Chapter 39
Vivi
LUCA BECAME A casualty of my war. My father inadvertently gave me everything I needed to fight.
Rocco as an escort to my suite, and Doc Straus to mend my ravaged head.
All but one of Mama’s prized possessions were stuffed in my bag.
The same backpack I’d filled when I thought I’d run away with my husband to save him from the feds.
Before I learned that he was exactly who I feared the most. A liar.
Now he’d suffer the consequences as much as Carlos did when he drugged him to save me from becoming an Angelini.
A shard of regret pierced my heat as I climbed off Luca’s dick.
I had used him, very methodically, but sacrifices were made in the name of survival.
I needed his pulse elevated to push the meds into his system quickly, and sex was my only idea.
I also loved him. As much as I hated myself for the feelings, I couldn’t turn them off.
The best I could do was suppress the emotion to the bottom of my churning stomach and get through the next ten minutes.
What would no doubt become a painful goodbye—at least for me.
“Just give it a few more seconds, and we’ll have a nice chat,” I said on my way to the bathroom to clean up. “Doc says the drug kicks in fast when adrenaline is high.”
“What have you done, Vivienne?” He struggled to sit, then fell to the mattress as I moved into the dressing room.
“Don’t get up on my behalf.” I clicked my tongue and shook my head.
“The water was as much to quench your thirst as it was to paralyze your system. Actually, it loosens your muscles to the point of no control, similar to GHB.” I slid into a pair of waterproof leggings, followed by a long-sleeved swim shirt.
Silver hair was a problem that I wrapped in a bun, covering it with the hoodie to hide the brightness.
“But don’t worry, it won’t last long enough for you to piss yourself or cause too much embarrassment. You’ll be up in a couple of hours.”
Or knowing how hot Luca burned, maybe sooner.
I returned to his side in head-to-toe black.
God willing, it would keep me off camera as I made my escape.
The backpack was heavy with the addition of a few essentials and Mama’s laptop.
A gift from her lover turned my friend, and the confidant I needed to leave this hellhole.
I’d meet him in the catacombs in just a few minutes.
Before then, I sat on the edge of the bed next to my husband.
A beautiful and naked Luca was spread out before me—the lamb waiting for slaughter.
“Now—I have some questions, and thanks to the good doctor, you’ll have no choice but to give me the truth. What’s your real name?”
He groaned with understanding, but the words came out in a stuttering shock. “Luc… Luc… Luca Wolfe Mancini.”
My eyes narrowed. “How is that possible? Why would you use your real name?”
“The goal was… authenticity.”
He inhaled but was winded between words. Damn, Doc didn’t mess around. Only the Lord knows how heavy-handed he was with meds. The man had been my pediatrician since birth, and a pseudograndfather. When I said I needed answers from a cheating husband, he willingly obliged.
“What color are your eyes?” I demanded.
“Blue.”
“Why the contacts?”
“Disguise,” he said, as if it hurt. It also didn’t make sense if authenticity was the goal. I made note of the contradiction.
“Where did you grow up?”
“Ravenna.”
“Upstate,” I said to myself, thinking of Sam’s would-be trip to the Adirondacks. It was on the map.
“Are Roman and Anna real?”
“Yes.”
“Were you in the Navy?”
“Yes.”
“Who recruited you for this?” I motioned at everything and nothing—the fiasco of my life.
“Brynn O’Connor.”
“The redhead. Why you? Why did you join the task force?”
He blinked and breathed, fighting the answer and giving in with a curse. “Rav… Ravenna.”
I narrowed in on the plea in his eyes and the line of his thinned lips, while contemplating the implications of his answer. Ravenna. But I only had a minute to capture information, so I cataloged the details and moved on.
“Did you tell Vigo about my mother’s note?”
“He already knew. He knows—”
“Everything,” I finished for him, even as my mind wanted to rehash what I learned.
There was more. The clench of his jaw told me he was holding back, but I hadn’t asked the right questions to force information from his body.
I could probe for hours, and what would I learn that I didn’t already know?
I was Luca’s pawn in a much larger chess game than I ever imagined.
In an honest moment with myself, I wasn’t sure I could test the veracity of his feelings—one of the purposes of this scene.
I would only suffer more, and I was also running out of time. Rocco waited.
I stood, taking a long look at his face, the scar I traced, and the body I cherished. Tears rushed my eyes as if they had the right to fall. I blinked them away and retreated to the door, where I turned enough to lean my forehead on the jamb.
“Don’t… don’t leave.”
I stared at my swim shoes, choking down the emotion clawing through my throat.
“I am, and I promise you won’t see me again.
I’m not coming back unless I’m in a casket.
Then you have permission to bury me next to Mama.
Go on with your mission. Keep telling your lies, but don’t give them to me.
I want you to continue as if I never existed, as if Vigo Cabello didn’t have a daughter.
God knows he never cared, only my mother did, so why would anyone else start now? ”
“Because you have what we want.”
Pain shot through my heart. Of course. Everyone always wanted something, but it was never just Vivienne. It was never me.
“Right.” I nodded. “The key to his kingdom.”
“And yours.”
I laughed with no humor. “You don’t know me at all.”
“I do. I know you… you’re good, my queen.”
“Then why—”
Why couldn’t he find the rioting agony pounding in my pulse, tripping in my neck, or see the trickle of hurt bleeding from my eyes?
Why couldn’t he hear the desperation in my tone with every word I’ve said since we existed?
How could he not know how torn up I was inside?
All I ever wanted was to belong. To love, to be loved, to have my own family, but he couldn’t see because he didn’t feel.
We were a lie.
I spun to face him. To look at him, naked and glowing in the limited light. “Why did you marry me?”
He fisted the sheet.
The cords in his neck bunched as he fought to keep the truth behind clenched teeth.
I rushed him, dropped my bag, and sank to my knees on the mattress, holding his cheeks in my palms. Eyes to lying eyes, I forced him to answer the one question he’d evaded every time I asked. “Why did you marry me?”
“Ask something else,” he pleaded.
I shook him. I shook and begged, like I wouldn’t do with any other man ever again. “Tell me. Tell me why you married me.”
“Vivviiennne.”
My name was pain and sorrow, an anguish so deep it rumbled out of his mouth in a cry. But mine was louder. “Why did you marry me?”
His breath tripped. He choked, as if trying to hold back the truth exploding from his mouth in a near shout. “To get closer to Vigo.”
A sob clung to my chest and hiccupped from my throat as I dropped my forehead to his lips.
Of course. Deep down I knew, I always knew it wasn’t for me or for love.
How foolish to ever think I could evoke the type of response from a man that would drive him to my feet out of devotion.
He wanted my father—when I only wanted him.
“You married me to become his son,” I confirmed.
“Yes.”
“Everything was done for him to trust you in the same way you demanded of me.”
“Yes, but, uccello,” he whispered as I clung to him, burying my nose in his neck. It was my last drag of the sun and the wind, and the beginning of my true independence—freedom from the cruel men who ruled my actions.
The cord was cut.
I stood. With trembling fingers, I found my neck and the clasp to the pendant weighing me down.
The chain slid easily from my skin and just as easily into the palm of his outstretched hand.
Husband and wife. Man and woman. Soul to broken soul.
“Addio, mio unico e solo amore.” Goodbye, my one and only love.
“Vivienne. Vivienne, look at me!”
But I was done looking. It was time to act. It was time for the pain and hurt to fuel my escape and the revenge that would make the past worth the cost of freedom.
“You’re asking the wrong question. Vivienne.”
I grabbed my bag and walked past the door, into the hallway, then the exit to the main house, all while he called from over my shoulder. The louder he screamed, the greater the distance. But he stole my heart for eternity when he cried, “Ask me if I love you, uccello.”
I knew the answer, and I left anyway.
?
SHADOWS LEAPT ACROSS the foyer, angry silhouettes reaching out to stop my escape.
They weren’t real; no one interfered with my progression except for the perimeter lights shining through the windows and the line of demarcation under the bookcase door.
I couldn’t descend to the catacombs, or I’d be seen.
If Rocco was on time, the power would cut off in five, four, three, two…
Darkness consumed the campus. I had five minutes max before the electricity would be restored.
Pitch-black met my descent. I wasn’t worried.
I knew this house like the back of my hand, and I couldn’t count the number of times I’d snuck, just as I was, down the stairs to prowl.
To look. This was entertainment for a lonely girl night after isolated night.
Guards scrambled. I heard the rush of voices and the rustle of fabric as they skirted from one hall to the other, shouting a cacophony of questions about the generator and why it was disabled.