Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
DARIA
H e loves me. He loves me not.
If I had played that game a month or even a week ago, I would have ended up with the latter. It turned out I was wrong. The Don of New York loved me. Even if he said he didn’t do that shit. Even if I would have preferred he didn’t do that shit.
It was so much easier to push him, test him, goad him, as a made man than it was a man who loved me. Me. Daria. A silly girl in Cosa Nostra . I wasn’t smart, and I didn’t have a talent I could count on unless there was a competition for the messiest room or something. I wasn’t rich when it was all Papà’s money, anyway. Earned in morally gray ways that my guilt-ridden heart couldn’t acknowledge. I was pretty. I think. But I was sure my constant nagging for attention and waking up close to noon outshone it. So what the hell did he love me for?
I wanted him to fit into the Cosa Nostra mold. But every time I tried to make him fit, he spilled over the edges like hot wax in a fireplace.
The sun was warm and bright on my skin as I sat on the green wooden bench on the college grounds. But my mind was in chaos. Frustrated and downright angry. Why couldn’t he be like all the other men I knew? I didn’t know how to handle him. I didn’t know how to protect myself. Because he was coming for my protective walls. They wobbled dangerously at the edges of my heart. There was no will I could find to stand against his persistence.
My sandwich lay uneaten beside me with red pesto that was too soggy to tempt me. Served me right for avoiding my new friends like the plague and finding solace on a lonely bench.
It was a beautiful day. It would have been better if my mind wasn’t troubled, but still, the quiet in the park and the uneven path in front of me almost reminded me of Corleone under the warm sun. My eyes caught on a lone figure coming down the path, and my heart thudded when the familiarity touched my gaze.
What the hell is she doing here?
When she headed straight toward me, there was no doubt in my mind that she was there for me.
“Fancy finding you here.”
I squinted in the sun at her figure looming in front of me and wondered if ignoring her calls hadn’t given her the message that I didn’t want her near me. I guessed not.
She plonked down next to me on the bench, my sandwich in between us. I shifted my body subtly away.
I blamed my upbringing. I should have told her to piss off. She would have gotten the message then. Instead, I was stuck looking at a face fucked by my husband.
“Why are you here?” I asked her quietly.
She frowned like it was the strangest question she had ever heard. “I thought we were friends?”
She thought we were friends? Because we had lunch once and went shopping? Or because we had fucked the same man?
“We aren’t,” I mumbled.
A heartbeat of silence. “Did he tell you?”
I wanted to be anywhere but there. In my peripheral view, I caught one of Lorenzo’s men moving. Silently, I willed him to come closer because suddenly the sun wasn’t bright nor warm on my skin, and my defences were low and soggy like the sandwich next to me.
“I told him we shouldn’t do it.”
My heart skidded to a halt. One second. Two. Then it started pounding like a racehorse on a track. My vision blurred, and the trees and the buildings far away merged into one. I knew I shouldn’t have asked, but I did it, anyway. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh… I thought he told you… we fucked… didn’t he tell you?”
“Yes,” I snapped. “A few years ago.”
“No, a few weeks ago.”
My vision colored black. An urge wild but prepared took over me. Hadn’t I always known it would come to this? Sooner rather than later.
You’re always a Di Matteo, Daria. Vitale’s words ran in my head on a loop. The instinct to drop everything and run home hit me hard. Before I knew it, I had mirrored my thoughts. I leaned forward to jump off the bench and get the hell out of that place. Something churned in the pit of my stomach. It was unexpected and jittered like jelly. I twisted to look her in the eyes.
“You fucked, recently?” I choked out.
Her face paled, but I didn’t trust it. “I’m sorry, Daria. I thought he told you. I didn’t want to…” she clutched her heart, “I swear, but heavens, you know how he looks. Those charms… I didn’t have the will.”
Of course not. How many times had he turned my resolve into a puddle with a single look?
I’ll give you my life. If that’s what you want.
My blood rushed to my ears. Just like that, I had come to my first crossroads. Faster than I had prepared for, but it didn’t matter. There was a first time for everything. I had thought marriage had taken me from a girl to a woman. I guess I was wrong.
LORENZO
“What the fuck do you mean you don’t know where she is?”
Martello blood boiled in my veins, and the nicotine in my lungs did nothing to dull it. Rage as I had never known coiled in my chest but it was dread that slithered all through my veins.
The she’s gone of Danilo’s words echoed underneath my rib cage like the drumbeat of a fucking tribe. No, she isn’t. This was the fucking reason I’d put my own bodyguard on her. Because strangely, she was more precious to me than my own fucking life. Now my ex of a few years had tainted her with venom, and I couldn’t cure her of it when I didn’t know where she was.
“She looked sick, and she said she needed the toilet.”
Jesus! I needed a new fucking army because how was this man going to protect anything if he fell for the age-old trick?
“And it didn’t occur to your fucking brain that she was lying?” I strode out of my basement office and stalked up the stairs.
“She really looked sick, boss. All green on her face.”
I glared at my brothers following me like they could undo what was done. What had fucking Emily done?
“Where will she go?” Nico asked darkly.
He might not have agreed with all my choices, but he would always be the first to drag me out of my own shit.
“I don’t know,” I barked.
I couldn’t think. The blood-curdling in my ears wasn’t allowing it.
“What do we do with the woman?” Danilo’s voice cut into my agony.
There was that, too. I didn’t trust myself near her. Didn’t trust myself not to tear her apart, limb by limb, and feed it to the dogs. I had never killed a woman, but there was a first for everything.
“I’ll go,” Nico said, with a silent look thrown at Stefano. My eyes followed him as he got in his car and screeched off.
Just as well that Nico handled her. I stood on the footpath with Stefano, the phone hanging limply from my hand. I didn’t know where to look. Daria’s voicemail message blaring from Stefano’s phone, sirens wailing in the background, the toot of a cab in the foreground. I’ll show you I trust you rang in a loop in my head. She lied. She fucking lied to me.
“The doorman said she hadn’t come home.” My brother’s voice broke through. I had wanted her. She was my fucking home. She was supposed to be my soul. The one who got me, no matter what. Malice and rage fueled me. My eyes fixed on my car across the street. It seemed not that long ago when I’d locked her in it to stop the agitation rolling off my body. I wished I’d kept her locked in. We agreed to talk it out. Why would she take off like that? I hadn’t thought her to be an idiot, but her actions screamed gullibility.
“Let’s start with the airport.”
Of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of course she would run to her family. They were always her fucking priority.
I gave a tight nod and strode off to my ride but Stefano grabbed my arm.
“What?” I sneered.
“You’re not in a state to ride your wheels brother. Let me do it.” I shrugged him off. Like fuck would I stay put. “Come in the car and call Di Matteo in the meantime.”
Yeah. I should do that. Question is whether he would tell me if she ran to him.