Chapter 33
Vivi
VIGO CABELLO WAS the king of his very own chess match—a game he manipulated with ruthless decision after ruthless decision.
The latest move was nothing if not predictable.
Francesca would pay for her deceit, and Luca would exact my father’s revenge.
He couldn’t refuse the order. It was her life or his.
I caught his haunted eyes while envisioning a future without the woman I considered family. Death by my husband’s hands.
A shiver ghosted down my spine.
Luca’s fingers gripped my waist, his nails sinking in as if pleading for absolution he didn’t need from me.
“Vivienne,” he whispered a second before his lips pressed into my forehead.
A rope tightened around my lungs, stealing my next breath.
I squeezed my eyes closed, praying for peace and an end to this violence.
For Luca, for me, and for Francesca who would die for her husband as I would mine.
“Uccello,” he breathed against my skin. “Perdonami, amore mio.”
What I heard was I need. The tortured words he said into my ear each night.
I fisted his shirt, pulling him closer and inhaling a wash of cedar and citrus.
Heat rushed through my veins. I wanted to press my face against his neck in passion, suck and bite his skin, branding him the way he did me.
I wanted him to pin me to the wall and shove inside me, our only worry about how quickly we would come or if he’d torture pleasure from my body with the patience of a saint.
But our reality was painted in blood and washed clean by tears. If only I knew how to cry.
“Your soul belongs to me and no one else, mio salvatore… my only love. Sei perdonato per tutto.” You are forgiven for everything.
A rough sound moved through his chest, almost as if he didn’t believe me.
“One day you’ll see the truth in my eyes, and you’ll know…
” His grip on my waist tightened. “I don’t deserve you, but you’re mine forever.
I’ll never let you go,” he said in a gruff whisper just before pulling away to meet Damian by the door.
I inhaled an unsteady breath, wrapping my arms around myself to ward off a sudden chill.
“The second Angelini fried himself on the security fence,” Dami said with a shrug, as if an execution hadn’t just happened on our property. Or that another human being hadn’t just bled out on the floor—in the kitchen.
Mio Dio.
My stomach rolled.
Luca and Dami escaped the chaos, but I was left with the quaking cooks and my shaking hands. I couldn’t think about Francesca and what she did. Traitor. I bit back a laugh at the absurdity. I hated the business, I hated my father, but it was the principle of things.
As a child, Dante taught me a lot about living in the Cosa Nostra.
Mostly about how to protect myself from liars and the law.
The two evils in our world that would always want something from me to get to my family, which included my brother, and now, my husband.
For as much as I despised Stefano, I loved Dante twofold.
And Luca—he was the very air in my lungs.
If something Francesca did put him in jeopardy—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
I pressed a hand to my aching chest and focused on the final hours of Sofia’s wedding, keeping my thoughts centered on the reception and not Luca.
Luca and a gun.
Luca with blood on his hands and regret in his heart.
Luca with shackles on his wrists and the death penalty looming.
Good God.
The night dragged on into early morning. Exhaustion settled into my bones, and finally the party ended.
Rocco was my shadow, even as I walked the path to my apartment.
“Simone would be proud of the woman you are,” he said, tugging at the shoulder sling holding his injured limb close to his body. “Your courage in the face of adversity is impressive.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.
My heart sank into my stomach long ago, and there wasn’t a passive smile left in my body.
I’d given them all to guests as they departed.
The only sound between us was the rhythmic rush of waves meeting shore and our shoes clipping along, adding percussion to the crickets’ melody.
At the sliding door to my suite, Rocco reached around me to grasp the handle.
“I loved her,” he whispered. Using his wounded shoulder, he stopped me from turning and forced our eyes to connect in the reflecting glass.
“Simone’s death…” His throat closed around the word.
“Her death is my burden, and somehow I’ll see it avenged.
But I won’t put you in greater jeopardy when I do because she had her own plans. ”
My heartbeat ricocheted in my ears. He knew. He knew Mama left important things behind.
“Rocco, what did she tell—”
“Scusami, Vivienne, but we only have a moment, and I have something you need. Something Simone left just for you. She made me promise in case…” He swallowed. “She made me swear I’d give it to you with a warning. No one else.”
“Not even Luca.”
“No.”
Guards rounded the corner, taking his attention from mine as he pulled open the door.
I stepped inside and turned, really looking at him for the first time.
His suit was cut to the exact width of his wide shoulders.
A strong jaw was covered by a day’s worth of salt-and-pepper whiskers, the same color as his slicked hair.
Pain clouded his dark eyes, accentuating the creases at the corners and the purple hollows beneath his lids. He was handsome, and he was hurting.
“You really loved her.”
“With my entire soul.” A spark of grief flared in his eyes.
“And she trusted you,” I whispered more to myself than to him.
Mama had a lover. She was loved. My heart swelled in my chest, leaving a bitter ache behind.
If only that was enough to save her from Vigo.
Nothing was. No one ever made it out of the Cosa Nostra alive.
Once a Cabello, always a Cabello. Something that was proven tonight by Francesca’s deceit and my father’s order for her execution.
But for Luca and me to truly have a future, we needed to find a way—and my mother might have already paved the path.
“She trusted me with everything, even you,” Rocco insisted.
I nodded. “Grazie, for walking me to my door,” I said loud enough for anyone listening. Then, softer, just for him, I whispered, “I’ll find you when it’s the right time.”
He dipped his chin. “Sono al tuo servizio,” I am at your service, he murmured and then retreated into the night.
I stayed there, leaning against the door and watching Mama’s roses sway in the breeze.
Starlight twinkled over the ocean beyond them.
Proof that the world kept turning while my life crumbled around its beauty.
Vigo destroyed everything. My mother, Benny, and now Francesca.
Anxiety raced through my veins. Without Luca to keep my mind and body occupied, the house closed in around me. The rope around my lungs pulled taut, catching and holding my next breath.
Get out.
I ran to my room, tore through the top drawer of my dresser, and slipped into my suit under the dark silence in my suite.
It took only a minute to change, and after I grabbed a towel, I sent Rocco and Luca a text stating my intentions to swim.
I’d find a guard to watch me. I’d find five, but I couldn’t stay here alone, drowning in my thoughts.
In the kitchen, I stumbled over my own toes and stopped to ease the sting.
Breathe.
Electricity zipped through the air.
The hair on my nape prickled.
Listen.
My spine snapped straight, and I closed my eyes.
A soft thud reverberated through the silence.
My pulse exploded.
Run.
I lunged forward. Hands dug into my hair, tugging me back. I yelped, blindly swinging my arms. A fist clipped my ribs. I gasped, and some kind of cloth was shoved inside my mouth to muffle my scream.
I kicked and squirmed.
Fingers clamped around my throat and squeezed.
An arrow of real, true fear spiraled down to my shaking knees.
Heat seared my cheeks.
My lungs burned.
I scraped at my throat and chin, tugging the silky triangle of my underwear from between my lips.
He’d been in my room, watching and waiting.
Understanding registered as I threw my head back, crashing my skull into bone.
An angry howl pierced the air. I scrambled to the counter, patting my hands around for the smooth wooden handle of the paring knife I’d used earlier on orange wedges for mimosas.
Sofia.
The party.
Francesca’s men.
I screamed and turned, slicing through the air and into a shadow that was really flesh. The white of my attacker’s eyes flared, glowing around inky darkness. “You want to play,” the man said, his sick smile shining like his eyes. “Then let’s play.”
He swung, his knuckles glancing against my temple. I stumbled, righted myself, and ran for the sliding door. He caught the back of my suit, flung me to the ground, and bashed my head into the floor once, then twice.
The world swam into oblivion.
My heartbeat ticked away the time in a blur.
I blinked my vision clear to the ambient light of the outdoor hanging lanterns and a man straddling my waist. A man with curls bursting from a tie he used to hold them all together. A man I knew from the Cantina. The man who shoved a gun in my mouth and demanded answers that I didn’t have.
“Catarina,” I whispered through my daze.
He grunted and held the paring knife to my jugular.
Blood oozed from his nose and the line I carved into his jaw.
Madness haunted his eyes. They slid to my chest where the weight of my necklace branded my skin.
He reached for it and twisted, turning the gold into a collar he used to pull an arch into my back.
“What do you know of her, troia? What do you know about loyalty and devotion? Nothing. You know nothing of what it’s been like. I give them everything, and it’s not enough. It’s never enough.”