Chapter Thirty Three
Victoria
When I wake, the room is dim.
The fire in the hearth has burned low, orange light shifting over dark wood. Heavy curtains block out the window, so I have no idea what time of day it is or how long I've slept.
I have about one moment of peace before memories from yesterday bombard me quickly.
The park. The gun pressed to my side. The woman who was not Cindy Sullivan. The man’s voice in my ear.
The baby.
I suck in a breath and sit up too quickly.
Mario is in front of me before I even realize he was sitting in the chair across from the bed.
“Easy.”
The word is gentle and soothing.
He stops at the edge of the bed instead of reaching for me.
I notice that.
Even through the panic, I notice that he keeps his distance.
I also notice he has not changed. The same shirt is still open at the collar, sleeves rolled, his hair not as perfect as it usually is. He looks like he has not slept at all. He probably has not.
I clench my fingers into the blanket. “How long was I asleep?”
“A few hours.”
“What time is it?”
“Late.”
“That is not a real answer.”
“No.”
I stare at him.
The corner of his mouth moves, barely, and somehow that tiny, controlled hint of humor makes my throat tighten.
I am alive.
I am in his house.
He is here.
I swallow and look past him, toward the door. “What happened?”
His face sobers immediately.
“We don't have to do this right now.”
“I want to.” I press one hand to my forehead, trying to make my thoughts line up. “All of it. I need to know all of it.”
“You need water first.”
“I need answers.”
“You can have both.”
I want to snap at him.
Instead, I watch as he reaches for the glass on the bedside table and holds it out to me. I take it.
My hand shakes.
Mario sees but does not comment.
I drink because my throat feels scraped raw and because I need a moment to calm down.
When I hand the glass back, he sets it down.
Then he waits.
I sit back against the headboard, pull my knees up, and wrap my arms around them. “Tell me.”
He studies me for a moment, as if deciding how much I can take.
I straighten.
His gaze sharpens slightly.
Good. Let him see it.
I am scared. I am exhausted, but I am still here, and I'm not going anywhere.
“I am not going to break, Mario,” I say.
“No,” he says quietly. “You are not.”
Something inside me eases at the answer.
He moves back to the chair, but he does not sit. Not yet. He stands beside it, one hand resting on the back, posture still, face controlled.
I wish he would come to the bed and take me in his arms.
“The woman you met was not Cindy Sullivan.”
My stomach twists even though I knew that already.
“Do we know who she is?”
“Her real identity is not relevant.”
“I think it is.”
He pauses a moment, then nods. “If you want to know, I will get you the information.”
I wasn't expecting him to give in that easily, so the fight in me evaporates quickly.
“Thank you,” I say. “And the man.”
“Unidentified as yet, but we will know soon.”
I drop my eyes briefly and then lift them back up. I can't be timid if I'm going to convince him I'm capable.
“Are they dead?”
A brief silence.
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
My voice sounds small.
I hate that too.
There is nothing theatrical in the way he says it. No pleasure or disgust or anger. No emotion at all.
I should be horrified, but then I remember the way the man told me he would shoot my baby. And I remember how the woman lured me into a trap.
My horror is a lot more complicated now.
I grip the blanket. “But who were they? What was all this about?”
“Victoria,” he says. “I know you have some thoughts about me and about my family. I'm not sure exactly how much you have put together, but you're an incredibly intelligent woman, so I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here.”
“I think there is the business everyone can see,” I say carefully. “And then there is the business everyone is smart enough not to ask about.”
His eyes stay on mine.
“Yes.”
“And the people who tried to take me today belong to the second kind.”
“They work for men who do.”
I look down at my hands wrapped around my knees. “And so do you.”
“No, cara. I don’t work for anyone.”
My breath catches.
The correction is small, but it changes everything.
I look up at him slowly. “No one?”
“No one.”
“I thought…” I stop, because saying it out loud makes me feel naive. “I thought there was someone above you. In Naples, maybe.”
“There was,” he says. “My father.”
The past tense has a lot more meaning now.
“And now?”
His face does not change.
“Now there is me.”
So not just mafia, which is something I had already figured out, but the don.
I’m carrying the baby of an actual mafia don.
“Victoria?”
Lost in thought, I look over at him.
“So many things suddenly make so much sense,” I say. “I'm apparently not as intelligent as you give me credit for.”
He smiles softly. “You are far more intelligent than you give yourself credit for. Sometimes when the mind is faced with situations out of the ordinary, it tries to make them fit inside ordinary rules.”
I let out a weak breath. “There is nothing ordinary about you.”
“No,” he says. “But you were not wrong to look for rules. You were, however, wrong to believe strangers would give them to you more honestly than I would.”
Right. The kidnapping.
“So do you know who it was?” I ask quietly.
“A man who made enemies of some of my family and thought that I would stand next to him while he did it.”
“You mean Atlantic City.”
Mario lifts his brows. “You see? You know more than you think.” He sits back down in the chair. “Yes, Atlantic City. That is a very complicated story and one I will tell you one day. But this man, Emilio Bellandi, made enemies with my estranged family and had hoped to ally with me.”
“So he was using me as leverage?”
“Possibly, but I suspect it was more of a petty revenge.”
I close my fingers tighter on the blanket. “What do you mean?” I ask, but I choke on the words a little because I think I know exactly what he means.
“This is not the first time he has attempted something like this. Not with me, but with our cousins.” His explanation is far too calm for my liking, but I want to hear it all, so I stay silent.
“To put it simply, they attempted to move into the territory of my very powerful relatives and, when their plan didn't work out, they attempted something just like this.”
“They tried to abduct another pregnant woman.”
He sighs, and I realize it's far worse than that.
“No, they didn't try to abduct her.”
They tried to kill her. That's what he's not saying.
They weren't trying to abduct me yesterday. Because why would they? Why would they try to abduct someone in an attempt to get Mario to ally with them? You don't ally with someone who kidnapped your lover and unborn child and threatened to kill them.
They were trying to kill me.
“Oh God,” I say, horrified.
“Victoria,” he says gently, but I will not be reassured.
“You said they won't be a threat for long,” I say, panicked. “But what about the next guy? What about another enemy?”
“Victoria,” he repeats. “You are safe. You will never be without protection. More than that, even in my world, there are lines.”
“What do you mean?” I say, still not mollified.
“Attempting to kill a pregnant woman, just because?” He shakes his head. “Even in my world we have, we have a code. What he did is unforgivable.”
“So why didn't your Atlantic City cousins, or whatever, do anything after he tried this with them?”
“They ruined him, personally and professionally. Humiliated him. No one will touch him now. That is likely why he's so desperate for an ally.”
“I see,” I say and look down at the blanket. I pick at it for a moment. “So they planted that article by Cindy Sullivan.”
The more I think about it, however, the less sense it makes. I furrow my brows and look up at him.
“But how…”
He sits back.
“They did a lot more than plant an article, Victoria.”
“You got my laptop,” I say. “What did you find?”
His expression is still so damn calm.
“Your laptop was compromised.”
The words are so flat that it takes a moment for them to make sense.
Then they do.
Cold moves over my skin.
“What do you mean ‘compromised’?”
“Someone had remote access.”
My fingers loosen on the blanket.
Remote access?
“What does that mean? How much access?”
“Email. Browser. Files. Some system controls.”
His pause tells me there is more. And I am not going to like it.
“What else?”
His jaw tightens.
“Possibly your webcam.”
All the breath leaves me, and I just stare at him.
The room seems to pull back from me, the bed, the fire, the chair, all of it suddenly too far away. Like, I'm in a whole different room, watching this from afar.
“My webcam.”
“We are still confirming the extent.”
“My webcam,” I repeat, because my brain cannot move past those two words.
Mario seems like he wants to come to me, then stops himself.
“They may not have watched continuously.”
“That is supposed to help?”
“No.”
I press both hands to my face.
Oh God.
My apartment.
My bed.
The laptop open on the coffee table while I sat there, searching Anna Conti, Mario Conti, morning nausea, early pregnancy.
And sometimes I left it open too. Did someone see me in a towel? Naked?
My stomach turns violently.
Mario sees my face change. “Victoria.”
“I’m going to be sick.”
He moves then, fast enough that I barely register him until he is beside me with the small wastebasket from near the bed. He places it in my hands and turns slightly, shielding me from the door, from the room, from nothing and everything.
I lean over it and just breathe shakily. Nothing comes up, but my eyes water, and I'm trembling.
“Breathe,” he says.
I try.
It takes a few seconds.
Maybe longer.
When I finally manage to lift my head, he takes the wastebasket and sets it next to me on the floor. Then he gives me the glass of water from the bedside table.
Even though I didn't throw up, the cool water still feels like a blessing against my raw throat.
“They saw me,” I whisper when I'm done.
“We do not know exactly what they saw.”
“They knew about the baby.”
His silence answers before his words do.
“They saw enough,” I say.