17. Dom
17
dom
After leaving Ella off at the shelter, I texted Vinnie and asked him to meet me at the IAC for lunch. Uncle Sal too. I figured it was better to explain everything once and save time later. Sal must have given Rico a heads-up because he had the back room set up for us.
My dad was there too, for which I was grateful. He didn’t say much, but he was one of the strongest, smartest men I knew. He was the rock everyone else in the family counted on.
Over Cokes, chips, and hoagies, I relayed what Ella had told me. I felt only a slight twinge of guilt. Ella hadn’t specifically told me not to say anything, though the ask was probably implicit with the reveal. I felt I had to though. I trusted my family, and if I wanted their help, they had to know what they were getting into.
Their expressions were grave by the time I finished.
Uncle Sal was the first one to break the silence. “So, that’s where I’ve seen her before.”
“Sorry?” I asked, confused.
“When I was talking to her about the fire, she seemed familiar. I’ve been racking my brain ever since, trying to figure out where I know her from. Now I know. Seven years ago, I was at a conference in Chicago. A capo’s daughter went overboard on a private yacht during a storm and made the headlines. Couldn’t turn on the news without her picture flashing up on the screen. They said it was an accident, but rumors suggested otherwise.”
“What kind of rumors?” I asked.
“The ones that said she was helped off the deck by her fiancé.”
I hadn’t even considered that when she first told me what she’d done, but if her intended had been as unhappy with the agreement as she was, it couldn’t be ruled out.
Vinnie shifted in his seat, his dark eyes serious. “You wouldn’t happen to remember the name of the missing girl, would you?”
“Alessandra Ferraro.”
Vinnie started typing on his phone.
Uncle Rico whistled. “Ferraro, huh? He’s bad news.”
“You know him?” I asked, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Rico had more connections than free public Wi-Fi.
“I know of him,” Rico corrected. “And even then, not much.” Brows down low, with his elbow on the table, his thumb on his jaw, and his index finger moving back and forth under his bottom lip, he looked vexed. “Word has it, he’s silently partnered with one of the traditional organized crime families out there. They’ve got a lock on international drug trafficking, money laundering, extortion, you name it.”
“That tracks,” Vinnie said, eyes on his phone. He turned the screen toward me and showed me a picture of Alessandra Ferraro. The woman in the picture looked younger. Her hair was longer, her makeup was flawless, and her clothes were designer and expensive. But it was my Ella, no doubt. “And that blacked-out SUV you had me run the plates on was rented under a fake ID, cash transaction.”
I nodded. “Pia’s bodyguard covering their tracks, no doubt.”
“How did you say Ella’s cousin found her again?” Sal asked.
“Social media. Someone took a picture of her the night of the fire and uploaded it onto one of the animal accounts Pia follows.”
Uncle Sal frowned. “Not one of our guys, I hope.”
“No,” I confirmed. “Random gawker, looking for content.”
“A bottom-feeder, hanging around an emergency scene, recording instead of doing something useful,” Vinnie muttered with disgust.
I had to agree. We saw it all the time.
Rico sat back. “So, what do you want from us, Dom?”
I’d been brutally honest thus far. There was no reason to stop now. “I want Alessandra Ferraro to remain missing and presumed dead, and I want Ella Ferris to feel safe enough to stay in Cecilton and become Ella Cerasino.”
No one seemed even a little surprised by my declaration. I looked at my father, who shrugged.
“Your mother called it after you brought her to dinner, and Nonno confirmed it in the group text as soon as you left the bookstore this morning.”
Gossiping old hens, all of them.
“You don’t worry about a thing,” Rico said as he pushed his chair back and stood. “We got you.”
When I left the IAC, I was feeling remarkably better about everything. We had a plan. All we needed to move forward was Ella’s approval.
That was the only part that worried me. Not because I feared Ella didn’t feel the connection between us, but because trust was not something she gave freely or easily, and family support was not something with which she was familiar. We’d been raised in completely different environments. My family had my back. Her family had tried to sell hers.
That was my primary goal—getting Ella to believe in me. In us. Whether she knew it or not, Ella had become a part of the Cerasino family from the moment she stepped into Mama C’s with me, and we took care of our own.
The security company was already on-site when I got there. I couldn’t completely withhold my smile when I saw Ella arguing with my uncle Bruno. It was comical, seeing her standing up to a six-six, two-hundred-seventy-five-pound, former black ops man.
“Everything all right here?” I asked, walking up to them.
“No,” Ella said immediately. “This man insists he’s been hired to set up security for the shelter, but I didn’t authorize any such thing.”
I touched her arm to get her to look at me. “I did,” I said.
She gaped at me. “You? Why?”
“Because I need to know you’re safe.”
She blinked, as if my words didn’t make sense to her. Putting her index finger up to Uncle Bruno in a wait one minute gesture, she wrapped her long fingers around my forearm and tugged me to the side. “This is unnecessary.”
It was unnecessary if she didn’t plan to stick around, which I was going to do my damnedest to prevent.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. You live here, Ella.”
She pursed her lips, and I knew she was thinking about bolting ASAP. The only reason she was still here was because of her promise to me. She didn’t say that, of course.
Instead, she asked, “Does Ben know anything about this?”
“Absolutely. Talked to him earlier. He gave his full blessing.”
“We don’t have the money to pay for this.”
“Good thing an anonymous donor already paid for the whole thing then.”
Her eyes widened, and I took advantage of her momentary speechlessness to greet my uncle.
“Thanks for doing this on short notice.”
“You got it.” His eyes flicked to Ella and then back to me in a silent question.
I nodded. He grinned, patted me on the shoulder, and turned, barking out commands to his crew.
I could see Ella gearing up to protest again, so I linked my fingers through hers and pressed a PG-13 kiss to her lips. I couldn’t help myself. I’d been talking all afternoon about how this woman was my future, but I was a firm believer that actions spoke louder than words.
My distraction worked. When I pulled away, her eyes were half shuttered and dreamy.
Yeah, I had done that. I wanted to do so much more.
“Can we go inside? I need to talk to you about a few things.”
“Talk?” she said softly, pressing her fingers to her lips.
I withheld my groan. Even the slightest sign that she wanted more was enough to undo me. That was what this woman did to me.
“Yes, talk. We can get back to the good stuff later.”
I tugged her inside, her right there with me. Without asking, I led her to her studio apartment, and once inside, I held out a chair for her in a silent request to sit.
“I appreciate everything you’re doing, Dom, but if my family discovers I’m here, a security system isn’t going to stop them, you know.”
“They won’t find you,” I said with confidence.
She didn’t know my family, but I did.
She exhaled and looked at me as if I was adorably naive. That light I’d seen in her eyes only moments earlier faded. “How can you be so certain?”
I grabbed the other chair and placed it in front of her so that when I sat down, our knees were practically touching. Then I told her about my meeting. About our plan to legitimize Ella Ferris and ensure no one connected Ella with Alessandra going forward.
She listened intently. She clenched her hands once or twice, as if bracing herself, but otherwise, she remained still. “How?” she asked when I stopped talking.
“Witness protection. The guy doing your security out there? That’s my uncle Bruno, and he’s got some connections upstate that include a former deputy marshal. They can get us what we need—driver’s license, birth certificate, Social Security card, you name it—for Ella Ferris.”
“A deputy marshal?” she said, shaking her head. “I am not turning state’s evidence on my family.”
“ Former deputy marshal, and no one is asking you to.”
“Then how?—”
I pressed my index finger to her lips. “You know what my uncle Rocco always says? Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to .”
She nodded. “Okay. Assuming Ella becomes legal and official, what about those pictures on the internet?”
“Gina is using her editing skills and AI mastery to create more digital images of the woman who saved the animals that night and put them out there. Funny thing—from different angles, that woman looks nothing like the ‘Ndrangheta princess who went missing seven years ago.”
She considered this.
“And Uncle Rocco is going to make sure that if there are any whispers to the contrary, they are disproven immediately.”
Several moments ticked by in silence, broken only by the sounds of Bruno’s security team working outside.
“Why would he do that?” she finally asked, confused. “I’ve never even met your uncle Rocco.”
“Because,” I said gently, “his other favorite saying is, La famiglia si prende cura della famiglia .” Family takes care of family.
She opened her mouth, but before she could protest, I said, “Before you tell me you are not part of this family, you are—because I am.”
Her eyes met mine, and those beautiful black diamond gems were especially prismatic with the wet sheen covering them. “You barely know me,” she whispered.
“ Cuore mio , I knew you were the woman for me from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”