Chapter 37 #2
“Our resources run as deep as the Cosa Nostra’s infestation into law enforcement. We have agents acting as EMTs, physicians, medical examiners, and informants who are also a part of the family.”
I groaned at the scope of infiltration. “Dante?”
She chuckled. “Not a chance.”
“So it’s just Luca and Damian?”
Her lackadaisical shrug burned through me, and I sat forward to smack the table again. Fuck her details. I knew enough. They wanted my father; they could have him. Stefano too. “Why now? Why did the scam end today?”
I glanced at the mirror and our audience waiting with rapt attention for her answer. “Two things, really. Your relationship with Luca was unexpected.”
My hand shook into a fist. The ring on my third finger scorched hot in mockery of the wedding vows I’d shared with a liar. My heart went cold. I slipped it off and dropped the wolf on the table. “This doesn’t belong to me.”
A thump sounded against the mirror. Luca hid behind bulletproof glass.
Coward. I had banished him from the room, but God, more than anything, I needed him to feel a sliver of the pain I did.
That was impossible. You had to love to feel loss, and I loved past the moon and stars.
Infinity was a long way to fall, so said the agony breaking my bones for a man I didn’t even know.
“Who did I marry, or was the ceremony fake too?”
“No, it was very real. Father Muso is a Catholic priest and your true friend. He’s not associated with the task force.
The marriage license is authentic to ensure credibility.
Luca Mancini is your husband, and lying to you is his burden.
That is what ate him up inside, and that is why we’re here today. ”
“That’s why Sam was so against our relationship,” I said to no one but myself. “Everything was too real when we were supposed to be fake.”
I hung my head, then laid it on the cool surface of the table.
My lungs went tight. A breath hitched in and stumbled out.
Love and hate blurred into such a fine line that I couldn’t see clearly.
I couldn’t see him clearly. This stranger who stole my heart, then crushed it.
I’d never forgive his betrayal. Days ago I’d begged him to be my king, and now… now my husband was my enemy.
“Good Christ.” I sat up straight and glared into Francesca’s coppery eyes. “You people have a lot of nerve playing with human emotions, but it’s time to move on. You said two reasons. What’s the second?”
“Officer Tanaka. He has a fetish with your family, and there was an urgency to warn you both of his intense scrutiny. We’re engaged with the right channels to stop his interference, but the red tape is deep in such a discreet operation. His involvement is a problem.”
“Because he wants Luca.”
“And you.”
“Me?” I pressed a hand to my chest and almost laughed. Everyone wanted something. “I’ve got nothing.”
She tsked. “We all know that’s not true.”
Nausea soured my stomach. Of course, Luca told them everything.
It was his job, as was I. Always a pawn and never the queen, but I squared my shoulders as if I were one.
Then I leaned in as if I was ready to sing like a canary.
“I promise you and everyone involved with this godforsaken team, including my husband, that you’ll never know my mother’s secret.
I’ll die before becoming part of your duplicity. ”
Francesca studied me, a soft expression on the outside, cunning on the inside. “We have the same goal, Vivi.”
I laughed with no joy. If ever I was confused about my future, I saw it clearly now.
There was a difference between running and exemption.
Escape led to capture. Liberty was true freedom.
Cut the ties clean. The rope of independence swung my way, and I grabbed it, hung on, and took the first leap toward complete control of my life.
I was on my own. An outlaw among outlaws.
“I’m leaving.” I stood.
She scrambled to her feet. “We need your help,” she insisted.
I shrugged and sneered a smile. “Some choices are made for us. Some are possibilities we can act on or not, and then some things just exist.” Repeating Luca’s words sparked a little joy in my cold heart, and I could almost hear him groan on the other side of the mirror.
Good. I moved toward the door, calling over my shoulder, “Have a nice life.”
“Luca will die without you.”
That stopped my progression, and I turned to confront her defense. She maneuvered around the table and met me in the middle of the room.
“He’s too ingrained in the operation and your family to simply walk away.
You can’t return home without him, or their suspicion will lead to a manhunt.
Work with him. Keep his cover. Let them believe you were both detained because of Tanaka’s investigation into the death of the guard, but do not send Luca to his grave. ”
My heart hammered while my imagination ran wild. Instead of an eight-by-ten picture of a man with curls bursting from a tie he used to hold them all together, I saw a slash of hair framing a dark hole.
The ground spun.
My gut did too.
Because now the sightless eyes belonged to a dark knight. My husband. The liar.
Reality rooted me to the spot. I was Vivienne Cabello again, a mafia princess with no plan and nowhere to go. What I needed was time to strategize. “Why should I help him?”
She glanced over my shoulder, where the response zapped with electricity. “Perché mi appartieni, uccello.”
Because you belong to me, bird.
Francesca squeezed my hand as she’d done so often in a different lifetime. “Hear him out, Vivienne,” she whispered. “Think of the wedding and how he looks at you. His love is not a lie.” She left me, and although the room was occupied, I was more alone than ever before.
“I belong to no one,” I said to the stupid chair as my stupid heart shuddered against the fib.
His fingertips hit the curve of my ass with the lightest touch. Fresh air and the sun reached my nose, and I breathed him into the darkest part of my existence. Then his lips pressed to my ear, and a shiver rolled down my spine.
“You are my wife. La mia bella sposa who owns my heart. Who gave me her soul and returned mine. You’re a Cabello and a Mancini.
It’s not one or the other—it’s both—and together we possess the other.
You think betrayal and devotion are incompatible, that love and trust are contradictions, but I’ve shown you they are the same.
This is my truth. I’ll carve open the sky and slay the stars one at a time if that is what you ask of me.
I will do anything for you, Vivienne. That was never a lie. ”
A lightning rod of real, true lust sliced through my veins, leaving my knees weak.
I wanted to fall to the floor, press my nose between his boots, and beg him to take me away from this hell.
I wanted to believe each word tumbling from his luscious mouth and then wait for it to taste every inch of my body.
But the truth spoke louder than he ever could. Luca never was and never would be mine. He was the enemy.
I stepped forward and turned, staring at the bobbing apple in his throat. “What do you want from me?”
He groaned, erasing the distance between us. His thumb found my chin, tipping it up. The eyes I loved were as much of an invention as he was. God almighty, he was a series of beautiful mistakes I could easily make again.
“Uccello, everything and nothing has changed. I’m your servant. Your husband.”
I couldn’t win over his supposed devoutness, so I changed tactics.
“Tell me how this works going forward. We pretend all is well. I wear your ring, you have mine, and we act as if Tanaka is the root of all evil? You work to implicate my father, steal my mother’s secrets, and then leave me when it’s done. Is that how we move on?”
“No.” His hold on me tightened. “Together we fight for justice. Together or not at all. Love will conquer your fear, Vivi. I didn’t expect you or the feelings I have.
I had a job. That’s all it was in the beginning and until I saw you, but such is fate to derail the best intentions.
Without you there is only night, and I prefer your brilliance. You are my future.”
Luca had never looked more sincere or dangerously intense.
The white scar was stark against olive skin, a cheek painted pink from the force of my palm.
He was casual in his white button-down, the sleeves rolled to his elbows—a marker for the rippling veins woven over rocklike forearms. Domination hidden under the cover of a mere mortal.
Black magic, and I’d fallen prey to his spell.
But I wouldn’t be his fool a second time around.
The root of my own plan dug into my mind. It sprouted into a twig and grew into a new life. I seized the pendant my mother gave me for my eighteenth birthday, and the truth bloomed into leaves of knowledge.
I saw my future. I knew it in the tips of my toes and the forehead where Luca pressed his lips. Love was power. His had already broken and rebuilt me into the woman he folded into his arms. Now I would use it as my sword to carve out my complete independence.
I had risen.
Man would fall.