Chapter 9
GIANNA
For a little while as I was getting ready to go out, I actually forgot where I was. Forgot that I was a prisoner of the man who destroyed my family. As I was applying my makeup it was almost as though I was getting ready for a date with the man I love. Not someone I should hate.
And it should have given me pause. But it didn’t. That put me in a foul mood. Almost made me change back into my tracksuit and tell Matteo I’m not going anywhere with him tonight. It’s not that I should hate him. I do hate him.
But then he walked into the bedroom and looked at me like I was sent straight from Heaven to be his. What woman doesn’t like being looked at like that? He didn’t even comment on the fact that I’m wearing all black again. Even the clips I used to put up my hair are black.
And if that wasn’t enough, he gave me that diamond necklace and bracelet to wear… I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Not even in my mother’s collection, which contains hand-me-downs from previous generations spanning over one hundred years.
The necklace and bracelet were made by a master jeweler, the type of master that doesn’t exist anymore.
I almost asked him what woman he’d previously given these jewels to, but didn’t want to ruin the moment. He looked so pleased with the final result once I was wearing them. As was I.
The ride in one of his old cars made me feel even more like a princess. This time he chose a light blue and silver convertible—an old Hollywood classic car even I, who knows nothing about cars, recognized from old pictures and movies.
The walls of the restaurant he brought me to are covered with pictures of celebrities, lots of them from back when Hollywood was still very new.
Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Fred Astair, Lana Turner, Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Errol Flynn are just some of the ones I recognize.
And what all the pictures also have in common is that most of the celebrities in them are posing with a man that bears a striking resemblance to Matteo.
He’s not as muscular, with less darkness in his eyes as he smiles for the camera.
But there’s that same intensity in his gaze…
I can practically feel the heat of that man’s gaze as much as I ever feel Matteo’s.
I wish I could ask him if that’s his grandfather or something, but he’s left me at the table alone, while he went to deal with something in the back. I don’t know how I feel about him mixing business with what I thought was a night out for just the two of us. But I shouldn’t care.
We’re not alone anyway. He brought five bodyguards, including the sour-faced one—Caputo—who seems to always be by his side lately.
I can feel them all staring at me. Except for Caputo, they’re the same men that would call me Gianna the Cursed back at Ferro’s mansion in New York and I definitely don’t like their presence here.
I can still feel them whispering that crap behind my back. Even though they’re dead silent.
But even that is almost a pleasant feeling compared to what washed over me as a lanky, tall guy with messy, greasy hair and a crumpled shirt stops by my table. He’s unshaved, there are folds of loose skin under his bloodshot eyes and he looks like he’s been on a bender for a few days.
“He just left you all alone out here?” he asks and sits down next to me. “Just goes to show that the Rovinas are all untrained dogs. Always were, always will be. I did try with Matteo though.”
He grins meanly, revealing coffee and cigarette-stained teeth that look too big for his face.
“I didn’t invite you to sit down. Who are you?” I ask in my most cutting New York voice. The kind that would get me called a bitch. But I don’t like to hear anyone call Matteo names. Especially unmannered men like this idiot.
“I’d like to know the same about you? Where did he find a prime piece of ass like you to flaunt around?” he says. “Just a few weeks ago he was surviving solely on groveling for my mercy and now he’s strutting around like he owns the place.”
“You’re Dante Moretti,” I whisper. I didn’t mean to say it. The words just tumbled out.
This is the guy that created all that darkness in Matteo. Darkness that led him to do all those things I can never forgive him for. I don’t think I’ve ever hated a stranger before. But I hate this guy with a passion that makes me want to slap his face.
But the heat of that urge has nothing to do with the heat engulfing me now—Matteo’s back and if looks could kill, Moretti would be a dead man. The heat coming from Matteo’s eyes is uncomfortably hot now—not just desert sunshine, more like pure hellfire.
And as he reaches the table, I’m sure he’s not even going to speak. That he’s just going to murder Moretti right where he sits. That black knife of his is already in his hand.
But I can’t let him do that.
Not here in public like this.
I have no doubts that this Moretti guy deserves to die. And I won’t stop him from dealing that death. But there’s a time and place. And it’s not here.
Moretti stands up as Matteo reaches the table and there’s definite fear beneath that sneering look in his watery eyes.
“Welcome back, Rovina,” he says. “I was just getting to know your new woman. But when are you coming back to work for me?”
Just as I predicted, Matteo doesn’t speak. He just raises his arm to plunge the knife into Moretti’s neck. I stand up too and grab hold of his elbow. My touch destabilizes him, and he looks at me, blinking as though I’ve just woken him from a trance.
“Not here,” I tell him quietly, but pointedly. He nods once, like he understands.
“Not anywhere, Rovina,” Moretti says sneeringly, but he’s already backing away from the table and three of his bodyguards are encircling him.
Who’s a dog with his tail between his legs now?
Our own bodyguards are surrounding us now too.
Matteo turns that fiery look on them. It still burns.
“What part of watch over her didn’t you understand?” he asks.
The guys exchange glances, cowed for the most part, and who wouldn’t be, under all that Hell’s heat in Matteo’s eyes?
“It was just some guy,” one of them says. “We thought maybe he was one of your friends or something.”
The heat around Matteo rises alarmingly. I’m still holding his arm, I realize, and I squeeze it gently. “It’s fine. I’m fine. I can handle men like that. Let’s sit and have dinner now.”
He glances at me, and while the angry heat is still there in his eyes, I know it would never burn me. I know it deep in my soul.
“Yes, let’s do that,” he says and waits until I’m seated before taking his own seat.
The bodyguards slip away from our table.
He pours himself a tall glass of the white wine they brought while he was gone and drinks the whole thing in a series of long swallows.
We have the attention of everyone in this restaurant now. They’re not exactly staring at us, but I can feel them looking. Moretti has already left the restaurant.
I take hold of Matteo’s hands as he lays them back on the table. “Put the knife away, now. You did the right thing letting him walk away.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Did I? Or did I just miss my best chance to kill him?”
“In front of all these witnesses?” I ask. “Sure, you probably could’ve done it. But then the cops would take you away and that would be that.”
He grins. “That innocence… don’t ever change, Goldie.”
I don’t like the condescending tone in his voice, so I release his hands and pick up my own glass of wine.
“Yeah, you probably could get away with killing him here, I get that,” I say. “But the way I see it, I just stopped you from making a huge mistake in another way. Don’t you want an all-out war with this guy?”
He seems surprised, looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“I thought you were against the war,” he says. “And killing in general.”
“Your world and my world are the same,” I say and lean back. “Sometimes killing is necessary. And some men deserve to die.”
I look deeper into his eyes than I’ve done before. And I see all the pain, all the hurt, but also all the anger and rage. Some doubt, too.
“Wow, Goldie,” he says and leans back in his seat too, studying me as one might study an interesting piece of art. “You’re just full of surprises since we got to LA, aren’t you?”
I blush under that searching gaze, can’t help it.
Because it’s too intimate, too deep, too knowing.
But luckily, a waiter comes to present the menu to us.
I let Matteo choose for us because I didn’t hear any of what was on offer and I’m so hungry that I could eat anything.
Or nothing at all. I can’t remember the last time I had a full meal.
Maybe that night in Atlantic City, right before I realized that there is no running away from him for me.
“Things are all different now that we’re here,” I say. “You’ve broken up my family and are going to use my father as a pawn in your war. All I can do is keep you alive and hope you’ll show us mercy after you get what you want.”
“Is that why you stopped me killing Dante Moretti? So I’d show you mercy?”
I feel my cheeks heating up and I’m having trouble meeting his eyes. I wish I could just tell him that was the only reason. But I don’t think it was even one of the top reasons.
“What did that guy do to you, anyway?” I ask.
“You mean besides attacking my family and fighting dirty until I was the last man standing?” His eyes flick up to one of the photos on the wall. I follow his gaze and sure enough, he’s looking at the man who looks so much like him it might as well be him. In another life.
“Is that your grandfather or something?” I ask.
“That’s my great-grandfather, Eddo Rovina,” he says.
“He’s the one who came out West, trying to escape the curse and make something of himself.
He started everything that my father, me, and my brother lost. The curse took a while to take everything from him.
I’m just glad he wasn’t alive to see it.
But I bet he’s not resting peacefully in his grave. ”
“But you’re getting everything back, aren’t you?”
He looks at me, his eyes mirthful and confident. Except for the tiny hint of doubt that perhaps only I can see. “Am I?”
Our soups arrive, the pleasant mushroom aroma reminding me just how hungry I actually am. He doesn’t start eating right away, so I don’t either.
“If Moretti held you prisoner like you’re holding me prisoner, then I completely understand why you want the guy dead,” I say.
Darkness gathers in his eyes again. Good. I’m done being mocked for everything I say. Just goes to prove he’s nothing more than my captor and I’m nothing more than a little diversion in this war he’s waging.
“My time with Moretti was nothing like you’re living now,” he says, the vein in his neck starting to pulse quicker and quicker. “He treated me like a slave, missed no opportunity to make my life hell. From making me clean toilets and sleep on the floor, to making me kill innocents.”
His voice cracks on that last word, and I absolutely don’t need to know who or what he means by the innocents.
“All while missing no opportunity to rub everything I’ve lost in my face,” he adds. “Now let’s eat. It’s getting cold.”
He picks up his spoon and starts eating like a starving man. I follow more slowly, because I’m suddenly not very hungry anymore.
His pain is a real, palpable thing between us now.
I know this is the source of his darkness.
I know none of that darkness he carries around would be there if it weren’t for Dante Moretti.
I know we could be happy and simply in love if it weren’t for that man.
If we’d ever met in that case at all. But we would have met.
We’re meant to be together. A part of my mind is absolutely certain of that.
I eat a few spoonfuls then stop again. He’s almost done with his plate.
“I’m very sorry for what you went through, I really am,” I tell him. “I feel your pain and not just because I can relate to a part of it. But I still wish we’d met under different circumstances. Because so much more would be possible then.”
He spoons the last of his soup off his plate and leans back, raising his glass to me.
“But this is already so much better than it was last week,” he says. “So here’s to us. And things getting even better.”
When I don’t raise my glass to toast him, he shrugs and drinks some of his wine anyway.
Then he raises it at me again. “Here’s to you then. You stopped me from fucking up my dreams of revenge tonight, so here’s to your dreams. I hope they all come true.”
This time I do raise my glass and drink some of the smooth, pale gold wine.
But I don’t know any more what my dreams actually are.
To be free of him and reunited with my family?
Or that I could stop hating him so that this life he’s shown me a glimpse of today could be mine forever?