Chapter 31 #2
The heat flooding my cheeks said yes. My nod confirmed it. “It scares me how much I love him.”
“I knew he was right for you all along,” she said, stepping away to grab a gift bag from the counter behind her. “The two of you are like Benny and me.”
I would’ve rolled my eyes if four weeks ago she predicted I’d marry Luca Mancini.
On top of that, I would’ve sent her for a mental health check if she said I’d be so addicted to the man that just hours of separation would physically hurt.
Imagining a lifetime without him, like she had been without Benny, stole my breath.
The cool rush of anxiety returned, and I hated my father even more for sending Luca away.
“It took you and Luca time to figure out how to be together, but now that it’s happened, look at you both—you’re so enamored.” She pushed a gift bag in front of me. “Go ahead, open it.”
I shifted the tissue paper aside and withdrew a simple picture frame. Simple because Luca and I shined in the center.
“I want what you have,” she said. “Everyone does. At some point in life, you’ll wonder about many things. Your family, the people around you and what their purpose is, but you should never question Luca’s feelings.”
There was no music at our reception, but the photo captured our one and only dance, where we swayed to the melody of my thrumming heart.
He held my hand against his chest while his other dropped to the curve of my ass.
No one but Luca touched me as if I were sand in an hourglass, precious and fleeting.
No one had ever looked at me like he did either, like I was a national treasure.
Yet the proof of my splendor was in his eyes—soft and burning.
The signet ring on my finger seared like a brand into my skin, but Luca had nothing.
He had no symbol for roving eyes to see that he was taken.
He was mine, and no one outside of my immediate family knew it.
Not even Sofia. Or Maria at Piascere. Jealousy slithered around my lungs and squeezed until my eyes stung.
I blinked away the emotion and looked up at Francesca. “Are you going into the city tonight?”
“I am. What do you need?”
We worked through my plan, and then I ate. Stefano surfaced after my third bite, souring my stomach. “Father would speak with you now.”
A lump stuck in my throat as I accepted the inevitable, pushing back my chair.
He followed me to my apartment, but I kept my thoughts centered on Luca and not his radiating animosity.
I stopped in my room, set our wedding photo on the nightstand, and then opened the drawer, pushing aside the Glock I never used to retrieve my Bible.
I inhaled deeply when we finally stepped inside the office, my gaze sweeping over the blood splatter on the Persian rug.
Revulsion prickled under my skin, still bruised from my brother’s fists.
He walked around me and stood behind Vigo with a winning smirk.
The urge to rush him and smack the smile from his face surged into my fists, but I held them next to my thighs as my father motioned me closer.
His crystal eyes stroked over my features with no outward expression, but I heard the constant disappointment in his silence.
“You’ve tested my patience at every turn, Vivienne,” he finally said in a tone as bored as his appearance.
“Mi dispiace, Papa,” I said with only a hint of sarcasm. “It’s not my intention. I know how hard you work and how important that work is.”
“Do you? Our culture is as old as the ages. I uphold the customs of our forefathers to show that we are necessary to balance out the needs of this world. We are a way of life, and by birth, you are bound by Cosa Nostra law. You are bound by my law. Dissension is not tolerated. Anything or anyone against me is dealt with swiftly. Capisce?”
Mama’s empty gaze stared back at me in a flash.
An outraged scream caught in my throat, but for the first time, my fury took on a shape.
She was loud and strong, built with a cold heart and the ability to burn the Cosa Nostra to the ground.
The force shook me to the bone, but I was able to push the anger aside, leaving a sheen of cool sweat on my skin.
I blinked away from my father to his desk, where a gold locket lay half covered by the morning paper.
As a child, I sat on Mama’s lap and wove the chain between my chubby fingers.
I’d fall asleep with her lips in my hair and that charm clutched in my hand.
The charm that was supposed to be buried with her in the garden.
It is at the start of my favorite things that were yours too.
“Capisce?” Stefano snapped to gain my attention.
My eyes shot to his, then my father’s.
“I do,” I whispered, understanding that he hid the necklace from me on purpose.
I also knew what he expected when he stood and moved in front of me.
Stefano came up from behind and pressed my shoulders down until my knees crumpled, meeting the rug with a painful pinch.
I stared at Vigo’s Berluti dress shoes and lifted the Bible, the vow red-hot and scorching my throat on the way out.
“You have my promise to honor the Cabello name through this lifetime.”
A shiver ghosted through me. The Word of God shook in my hands. Hell and damnation called for my soul, but I kissed the gold and diamond signet ring on my father’s finger, and neither lie struck me dead.
“Good girl,” Vigo said with a reverence I’d never heard before. He stroked down the length of my hair with a sick sound of satisfaction rolling through his chest.
My blood went ice-cold.
I shot to my feet, then fell back a step.
Stefano pushed me forward. “Tell him what Simone left you.”
“Th-This.” I fumbled and shoved the Bible at my father.
Stefano pushed me again. “The truth!”
“That’s it,” I insisted. “She held it in a safe-deposit box in the city. Other than the note she left telling me where to find it, that’s all I have.
Te lo prometto. I don’t know what it means.
I only know that I want Luca, but that’s why you gave him to me.
You knew I’d marry into the mafia and abide by the rules as a wife more than I ever could endure being born into them, and I did.
I do. I won’t ever leave him. That’s everything I know. Prometto.”
Vigo held my stare for a minute longer, then nodded. “You may go, Vivienne.”
A long breath escaped my lungs. My last look was not at the two of them coming together, evil twins deciphering a cryptic clue from the dead, but at Mama’s locket. Without that piece of the puzzle, I’d never be free.
?
LUCA RETURNED AT midnight, distant and quiet.
Black bled into his eyes when I told him about my father, and he became downright sullen.
A prickle of alarm tingled down my spine.
I didn’t want to lose him to the darkness, so we celebrated the freedom from my father’s scrutiny with a bottle of wine and a tagliere misto.
He fed me from hand to mouth, studying me as I swallowed each bite of meat and cheese.
Flames erupted in his gaze, making my skin so hot that I stood and stripped from my clothes.
Silk and lace landed by my feet. He set his glass aside and reclined on the couch, legs spread and relaxed.
A king on his throne watching my show with a hooded gaze and a thumb hooked under his waistband, as if he could tame the monster bulging against his zipper.
Thank God he couldn’t. I wanted him wild and reckless.
I needed his hunger to appease the guilt coursing through his veins.
“Come here,” he said softly but with a rough edge.
“Let me see it first.” My gaze fell to his crotch, then flicked up to his now scorching eyes.
The intensity of his stare never wavered while he slid the buttons free on his shirt, leaving the tails open and pushed off to the side of his rippling abs.
His belt followed, then the tab on his pants.
A wave of lust rolled through me from the zipping sound that followed.
The crown of his dick peaked over the edge of his briefs, wide and smooth.
He pushed his clothes down far enough for his shaft to spring free.
“Is this what you want, Vivienne?” he asked while fisting his base.
I licked my lips. Of course I did. I wanted to suck him off. I wanted him shoving into me. I wanted him to kiss and fuck me so long and so deep, he couldn’t think of anything except me.
But I needed something else first.
My eyes stayed steady on his as I whispered, “After.”
Understanding lit up the blue.
I took two steps forward. His hands had my hips, pulling me up to stand on the couch.
Instead of straddling him, I braced a knee on his shoulder and lowered my pussy onto his mouth.
Good Lord. I gasped. He groaned. My fingers speared through his hair.
My head fell back as he ate, and my hips found the perfect rolling beat to match his rhythm.
The fire he started with his eyes burst into an inferno inside me.
My heart raced.
My blood turned into molten lava.
Tension built, pulling my muscles thin.
“Luca,” I breathed, “I’m so—”
He sucked my clit, and the pressure exploded, stealing the last word. I curled around him, pressing myself onto his face as a low sound of appreciation vibrated against my sensitive flesh.
Before my next breath, he pulled me down and slammed into me.
“Fuck,” he hissed through the pleasure.
My nails scraped his neck, and I panted through an orgasm still contracting, now against him.
I whimpered and shook. He was so deep inside me that my body pulsed around his dick, sending ripples of bliss to the tips of my toes.
I held his cheeks with my hands and his gaze with my eyes, keeping him still while I swiped my tongue over the seam of his mouth, savoring the sweetness.
“I taste good on you,” I whispered, my breath mingling with his.