Chapter 23 #2
My older brother wanted everyone involved to be held responsible, not only for drugging us, Mia included, along with cutting her feet with glass shards, but for putting his daughter in harm’s way yet again. She had been shot. None of us would forget it.
I nodded after Mac listed a few of their places.
“The biggest,” I said.
“The warehouse in New York,” Mac said. “At the moment.”
I nodded again. “In answer to the threat, burn it down.”
Mac nodded. “Your father will have to be briefed.”
Although I was close to becoming the next king, my father still was. He would be briefed, and if he did not feel the war was worth continuing, he would say so. I did not think this would be the case, given that it was more than business. It was personal, because my goddaughter had been the target.
When it was time for my father to enter the meeting, along with all his men, Donato included, we all stood to greet him. He replaced me in his rightful seat, and the meeting continued.
He listened intently about the ultimatum the drug pins had given us. He nodded at my decision to answer their threat with one of our own.
We discussed, briefly, Uncle Tito and how he was doing. The men in the room became quiet, a weight that was not there before pressing in on us. Aunt Lola’s death was a reminder of what we all stood to lose—not only our hearts but our minds.
My hands balled and flexed. I could feel my wife in my arms, the scent of her drifting past my nose, and then I felt that my hands were completely empty. My chest as well, before it continued to beat.
It was an odd sensation.
To have the world.
To lose it all.
I did not know how to deal with it.
Brando stood. I stood. Romeo and Dario followed. We all began to pace. I found myself at the window, searching for my wife again. When I did not find her, my heart ordered my feet to the door.
“Sit, all of you,” the king ordered. “Your wives are safe on this property.” He listed the places our wives were currently. They were all in the kitchen preparing the Thanksgiving feast.
Brando gave me a look from the side of his eye. It was a look we had been giving each other. Our father was not the same. He was in the same room with us, half his mind on business, but he was also not in the room with us, the other half of his mind far away.
I had noticed a change in him while we were all on Aria Island, not long after Amora came into my life. I did not care for the way Margherita spoke to me when I escorted her home one night. It made me feel as if she was telling me things she did not want me to forget if she was not around to do so.
“You, Dario, and Romeo have given me nothing short of true acceptance and respect. I know it’s instilled in all of you, but I’ve always felt the truth behind it.
Even if the…situation between me and Luca was not always easy on you.
Your father’s marriage was arranged and…
.there I came, ruffling it all up. I truly have no regrets about doing that.
It’s what love does. It ruffles us. Makes us forget the rules and live in the direction of our own happiness.
I’m pretty sure I started a ruffle in this family, too, followed by Scarlett—we’re not exactly the type to fit in, and neither is Ari.
I prefer to call us trailblazers, though. ” She winked.
“But as Brando would say, if he ever spoke of it, I was not always present as a mamma. It’s been my honor to relive that part of my life with all my sons and grandchildren. I consider you the son of my heart, Rocco, and your sons the grandsons of my heart.”
Leaning down, I kissed her softly on the cheek. Her eyes were still closed when I rose to my full height. Two more tears ran from her eyes, but this time she hastily wiped them away.
“Thank you,” she whispered, understanding my response was in the tender kiss.
It was not like Margherita to speak in such a way.
When a dark diagnosis had been placed upon her shoulders, although the outcome the physician said was bright because she had caught it in time, even then she did not want to speak of it, or make amends, as if she was saying goodbye or getting her affairs in order.
Her speech to me that night had weighed heavily on my shoulders and heart, but as time passed, I wondered if she had just been reflecting on her life and her true feelings.
Occasionally, Brando and I would catch how our father looked at our wives, as if he expected something from them—perhaps to predict the future. It did not sit well in my gut. Neither did the situation with Francesco, which Mac brought up.
“The letters,” my father said, tapping twice on his desk.
I rummaged around in my leather briefcase and set them on his desk.
“I will read over them,” he said. “I expect to be prepared for this meeting. It has been a long time coming.”
We all kept our eyes on him. My father was not a predictable man, but all the men in the room knew when he had more to say. If we wanted to keep our tongues, we kept our mouths shut until he asked one of us a question or we instinctually knew when he wanted us to add to the conversation.
He tapped his finger against his desk, once, twice, his eyes in the distance. He looked directly at me when he spoke the next words. “My wife has requested a favor of me. If any man in this family shares blood with another man, she does not wish for the blood to be spilled.”
My eyes narrowed some.
This was our way, if a challenge was issued and set. We would duel it out in one way or another. At one time, my grandfather, Marzio, had ruled that our branch of the family would no longer take to arms, at the behest of my grandmother, Grazia Angeli, on her death bed.
Every woman on her death bed had this right to ask something of this enormity of her husband, but the only woman who ever came close to this wish was my Nonna.
She had requested that no matches be held in the colosseum.
She had witnessed Nonno sword fight another man and had never truly recovered from it.
She also didn’t want any of the men in my grandfather’s line to draw swords.
This was why Brando and I had raced when he had challenged me in my home.
My father had reinstated the practices when he became king.
What Margherita was asking was for one of our core rules to be stopped until another man took over the family. That man would be me. I would have the right to reinstate the law, but I noticed the look in my father’s eyes when he said this to me.
He would expect me to keep the law as well.
What he was considering filled in the words he did not have to speak. My father would change the core of this family for the woman he loved.
He had killed for her before to change it.
He would do whatever she asked of him, and do it again.
He was also possessed by the thought of his wife asking this of him before the time truly came.
This explained his often broodiness and how his eyes were often in the distance.
Margherita had drawn the darkness closer to him, and he was attempting to fight through it to save her from what he felt she had drawn closer to the both of them—the scent of a freshly dug grave, its cold bed ready to welcome a once-warm body inside of it.
I cleared my throat, knowing he was expecting me to speak. I would not mention Margherita’s health, or question him about it; that was between them. However. “The family will fight this.”
My father knew as well as I did that to change a core rule, such as no challenges at all, it would take the power of my father to figure out a way to make this happen.
He nodded. “It will be done. My wife asks this of me.”
All I did was nod, the wheels of my mind working.
I was not sure in which direction we were headed, but I knew it was not going to be the path of least resistance.
My father then changed the subject. The switching of power in the family.
It seemed as if fate had had other plans for me.
The year the crown was supposed to be placed on my head, the death of Rosaria Caffi stopped it.
“Francesco could possibly challenge you,” Mac said to me.
I nodded. “Let him.”
“The family might turn and give him favor,” Donato said.
“Especially after what has happened,” Guido said.
What has happened was a respectful way of referring to the death of Rosaria Caffi and my marriage to my wife, my true wife, Aria Amora Bella Fausti.
“It is no secret that our beautiful Italia has been in love with the Caffi family since the start of their time.” My father tapped his desk again. “If Italy does not accept the daughter of my heart, the family will use this against us.”
Us.
This one word was as powerful as any he had spoken. Brando looked at me and nodded, a faraway look in his eyes. This was not the same word the past leaders of our family had used regarding my brother’s marriage to the sister of my heart. Scarlett’s gift had made waves in our family and beyond.
As of that moment, my wife’s gift was not known to anyone but us.
Aria’s ability to write books that reflected the truth was not as easy to identify as Scarlett’s ability to feel out a room.
The sister of my heart often spoke a man’s truth or lie before a man could speak it himself.
This made her valuable to many people for the wrong reasons.
I nodded at my father’s words, acknowledging them.
“You are a patron of the arts, my son,” my father said in Italian. “You will bring your wife out to a scheduled appearance.”
My entire body tightened at his words. The day would come where I would have to introduce her to Italy, and Italy to her, but I also knew this would be a tremulous first meeting, given my history and who I had been married to.
Rosaria’s parents had shown up at our wedding on the island, and it was foretelling. The meeting was tense and not friendly. Perhaps it would take time for Italy to fall in love with my wife, but I was not sure how this first meeting would go.
All I did know was that my wife would be my wife—she would not change for anyone.
However, if Italy did not fall in love with my wife right away, given the situation with Francesco, the family might move to change kings once it was time for my father to retire his crown and hand over his power to the next in line.
Me.
To keep it, I would have to fight for it. And if my father set forth his wife’s request to halt the drawing of blood between family members, this entire situation might result in a situation worse than the one my older brother and his wife had found themselves in.
Perhaps the famiglia would perceive this new law as one to stop anyone from challenging me, mainly Francesco and his line.
“Let us hope their love for you extends to your wife,” Donato said.
“Fuck them if it doesn’t.” Brando set his hand close to mine in a unified gesture.
I took his hand and we shook. My brothers all followed his gesture, followed by the other men in the room, except for my father.
He nodded at me instead. “As with my wife, it will take time, but the world will follow in your steps—if not, you were born to rule. A respected king is just as powerful as a loved king.”
In that moment, the bricks of truth fell onto my shoulders, just as they always had.
I was bred to be a king. I spent my entire life walking the same path as the kings before me.
However, their paths were much different than mine.
The wife they began the walk with was the same wife that ended it with them.
My situation was at odds with the past. None of us could predict how the world’s approval would go, but my father was reminding me of who I was and what I was born for.
Our world would love me or not, but they would respect me and my position.
My father ended the meeting, and as we all filed out of his office, a woman waited in the shadows. When she appeared out of it, her eyes locked with mine. She lifted a silver platter of food and drinks, offering me a refreshment with innuendo laced in her tone.
I knew this woman.
We had had intimate relations a time or two. She was not a woman who kept my attention. She was a warm body who did not keep my bed warm for long. She had turned cold to me, and after, I was as cemented inside of my role as I ever was before.
She batted her lashes at me. “I know which one you would like, Signor Fausti,” she almost purred, then she nodded to a sweet fig cake on the tray.
Being this close to a woman who was not mine set my wife in full contrast—no one could come close to my sun. I turned my back on the woman and went to find my wife, the only consistent warmth in my world.