Chapter 9
FABIANA
The antique clock in Rafe’s office ticked off the seconds as I waited for him and Cleo to return from their trip. Yeti was asleep in my lap, the warmth of his small body a comfort I desperately needed.
They’d been gone nearly a week. I’d spent that time rehearsing what I’d say to Rafe. I’d gone over it in my head so many times that it had started to feel less like preparation and more like self-inflicted torture.
And still, none of the versions I’d come up with felt right. Maybe because there was no good way to say that I wanted to back out of marrying Cosimo.
It was going to be a difficult conversation. I knew that. Rafe was counting on me, and I’d given him no indication that he had anything to worry about.
But that was before the restaurant.
The memory of my last conversation with Cosimo still filled me with equal parts hurt and indignation.
The ache of it hadn’t faded. Cosimo had been at his worst—aggravating, authoritarian, utterly impossible.
I still had no clue how he’d discovered what had happened in Geneva, but at this point, it hardly mattered.
He’d exposed my secret, forced me into giving him an explanation, and then found the specific nerve beneath it and pressed. Hard.
In some ways, he was right. I had been naive to trust my former boss, Girarde. But as embarrassed as I was about what had happened, I refused to let that one experience turn me into someone who stopped trusting people altogether.
If that made me unsuitable to be his wife, then so be it.
The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that me calling off the wedding was what he’d wanted all along.
He couldn’t call it off himself—his parents were determined, and he had his own duty to perform.
But if I did it for him, the problem resolved itself.
He’d pressed on every button until I decided to walk away.
He was gambling on the possibility my brother would let me out of the obligation.
I had no idea if he would. If my father were still don, I wouldn’t have even bothered. Telling him I didn’t want to marry someone who clearly didn’t respect me even a little would have been laughable. He would have seen it as a child throwing a tantrum over something she didn’t understand.
But Rafe was different. With Rafe, there was a chance he’d listen.
He wouldn’t be at peace with condemning me to a life of misery. I could hold out for a month. Maybe even a year. But facades didn’t hold forever, and when mine eventually came down, he’d be able to tell, and he’d blame himself.
Yes, I had a far better chance of convincing Rafe to release me from this than Cosimo had of convincing his family.
I was going to take that chance. Whatever the political fallout would be, that was Cosimo’s problem to manage.
I doubted a man this calculated would let a broken engagement undo everything his family had built with mine.
I heard a car pull up outside.
I put Yeti on the floor, smoothed my palms over the front of my dress, and took a breath. My eyes drifted to the shelf across the room, to the photograph sitting between two stacks of books. It was of Elena, Rafe, and me all smiling here last Christmas.
A few months before that picture was taken, Rafe had sat Elena and me down and told us what he’d survived at our father’s hands.
He’d been brutalized by him for years, and he’d hidden it all so completely that Elena and I had always assumed he and our father were mirror images of each other, men cut from the same cloth.
We hadn’t understood until that conversation how much he’d endured to protect us, to keep Dad’s attention fixed on him instead of us.
A vise tightened around my lungs. And now I was about to tell him I didn’t think I could go through with the most important thing he’d ever asked of me.
I was going to disappoint my brother. I resented having to do it, but I resented Cosimo even more.
I crossed the room and opened the double doors so I could catch Rafe the second he walked in. This couldn’t wait another day.
Cleo appeared in the entryway, drowning in an oversized hoodie. Rafe stepped in after her, wearing a black peacoat over a charcoal sweater, his shoulders squared like always.
Something was wrong. Both of their faces were pale, and Rafe’s was drawn with exhaustion that went beyond jet lag.
I hurried toward them. “Are you okay?”
Cleo hugged me and then stepped away, a strange expression on her face. “I’ll let you two talk.”
Rafe’s gaze landed on me as Cleo walked upstairs.
I stopped in front of him. “What’s going on?”
“There was an explosion. Tonight. At the Ferraros’ penthouse.”
For a second, the words meant nothing. I just stared at him, waiting for them to rearrange themselves into something that made sense. “An explosion?”
“A bomb. During a family gathering.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath me. Cosimo. Was he— “Oh my God.”
Rafe grabbed my shoulders to steady me. “Cosimo’s alive. So are his brothers and Vita.” His jaw clenched. “But Gino… Gino didn’t make it.”
I pressed my palm to my lips. I couldn’t believe it. It seemed like I’d just spoken to him at the engagement party. He was gone?
Rafe guided me toward the sofa and sat us down.
“Who did this?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet.” His expression hardened. “But whoever did just declared war on the Ferraros, and therefore on us.”
A war. The thought opened a cold and bottomless pit inside me. “Are we in danger?”
“I won’t let anything happen to you, Elena, or Cleo. Neither will Cosimo. He’s in charge now.”
In charge.
Cosimo was don.
Rafe checked his watch and stood. “I need to shower and head back out. Nero’s gathering the capos. We have a lot to coordinate with the Ferraros.” He paused, studying my face. “Your text said you wanted to talk?”
My hands curled over the edge of the sofa. It was hard to think. Hard to process the implications. And yet I had to.
With Gino dead, I had to assume Cosimo had full control over the family.
He didn’t want this marriage. He’d been forced into it.
Now there was no one to force him. He could call it off himself.
Which meant I didn’t have to say anything at all. I didn’t have to disappoint my brother.
Slowly, I shook my head. “It’s not important.”
He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Get some rest, Fabi. The next few weeks are going to be brutal.”
A dead don, a war on our hands, and an engagement that was about to be no more…
Brutal seemed almost too kind a word to describe it.