, the confusion recedes, replaced by a nauseating clarity.
She knows.
Somehow, she knows exactly who orchestrated the night’s chaos, and guilt balls in my gut in a way I never expected. Nicola was supposed to be another pawn in my ongoing war with Bianca, the same as Gen and the escort from the Garage.
But she deserves this. The whole point tonight was to rattle her. Mission accomplished.
This should be cause for celebration. After all, I can practically see her reputation shattering. The Ice Princess is nothing more than a woman playing a man’s game.
The door shuts behind Nicola, and Bianca clears her throat. “I apologize for the commotion. If you’ll all excuse me.”
She sets down her napkin and hurries through the crimson drapes toward the restrooms. She appears painfully small and alone, but I smother the remorse that tries to root beneath my ribs.
I refuse to feel sorry for what I did tonight when the Contis have done so much worse.
The entire family poisons everything they touch, and Bianca’s no exception.
Still, when I glance over at Aldo, his disdain as he watches his daughter slink away feels uncomfortably familiar.
I’ve witnessed that look so many times, it’s practically engraved in my psyche.
I think about what Bianca told me, about how her sister pays for her sins.
I recall her fear, and before I realize it, I’m climbing to my feet to follow her.