Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DARIA
“ I didn’t have a connection, Mamma.”
“What’s wrong with this Martello? Doesn’t he ever call his mamma? Schifiu! Is this man even Sicilian? Doesn’t he know family comes first?”
I bit the comeback riding my tongue. In all her worries, she’d forgotten that his mamma died when he was nine. At least, that’s what I’d heard from Vitale. Still, he was fucking Sicilian, although I had the impression he’d rather be anything but that. He should have known family comes first, and I’d want to call mine.
“He wasn’t home—”
“ Beddra Matri! And he left you alone the whole day?” Mamma lamented on the other side. Her forehead was lined in worry, that was apparent even through my phone screen.
It wasn’t Mamma I worried about. It was Vitale standing behind her, ominously silent, jaw tensed, with a look that said I’d kill that fucker and start a war . God, I loved being Sicilian, but we tended to overreact a tad too much, even if it was well deserved.
“I wasn’t alone, Mamma. Ciro was outside.”
“Who the fuck’s that?” Vitale growled.
“My own personal bodyguard,” I said with triumph. We’d always had Luigi looking after us and since he married my sister, I guessed that meant that my c ognato looked after us. Ciro was no c ognato unless he married Lia, and I was keeping his big burly body far away from my little sister.
Vitale shook his head like he couldn’t believe what I was saying.
“Daria, I don’t—”
“Ale, I promise I’m alright…” I looked up from my phone to Stefano strolling into the room. He looked like he had a lazy Sunday off. White t-shirt, blue jeans, and designer shades in his hand. I wondered if he had a Glock tucked into his waistband. “I was just jet-lagged and told him I wanted to sleep it off.”
There wasn’t an inkling in his face that told me he’d caught on to my little lie. I must have been getting good at covering up his brother’s asshole traits. The couch dipped as he sank next to me and casually slung his arm around me. He may have looked like a Sunday casual man, but he could be just as uncouth as his asshole brother. I realized that when he leaned over and grabbed the phone off my hand.
“No worries, Di Matteo. We are looking after our cognata like the princess she is.” I looked for sarcasm but found none. His tone was light, oozed nonchalance, and seemed to have convinced Vitale. Although Mamma muttered something under her breath that suspiciously sounded like this is what happens to men who grew up without a mamma.
Stefano didn’t pick up on it. He threw a look at my pajama-clad body. “Get dressed. We’re going out.” I didn’t hang around for another excuse to evade awkward family talk. I left him conversing with Vitale and scurried off.
I clicked all my suitcases open and chucked out my usual clothes till I found the secret stash that Luna had got for me. If I wasn’t living in Sicily, I was dressing the way I wanted. One good thing about marriage was I could wear anything I wanted. I was out of Mamma’s reach. No more ‘good girls wear frilly shit’ anymore. I found skinny denim jeans and a white T-shirt. I paired them with white sneakers, let my hair hang loose, and, at the last minute, grabbed a white cardigan before walking out the door.
Stefano scowled at me. “You aren’t going out like that.”
I looked down at myself. I loved how the clothes wrapped around my body like a second skin. “What’s wrong with it?”
His eyes ran me over from top to toe. “Too tight.”
That was the only highlight of being married, and now he wanted to take that away, too. I was so tired of all of this. They decided everything for me. Who I married, where I slept, what I wore…. Wasn’t there going to be anything good out of this godforsaken bond? Emotion clogged my throat and wobbled my lips.
He grimaced and shifted. It looked like this was the last place he wanted to be. “Awww… come on. Don’t turn on the waterworks.”
Which only made a tear slip out right on cue.
He sighed, ran a frustrated hand through his long wavy hair, and shifted uncomfortably. “Fine, let’s go then,” he muttered.
“Really?” I brightened up.
“Yeah,” he shook his head. “He’s going to kill me, though. You might have a dead cognato tonight.”
My footsteps faltered. I’d already known my asshole husband to have killed before…
He laughed gruffly. “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself. Now, have you had breakfast?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t even figured out how to make his fancy coffee machine work. Mamma had always told me I was useless in the house. I hadn’t wanted to bother telling her that she had been right.
“Don’t you have groceries?”
“I can’t cook,” I mumbled.
“You can’t…” a loud, robust chuckle rumbled through his body. “Oh, he’s going to love this.” By love , I got it was the opposite, and suddenly, I was happy I hadn’t wanted to learn. “Aren’t you Sicilian girls like taught to cook for your husbands?”
“We are.”
“So what happened? Didn’t make it to finishing school or something.”
“No. I decided a man should marry me for who I am, not what I can cook,” I said adamantly.
Another one of those chuckles, and I decided I really did like this cognato .
Stefano was fun. Much more than the asshole I had said yes to. Stefano wasn’t arrogant, angry, or annoying. He was relaxed, charming, and attentive. He also left a trail of forlorn looks behind him wherever we went. The perfect gentleman. It was a facade. I knew that. He was anything but a gentleman. He had helped or stood by when my asshole of a husband murdered Aldo. I picked up that morose memory and locked it in my dark chest, together with all the others weighing heavy.
He was, of course, a made man. He had planned to take me around in a stupido elicottero! As if we needed to see a city in a flying machine when we could perfectly well walk around and absorb the vibe. So he relented. Something I could have never seen his brother doing. I couldn’t even imagine him coming out with me. Don’t think about him.
So we walked the streets, lined up all straight like Mamma’s checkered tablecloth. I don’t think we had a single straight street in Sicily, but New York was full of them. Straight bike lanes and on every corner, traffic lights, and people in a rat race. We visited Times Square, which was exactly like it was made out to be in the movies, but with more people. No romantic lampposts with couples hanging off them, for sure. It was all glitzy. Not only because of the gigantic billboards but because of the thousand flashes flickering around me. He took me up to the Empire State Building, which was apparently the tallest building in New York. Was. Until the monster where we lived had come up. Of course, he had to live there to pack his big ego in.
We had lunch at some cafe where the coffee would make any good Italian throw a fit, but it was my fault since I wanted to go all-American. The burger was good, though! It was also the first time I’d had an American burger, I told Stefano, to his amusement, as I tried to eat it elegantly while squashed tomatoes and melted cheese dripped along its edges.
I was halfway through my burger, tomato juice dripping off my chin, when a beautiful woman caught his eye. He didn’t show a twitch of emotion, but she must have misunderstood it as a welcome because she walked right up to us.
“Stefano,” she breezed, and even her voice was whimsical. She had gorgeous, long black hair and pale features. She looked like one of those Wall Street type girls shown in the movies, highly sophisticated. She sealed the idea when she gave Stefano air kisses. Blowing into the air next to his cheek. What was the point of that?
“I was passing by when I saw you through the window. Haven’t seen you in a long time.” It sounded slightly accusing. I thought she might be a girlfriend, but he didn’t look so happy to see her.
“Plenty of reasons for that.” His tone was tight, and his words harsh. So maybe an ex-girlfriend.
She ignored him and glanced at me with a smile. Her smile lined wide with cherry red lips. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“This is Daria.”
“Hi, I’m Emily…”
“She’s Lorenzo’s wife.” She paled. Well, I would be shocked, too, if I had to imagine myself with Lorenzo, which is exactly what she was probably doing. But she was smooth and picked herself up fast.
“Are you from around here?” Her voice dripped like sweet candy.
“No, from Sicily.” Her English was all elegant and polished, like she’d studied at some fancy college, while mine was rough at its best and sang in tune to my Sicilian.
“Oh,” she gave Stefano an awkward glance before she glanced at my burger. “I was going to get lunch…” she trailed off.
She kind of reminded me of Orietta. That was probably the vibe I was picking up on, which is exactly why I invited her to sit with us. I ignored Stefano’s glare while she ordered. This was my chance to find an American Luna, a friend outside the Cosa Nostra, and I was grabbing this chance with both my hands.
While she elegantly bit into her hamburger, I ignored my half-eaten one.
“I love your dress.” She wore a sexy tight blue dress that showed off her curves.
“Oh, thank you. You know if you’re new here, you won’t know where to shop. If you would like, we can go together.”
“I’d love that!” I exclaimed to Stefano’s growl.
“Let’s exchange numbers.”
“Oh,” I looked at Stefano with a frown, who was up and looming over me. “I have a new number. I don’t know what it is. Stefano, you must know it?”
“No, and we are leaving Daria,” he said adamantly.
“Never mind, give me your phone. You can ring me on it, and then we have each other’s numbers.” She took my phone and typed in the number, all the while ignoring my annoying cognato’s angry grunts. I liked this Emily. She had guts to stand up to these idiots.
“Time to go.” He physically lifted me up and pulled me out of the cafe.
The moment we were outside, I shook his hand off me angrily. “What’s the matter with you? I was just trying to make friends.”
“Not with that one. She’s bad news, Daria. Stay away from her and delete that number.”
“Why?”
“She just is. Now, delete that number.”
Of course, ‘she just is.’ We women didn’t deserve any explanations. We just had to do as we were told. “No. I am done with all of you. Telling me who I have to marry, what I have to wear, and who I can be friends with.”
He glared at me as we stood at a stand-off while New Yorkers bustled past us.
“What’s your problem, anyway? Is she an ex-girlfriend or something?”
“Or something. Now give me that goddamn phone.”
“No.” I shoved it into my bag and clutched it to my chest.
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and looked up at the sky as if answers were going to dangle off it in a second.
“Just tell me who she is.”
He scowled at me. “Fuck it. I’ll let Enzo handle this. Let’s go. Sight-seeing’s over.”
“You’re so much fun,” I said as Stefano closed the front door behind us. ‘Your brother, not so much,’ went unsaid. I was also trying to butter him up again to that casual man from this morning.
We’d taken the metro back, against his better judgment, but complying with my wishes to tick off another first. I was determined to grab all the firsts that didn’t involve the man I married.
It was the middle of the afternoon, and the asshole’s glass-clad tower filtered and reflected the light and sparkled off his things. If it was my home, dust particles would shine and shimmer in the air. His metal chest was all sparkly and polished.
I padded into the living room and stopped mid-stride. My good mojo drained out of me like water down the drain. Black on black, I might have missed him if it weren’t for the haze of smoke surrounding him. Slunk on a low black leather armchair, one ankle on his knee. The pile of cigarettes in the ashtray and the strong nicotine cloud hanging in the living room told me he’d been here for some time, or he was a fast smoker. I coughed in the pungent smell.
His glare pinned me from head to toe and back. He obviously didn’t like what he saw. He must have been moody before I walked in, but now he was downright wild with fury.
“About fucking time,” he growled.
“What? Did you expect me to make lunch?” I lurched back. My heart thumped at my insanity. I had no idea where the gatekeeper was because there seemed to be no barrier in my mouth.
“You should know she can’t cook,” Stefano said, coming up behind me, and I giggled at our inside joke.
His furious scowl shifted over my shoulder to Stefano. “You allowed her to go out dressed like this?”
Medda! My body vibrated from his rage, but I wasn’t taking this from him. I wasn’t an item to be talked about when I was right in front of him. “He didn’t allow me to do shit. I can wear what I want. I’m not some stupid doll of yours.”
Stefano chuckled quietly behind me to Lorenzo’s glare.
“You,” he pointed to Stefano. “In my office.”
He got up leisurely and strolled toward us. Every step he took made the danger lining his irises sharper. The closer he got, the darker his intentions looked. My spunk of a few moments ago vanished like a puff of his smoke. Fear trickled into my heart for my cognato . I didn’t know him enough to judge his reactions. So the moment he made to pass me, I clutched his arm tightly with both my hands.
He faltered, and both our gazes fell to my hand on his arm. My eyes burned in fear as my pink nails dug into his warm arm. “Please,” I pleaded. “It’s my fault.” I dragged my eyes with effort to find his already on mine. “He didn’t like it either.”
His arm was as hard as steel and hot as scalding iron. It was comfort and warmth at the same time. The cigarette butt glowed orange and sparked brightly at the end of his hand. Three stuttered heartbeats followed. A block of hot ash dripped onto the tiled floor. He didn’t seem to notice. But I did and let go of his arm instantly. A flicker in his iris showed a darkness that sucked me in. A breath of hot air left my lips. A shake of his head and he moved past with a “Let’s go, Stefano.”
I turned to follow, but he must have had eyes on the back of his head because his tight voice cut through the air, “Not you, Daria,” as he walked away.
“Don’t worry, cognata , this is about business,” Stefano said lightly before following him, but we both knew it wasn’t.
So I sat in the cold living room and huddled on the couch. Minutes ticked away at a snail’s pace, and my head ran mad with imagination. The moment I heard the whoosh of a door opening, I found myself out in the foyer. Stefano came out of a room that must have been Lorenzo’s office, followed by the devil himself. My eyes ran to my cognato in relief before they caught on the asshole. He was frowning like the sight of me was a hangover from a drunken night.
“See?” Stefano said lightly as he made for the front door. “He’s just a kitten when handled right.”
Yeah right. More like a wild lion on top of his kingdom.
The door closed behind him and took with it any kind of lightness that had been in the room. Tension crawled in, hot and electric, and it hung heavy, ready to spark with a word or a deed. I wasn’t going to hang around to find out. I twisted to walk away and stopped at his sharp words.
“Erase that number, Daria.” His voice was cold and stern like I was a small child who’d been called out to the principal.
I faltered, a disappointed sigh leaving me. Was my day accounted for line by line to him? My shoulders stiffened with anger. He wanted to own me. Have control of everything I did.
“Daria, did you hear me?”
I nodded numbly. Because, well, I’d heard him. But like hell if I was going to listen to him. Determination fueled my bones as I went to my room. Well, his room. I didn’t even have a room that I could hide from his all-seeing gaze, so what if I wanted to keep a number to myself? It seemed that was the only thing I could keep to myself.