41. ANTONIO
Three days later…
Mine!
Every morning I wake, every night I go to sleep, I pull Scarlet close to me.
Mine! Never has acquiring something I wanted felt this fucking good.
This passerotta will stay with me until the end of our days.
Fuck, I never thought loving someone this much could happen this quickly or feel this all consuming.
Or frightening. Now that she is my wife, she has a target on her back simply because she is my wife.
I've already increased security at the house, but sooner or later, I will need to allow her out of her cage, no matter how happy I am to keep her safely inside it.
I'm not that guy.
But that won't mean I won't freak out anytime she's out of my sight, and I'm mentally preparing myself for it.
Right now, the Carlos case still has us occupied, but as soon as it's over, there will be other problems. Edoardo, the Venezuelans, there's always going to be something.
So as much as I want to, I can't keep Scarlet locked up any more than I could Gigi. Both women deserve to live their lives.
Not yet, though. Thank God. I stare at the monitors.
The entire court case has been moved behind closed doors.
I have video and audio feed from one of the security guards, of course, but that's not helping.
Lambert looks like shit, the jurors aren't much better, and Kevin appears to have lost a few pounds.
The only one gloating is Carlos. Fucking pig.
Three days. Three fucking days, and I'm no closer to finding out who the compromised jurors are than I was before.
Lambert calls every evening after he closes the case for the day.
Scarlet is a champ, pleading with him, but she isn't making any headway, either.
Lambert just keeps telling her over and over how sorry he is.
I've full reports on every single juror, but I’ve no way to reach them to hand over bribes or threats. None of their family members do, either. They're allowed a call a day if they have small children—that's it—supervised calls.
I'm not above making threats to their families, but there is no sense in it if the jurors don't know.
"Just get one of the family members killed; that'll pull the juror out, and we can question him or her," Igio suggests.
I glare at him. "We don't kill innocent civilians. And we have no clue which juror is on Carlos' payroll."
My phone rings. Surprised, I looked at the caller's name: Marcello.
"What's up, Marcello?" I ask in lieu of a greeting, putting him on speaker. Vito and Igio both shut up and listen in.
"I figured out what my dad has on the judge," Marcello announces.
"I'm all ears." I wave Vito and Igio out of the room, and Marcello fills me in.
Fuck. I should have demanded an explanation from Scarlet after what I read in her journal.
I don't know why she wrote that she killed her mom, but what Marcello tells me is bad enough.
I don't like that he knows about this one bit.
"You have proof of this?" I finally ask, keeping my voice neutral so as not to alert Marcello to how close I am to the judge's daughter. Fuck close. That I'm married to her!
"I'll send it to your computer. That should help get him back on your side. I made sure this is the only existing copy, and I'll destroy what I have on my end."
I would have never thought my next words possible, but here we are. "Thank you, Marcello. I'll owe you one."
"Your debt will be paid after my father is in jail," he responds.
Making me wonder if he knows about the Russians. But no. There is no way he can. Still, my respect for the future head of the Orsi family just grew.
"I'm on my way to meet Matías; let's see if we can get this Venezuelan clusterfuck unfucked," Marcello fills me in, sounding like he truly wants all of us to be the kind of mafia family we're supposed to be again, keeping each other in the loop.
Making me kind of feel bad about the Russians, his dad, and brother.
Not enough to lose sleep over. Or to miss a meal. Yeah, I don't feel that bad.
My eyes move to the ceiling, where I know Scarlet is in our bedroom.
Doc took the stitches out today and declared she needed some rest. I don't like what I have to do and wish I could wait a little longer with the bad news, but we're already running out of time.
My only hope is that Scarlet is as strong as I think she is, because this conversation won't be easy.
Taking two steps at a time, I make my way up and find her in the bathroom in front of the mirror, playing with the makeup Gigi bought for her.
"Oh, I didn't know you were home already," she says, jumping up.
"And I thought you were supposed to be in bed, resting." I scold halfheartedly. She's a vision to behold. The makeup she doesn't need is immaculate; she's wearing the sundress we picked out and is an absolute knockout.
She smiles ruefully. "I've been in bed all day.
It gets kind of lonely alone in there, you know.
" She winks suggestively, and my cock hardens at the unspoken challenge.
I try to rein it in. Now is not the time.
"So I decided to make myself pretty for you," she twirls, and the skirt lifts, baring her long, slim legs to my admiring eyes. "What do you think?"
Not. The. Time .
Down, dick. Down . I ground my jaw.
"You are the most drop-dead gorgeous woman I've ever seen," I answer honestly.
Her smile nearly explodes my loins, and the temptation to take her up on her offer is excruciating.
Not. The. Time .
I hold up my hand to stop her. I don't think it's my hand that makes her steps falter, but the expression on my face.
"What's wrong?"
"We need to talk."
She visibly swallows, but she doesn't disappoint. She's brave and strong when she walks past me into the bedroom, where she takes a seat on one of the sofas.
I take the seat next to her and draw in a deep breath. "I just found something out… about your dad."
"Oh?" She tilts her head, all ears.
"It's not pretty," I warn her.
"Alright," she folds her hands primly in her lap. So fucking graceful.
"Well, let me start with a confession first," I hedge. I don't feel bad about having snooped through her apartment, but she might feel different about it, especially the part where I read some of her journal. "Remember when I got your things from your apartment?"
She nods, patiently waiting for me.
"I found your journal." There is no reason to drag this out. Besides, her sharp inhale stops me anyway. I watch the emotions pass over her face, going from oh , to oh shit . But there is no anger. Her eyes cast down; the fingers in her entwined hands begin to wring.
"Did you… did you read it?"
“Only the first few sentences,” I admit.
Her jaw tightens. Her eyes drop, and for a second, she says nothing. Just presses her lips together and stares at the floor like it might explain how to feel.
I wait, not filling the silence, giving her all the time she needs to come to grips with this. If she’s going to yell at me, I’ll take it. But when she finally speaks, her voice isn’t angry. It’s quiet. Worn.
“You had no right.”
She’s not wrong. I nod once. “I know.”
She looks up at me then—really looks—and I see the war behind her eyes. The humiliation of being exposed. The relief that someone finally knows. And just beneath all of that: fear.
But not of me.
Of herself.
“You weren’t supposed to see that.”
“I figured that out.” I try to keep my voice steady, calm. But my throat feels too tight. Her mouth opens, then closes again. She’s trembling. I take her hands in mine; they're ice cold.
“After your mom died in the car accident,” I begin, keeping my voice even, “there was an investigation.”
She nods slowly, her eyes already cloudy. “I know. The coroner said she was drunk and hit a tree.”
“That report was a lie,” I tell her. “The original one told a different story.”
My Scarlet understands more than I suspected. And I love her even more for that. I take a deep breath.
Her hands stiffen in mine. "Original report?"
I nod.
"Your father bribed the coroner to change it. In return, he fixed a sentence for the coroner's son." Her sapphire eyes hang on each of my words, her lips slightly parted as she listens intently. "But I guess the coroner kept the original in case his son misbehaved again."
"What did the report say?" She asks lowly.
"That the injuries your mom sustained during the car crash were inconsistent with her cause of death. Those injuries happened after she died."
"How did he say she died?" Scarlet's voice is barely audible now.
"A broken neck," I say, preparing myself for every eventuality. Tears, yelling, hysterics, or fainting. Anything but how she actually reacts.
"Oh." She blinks a few times. "Oh."
"Scarlet? Do you understand what this means?"
She nods. "I do." Her eyes widen. "I killed her. I killed my mom."
I wasn't prepared for this kind of full-on honesty, but fuck! This woman, my wife , is full of surprises. I'll do everything in my power to make sure this doesn’t ever touch her. I'll need to have a chat with Marcello to make sure he understands that.