Chapter 34
Sophia
My chest tightens while the blood races through my veins at an unprecedented rate.
My entire family ordered dead. If my back weren’t pressed against the coolness of the wall helping to hold me up, my knees would buckle right beneath me.
Massimo’s growling order echoes in my ear.
Protect Sophia’s family with your life. I try to catch my breath and slow the racing of my heart as I try to decide if I should run back upstairs and pretend I didn’t overhear the conversation clearly not intended for my ears or confront him with the truth.
Even as my mind swirls with the implications of the order against me and my family, my heart expands with relief that Massimo, not even knowing that I could overhear his conversation, put me and my family above all.
Above the age-old vendetta, the rivalry between families that has been strong and unweilding for the duration of time in the old country and here as the families relocated, and even knowing the rift it will cause between him and his own father.
He put my safety above his own family’s, and I’m most certain against his father’s wishes. For me, not for my family, but for me. For the same reason I murdered men in cold blood tonight. But they would have killed all of us.
Whether I wanted this life or not, this life sucked me into its vortex.
I was na?ve to believe that Papa could keep me protected from the crimes and arrangements of mafia daughters for the forward advancement of the family name, power, and prestige in the underworld.
Always, always, strategizing the next move, the next takeover of territory to control while using anything and anyone, especially daughters, as pawns in their thirst for control.
And as next in line for the Roselli throne, Massimo should have walked away, left me on that boat, a loose end that should have been silenced along with the others who attacked, with no threads that could come back to haunt his family name.
His father would have expected it if he knew I pulled the trigger that killed the men on that yacht tonight.
Yet Massimo protected me, even fired that gun and left his own prints on the barrel, knowing it will draw all suspicion from me to him, willing to take the fall for me if ever it were retrieved from the depths of the surrounding sea.
Massimo drew me into the darkness of his world, but in doing that, gave me strength, a new perspective of what it means to be part of a family such as ours.
The courage and resolve to do what I need to do in order to keep my family, especially my sister, safe.
Massimo Roselli somehow taught me the importance of my heritage, the importance of being a Cassone, a descendent from our forefathers who braved the sea in tiny boats with little or nothing to eat or to call their own, but a dream, a vision, and a strategy to gain power and wield great influence in the world someday.
And we do… And now Desiree’s father wants to put the Cassones, including me, into the ground.
As though we were nothing but an annoyance in his plans to control the underground.
But he underestimated the will of a woman who has a family to safeguard and has been taught to trust her instincts and ancestorial roots in the heat of battle, survival, and to safeguard those she cares about.
And there is no doubt in my mind now, that enemies or not, I will protect my own.
Too caught up in my own internal conflict, I hear the footsteps approach far too late to move.
Massimo turns the corner but is glued to his phone and headed in the opposite direction.
I stay plastered against the wall, too keyed up and anxious to say a word, as he and Jimmy head down the hall with Massimo’s brothers in tow.
My heart has barely stopped racing, but I manage to put one foot in front of the other and return to my room just as the door downstairs bursts open and old man Roselli begins bellowing for Massimo.
I close the bedroom door, glancing around for something to defend myself with if the need should arise, because if that man were my father, I can just imagine his first thought would be to get rid of the loose end, and that loose end is me.
A Cassone, an enemy who has brought more trouble than anything to his home.
I frantically rifle through Massimo’s drawers looking for a gun of any kind, knowing a man like him would not sleep without one nearby.
My eyes go wide, turning, scanning the king-size bed before walking to the headboard where he bound me with his ties.
My hand runs under the mattress not finding anything while my heartbeat races faster as footsteps march up the stairs, closer and closer.
My hand begins to tremble as I slide it along the backside of the headboard, exhaling a deep breath as my fingers wrap around the barrel of a Glock. I pull it from its holster, ensuring it’s loaded and ready, and take aim at the door just as it almost bursts from its hinges.
Massimo stands in the doorway, his dark, intense, anger-fueled eyes settling on me and I let out the breath I didn’t realize I had been holding until now.
I’m no fragile little doll, but this fucking day.
I try to keep the tears at bay, but no matter, the dam bursts, large tears spilling down my face.
“I’m so sorry everything is such a mess. ”
He closes the distance in three long strides, drawing me into his arms, wiping my tears with his fingers, and then tasting the salt of my tears. “You have nothing to be sorry for, kitten.” He kisses me gently on the lips and then places his arm around me. “Give me the gun. We have to leave now.”
I trust him with my life, but my sister is at my dad’s estate and there’s no way I can leave her there without any defense. “Massimo, I overheard your conversation downstairs. Please, I have to get to my sister, or warn her at least.”
His eyes lock with mine, the intensity magnetic in its ability to hold mine. “No, kitten. My men are taking care of the situation already, but we have to move. Your sister and father are being safeguarded, but I need to get you to safety now. Trust me, kitten.”
Trust a Roselli with my life and that of my family.
What would have been absurd only weeks before now seems like the most natural thing in the world even as the families burst into a war that we haven’t seen in ages.
Massimo holds me tight, guiding me down the stairs and into the back seat of the awaiting sleek black limo.
Jimmy hits the gas and we peel through the gates with his soldiers in cars in front of and behind us.
“Where are we going?”
“To the ocean house. We’re going to lay low for a while. We can see anyone coming a mile away from there with drones and all kinds of new-fangled technology. You’ll be safe until this blows over.”
“I’ll be safe? Where will you be?” I ask, turning to look him in the eye.
He places his arm around me and pulls me to him, whispering in my ear. “Shh, kitten. Trust me.”