Chapter 14 Alessandro
ALESSANDRO
Something is wrong, and someone is going to pay for it.
The second Giulia appears on Monday morning, stepping through the front door with her head hanging low, I sense the change in her. She’s deflated, walking slowly, looking stricken, as if she’s got bad news.
Or like someone made the mistake of hurting her.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as soon as she’s close enough that I don’t have to raise my voice. There are too many people walking around the grounds, and while I might have taken a risk last night, it’s broad daylight now. Nobody can know there’s more to us than what’s on the surface.
The brief glance she gives me doesn’t make me feel better. There’s a haunted look in her eyes, not to mention dark circles that tell the story of a sleepless night.
“In the car,” she whispers, then climbs into the back seat as soon as I’ve opened the door.
My gaze travels over the grounds while my chest tightens. If one of these assholes said or did anything to hurt her, they’re fucking dead. I don’t care which one of them it was. I’ll fucking kill them. All of the old instincts come rushing to the surface after being locked away for so long.
The intensity of my reaction startles me as I get behind the wheel. I’m still hungry for blood as we roll down the wide driveway. “What happened?” I ask, looking at her in the mirror. She’s sitting with her hands over her face, lying back against the seat.
Her voice is muffled, but the message comes through loud and clear. “She knows. Sophia knows.
Fuck me. If someone hurt her, I could handle it. There’s something clean and straightforward about vengeance. This is more complicated, and not only because my sister is involved. “How do you know that?” I ask, doing my best to be calm and rational, since it’s clear Giulia is anything but.
“She asked me. After you popped your head in last night,” she explains, on the verge of tears. “She flat-out confronted me when it was just the two of us.”
She would too. I love the girl as much as any brother loves their sister, and I would do anything for her.
But she can be a real pain in the ass when she puts her mind to it.
Sometimes that straightforward, no-fucks-given attitude of hers can backfire on the people around her.
“And since I’m still alive and breathing, I’m guessing you said there was nothing happening? ” I ask.
“Of course I did. I didn’t know what else to say. I laughed it off and acted like I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I’m sure she wasn’t convinced,” she frets. If she chews her lip any harder, she’ll draw blood. “I was up all night worrying. You have no idea.”
“You must have convinced her because she would have called me otherwise,” I reason. “There’s no way she would’ve stayed quiet if she thought you were lying.”
“I guess you’re right,” she sighs after a few seconds. “But you weren’t there. She gets this suspicious look on her face, you know?”
“I do,” I have to admit with a chuckle.
Apparently, that was a mistake.
“Are you laughing?” she asks. “What is so funny about this?”
“There’s nothing funny about it.” Looking back at her in the mirror, I’m torn between wanting to comfort her and wanting to ravish her.
Sleep-deprived and worried as she is now, she’s temptation personified.
I can’t get enough of her. Even last night, which I knew was a risk, there was no resisting her, and I honestly don’t understand it.
“But let’s look at this rationally for a minute.
If she thought something was happening with us, don’t you think we would’ve woken up to World War III this morning?
She didn’t say anything to your brother or to your papa. I’m still alive and breathing, right?”
“That’s true,” she admits with a sigh.
“So either you convinced her, or she doesn’t think it’s that serious.”
“Or…” she counters, “… she just didn’t want to say anything unless she’s sure. Maybe she wants to get proof. Or maybe…” she adds with new horror, “… she wants to talk to you first. That could be it, you know. I bet she’ll confront you about it.”
“I think I can handle her,” I reply. It’ll be a cold day in hell when my baby sister tells me how to live my life. It’ll be even colder when I take her advice.
“You’re not getting it.” Her voice is shaking, thicker than before. She’s crying or getting close at the very least. “We’re not being as careful as we said we would be, and this is what happens. I’m the one with something to lose here.”
It’s a damn good thing traffic picks up when it does, forcing me to slow down instead of hitting the gas pedal and trying to outrun the sinking feeling that comes over me at her choice of words. “Really? Do you think I have nothing to lose? You think I’m not risking anything?”
“Nothing would actually happen to you,” she insists, almost waving me off the way Rocco waves a hand when something is too unimportant for him to care about a minute longer. “Not unless we want a big war. That’s the whole reason you’re working for us in the first place.”
She doesn’t hear it. She can’t. The way she sounds. Dismissive, careless. Condescending as fuck. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you for reminding me of my place in things,” I mutter, tapping the horn when the car in front of me doesn’t roll forward like the cars ahead of it.
“Oh, don’t start,” she warns, with acid dripping from her voice. “I spent my entire night sitting up, worried out of my mind, and I don’t need you turning this into something it’s not.”
Who the hell am I in this car with? Has she been pretending all these weeks to feel differently than she does? She sees me the way Luca does, the way Dante does.
No, it’s worse. I’m good enough to fuck, to have a little excitement with, but in the end, I’m still the hired help. And between that and my history, she is beside herself at the thought of anyone finding out she would stoop so low.
She’s not finished, either. The girl has worked herself up into an epic meltdown. “Maybe if you didn’t pull that shit with me last night during dinner, she wouldn’t suspect anything. Why did you have to do that?”
“Excuse me, but are you or are you not the girl who begged me to make her come?” I ask, and it’s gratifying to see her eyes go wide and her face go red in the mirror. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with it then. You didn’t have to come out looking for me.”
“You didn’t give me any choice!”
“Please.” My laughter is cold, unlike the bitter fire cooking me from the inside out.
“If that’s what you need to tell yourself, be my guest, but don’t lie to me.
You went out there because you wanted to, and now you feel guilty and scared.
Because, as far as you’re concerned, we can have all the fun we want so long as no one knows, but you would die a million deaths if anyone knew Alessandro Vitali stuck his dick in you.
Can we at least be honest with each other? ”
“That is a vile thing to say,” she hisses.
“That’s right. Now you’re the injured party, and I’m the unforgivable bastard.” If anything, this is what I’m used to. It’s the role I’ve always played.
And I’ve been kidding myself, pretending I was doing things right this time. There’s nothing right about this. All of my reservations come back, all of the reasons I fought so hard against this in the first place.
She’s too young.
She’s from the wrong family.
There’s too much bad blood in the past.
But I didn’t go into it wanting to hurt her. That’s the difference. That is what set this entire fucked-up situation apart.
“My family would never see me the same way,” she whispers. “Can’t you understand? I’m not trying to be mean or cold. I just wouldn’t know what to do if they hated me.”
“They would hate me, not you,” I murmur.
They already do. Some of them might hide it better than others, but there’s no denying the cold, hard facts.
I am the devil as far as they’re concerned, but I’m useful to them.
And it’s in their best interest to avoid a war.
They put up with me to keep things even-keeled, but it goes no further than that.
You did it to yourself. There’s that voice again, ringing in my ears, bringing up every mistake I’ve ever made, every thoughtless choice, and every unrepentant act of violence, and rubbing them in my face.
Including one victim in particular.
The memory of her unease when we saw each other last night makes me grind my teeth.
Emilia is always going to stand between us.
I will never be forgiven for my actions after I had her abducted.
It doesn’t matter that Luca was the thoughtless one, that he made the decision to bring her into the fold and leave her vulnerable.
I’m the evil son of a bitch who hurt her, along with so many other violent acts that were all done with my family in mind.
Giulia will never forgive me.
Again, my teeth grind, but this time my spine stiffens, and I remember who I am.
So what if she doesn’t forgive me? She might as well be a child, unaware of the sacrifices a person in my position has to make.
There’s nothing real happening here. We’re fucking.
We’re having fun. She’s a nice diversion, a way of getting through this humiliating job without losing my grip on my sanity.
That’s the truth, I know it is.
Why doesn’t it feel true?
“You need to talk to her. Please,” Giulia begs. She even folds her hands, and her chin quivers, and I don’t know if the whole thing is sad or funny. “Tell her there’s nothing happening with us. If Dante found out—”
“That’s enough,” I grunt, cutting her off before she can go on. “The horse is already dead. You don’t need to beat it anymore.”
Her hands slap the leather seat under her. “Just for once, can you think about how the situation affects somebody other than you?”
‘Just for once,’ she says, as if I haven’t been thinking about her for weeks. As if I didn’t take my time with her. As if I haven’t put her first whenever we’re alone together. As if I haven’t gazed into her eyes more times than I can count and asked myself what she must be feeling.
I’m sure she doesn’t think I’m capable of anything like that.
“I will take your advice under consideration,” I reply.
And this is where the conversation ends, because nothing good will come out of it.
If we don’t stop now, I might have to take the rage building in my head out on another driver.
Wouldn’t that look good on the news? A road rage incident involving a disgraced, would-be mafia boss. How far the mighty have fallen.
She’s smart enough to keep her mouth shut, typing furiously on her phone the rest of the ride. I know she’s not talking about me to her friends, because she won’t let herself talk about me. Because I’m the dirty secret no one is ever supposed to know about.
When I pull to a stop in front of the courtyard where she’ll meet her brainless friends, she doesn’t wait for me to open her door and slams it shut so violently, I flinch.
Then I continue, taking the familiar route to my apartment. Because that’s all my life is anymore. Waiting for her.
And now, I don’t have the promise of a few precious minutes with her to look forward to.