21. Matteo
CHAPTER 21
MATTEO
T oday is the day. The wedding. All my plans are coming along. She’s so soft now, in all the ways that matter, my Heaven.
If she’s not in love, she’s mostly there. All it took were small shifts and phenomenal sex over the past couple of weeks. She’s easy to be with when she’s not spitting fire.
I thought I’d be bored with her by now, and I’d be slogging through this. She’s gorgeous, yes, but I’ve fucked plenty of gorgeous women who bored me stupid after the third time around.
With Heaven there are layers beneath layers. With the snark packed up, she talks out things with me, and I don’t see a problem with guiding her into a smoother, more rounded approach when it comes to family. Cool and calm and steel get her further is my lesson.
It’s not a waste of time; after all, I’m benefitting. Because the more she shares, the more I understand how things are run in Casa Mulligan. And Heaven is the beating heart.
Jesus, Declan is an idiot for his testosterone-fueled views. I thought we Italians were bad, but this man takes it to the next level.
His fuckups are my gain, and I soak up everything as I help her. And when I help, she opens more and trusts me more.
It really is beautiful.
If there’s a tinge of guilt, it’s my collateral damage.
Dominguez is getting closer to the truth. He’s stupid, but not that stupid, and by process of elimination he’s looking more and more toward the Mulligans as the culprits. One member does something, all pay. That’s his motto. That’s why people don’t tend to cross him. Much like they don’t cross me.
Difference between us is I’m smarter, harder, and have nothing to lose like him. He wouldn’t dare touch my family because he’d bring down the wrath of Europe and strategic parts of South America and Asia. I have ties in places I don’t rule.
He thinks Heaven is a weak spot for me and he’d be right about that. It wasn’t supposed to happen—my feelings for her were never supposed to move beyond the physical. But somehow, she’s managed to wiggle her tight ass under my skin, and much as I hate to admit it to myself, I don’t want to let her out.
Dominguez isn’t going to touch her. Not as long as I have breath in my body. I’m considering sending her away, letting her live. But that’s a private thought. If I send her back to Sicily with my family, she’ll be untouchable.
I won’t have her after that. I know that. But…she’d be alive.
It’s something to think about.
I recline against the leather seat in the back of Roman’s Bugatti. He’s driving to the church, my brother Dante is in the passenger seat, and my other brother, Sergio, is on my right in the back seat. They flew in last night—Sergio from Las Vegas, and as usual, because of his secret assassin lifestyle, Dante kept us guessing about where he’d been before flying into JFK.
As far as my brothers know, this is a business arrangement, my marriage. They don’t know the Dominguez tie beyond the protection.
Before the protection.
And I’m keeping it that way. I work better alone, and it keeps my people safe. As safe as they can be, anyway.
Ever since I fucked Heaven, we’ve spent pretty much every waking hour together—in the gym, out at restaurants, shopping, work, wandering around her old digs to make sure all businesses were running smoothly. There was only one two-hour period when she broke away from me, and that was to try on her mother’s wedding dress with her Aunt Maura. Even then, I had someone watching.
I haven’t had a chance to corner Declan about Conor. To be honest, I don’t want to waste my time. Soon enough, the Mulligans will be handled and out of my hair. Heaven didn’t go to her father about that standoff. As far as Declan knows, all is right in the Mulligan empire.
Until it’s not.
And that time is coming.
Perhaps sooner than I thought.
I pull at my bow tie. Christ, I hate these fucking things.
“Nervous?” Sergio asks, chugging from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s while we’re stopped at a light.
I lift an eyebrow. “So classy. No glasses?”
Sergio shrugs. “This whole thing is kind of lacking in class. You’re marrying into a mick family at this tiny little church, and then we’re eating at some Irish restaurant afterward where we’ll probably be drowning in corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes, and warm beer. We’re in Manhattan, for fuck’s sake. Why not somewhere fucking cool like The Plaza, or Jean-Georges? It’s not like you can’t afford it. You say you’re marrying strategically. Be strategic. You make that shit count. What the hell, Matty?”
I shrug. “Heaven wanted something small.”
“Are you into her?”
“It’s business. That’s all.” His words don’t sit right in me. I like her, more than I ever expected, and I’m definitely into fucking her. But the rest? I deliberately don’t think about it, just play the part. A part that is, when I look back, alarmingly easy to play. “Why does everything need to be larger than life for you, Serge?”
“Because why the fuck not?” He takes another gulp and points the bottle at Roman. “I mean, look at Romo. He’s got this sick car. He doesn’t need it. He barely ever drives it—this is Manhattan—but he has it. Why? Because he can.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Dante says, grabbing the bottle from Sergio. “Small is smart. It doesn’t make waves or draw the wrong attention. And also, warm beer is Britain, not Ireland, dumbass.” He glares at Sergio who rolls his eyes.
“You always get like this after a job, you know that?” Sergio says. “Why can’t you be a happy assassin?”
“Maybe I’d be happy if you were the target.” Dante takes a long gulp of the liquor.
He’s come off a job, I know that, and when he does, he finds small ways to unwind. If he ever really can. Out of the three, Dante is the one I could talk to about all this, if I wanted. Then again, I know what he’d say—quick, clean deaths for all. And he’s the guy to do it.
But that doesn’t solve the issues. It doesn’t get me the power I want. It would create a void and there’d be a fight. I understand strategy. He understands meting out death.
“Damn, Dante. That was cold, you fuck,” Sergio says.
But this isn’t the time or place to go where I’m going in my head, and I deliberately set it aside. I need to get into the role I’m about to play.
I listen to my brothers’ banter until Roman pulls up to the church. He looks at me in the rearview mirror. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” I don’t know why but it feels real, far more real than the business arrangement that it is.
“Is our dear father flying in?” Dante asks. I know he’s not exactly anxious to see our father. He handed the reins to me before retiring, but he and Dante always locked horns. Dante has never been one to follow the kind of rules the old man demands.
I’m not, either, but I know the game and how to manipulate it. Dante doesn’t give a fuck.
“He’s going to call when he arrives,” I say.
“Mama would love this.”
I glance at Dante. “Always loved an excuse to wear a pretty dress.”
I miss our mother terribly but right now, I’m glad she’s not here to see this.
She’d love a wedding, and she always understood the world she married into, but I know she’d want this to be for love. She wanted us to start a new era, and all of this? Everything I’m doing? What I’ve done and what I’m about to do? No, she wouldn’t like it.
“You ready?” Sergio says, nudging me. “For that ball and chain to be wrapped tight around your ankle?” He laughs and shakes his head, then grows serious. “I sure as hell hope this plan is worth it, Matty. You’ve got a lot riding on these ‘I dos.’”
“I know,” I say, and they have no idea just how much is riding on it all. “This is good business.”
They have no idea just how good.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Roman asks with a quirk of his brow.
I look from one brother to the next. For as long as I can remember, I assumed control over our family as the oldest is expected to do in our world. I learned my lesson the hard way and made sure to never let my judgment falter again.
“Absolutely.”
Dante slaps me on the shoulder as we get out of the car.
We’re ready to go into the church when I frown. My phone…
“Romo, lemme have your keys. I think my phone slipped out of my pocket. I’ll meet you inside.”
He tosses me the keys.
They jog up the steps and disappear inside. Part of me just wanted to keep my family out of this sham, but it’s good having them all here. I never like to say I need anyone, but right now?
I do.
I reach into the back seat for the phone and dial my father’s number.
“Hey, Papa,” I say when he answers. “You okay?”
“Yes, yes,” he says in Italian. “I will be there in a few minutes.”
“Okay, good. I’ll be out front waiting.”
I hang up and look toward the tall spire swirling out of the top of the light gray stone building. I never thought I’d be standing here outside of a church, waiting to get married. A chill slips down my spine as I recall the last time I was in church.
It wasn’t a wedding, though. It was a funeral.
Joey’s funeral.
My throat tightens.
Joey. My younger cousin. I let out a deep sigh, leaning back against Roman’s car.
Heaven isn’t the only one who has nightmares about her past. I don’t indulge them often, but sometimes, it all slips back into front and center.
It’s because of Joey that I’m here right now. The reason I’m so driven. The reason I need to strive to be the most powerful.
A long time ago, my head wasn’t screwed on straight. My father and I didn’t see eye to eye, and I was on a power trip gone awry. I wanted his attention and I got it, but it was the wrong kind of attention, and it had a god-awful consequence.
He kept Joey under my wing. I think Papa figured it would calm me down, that I’d be a role model for my cousin. Joey’s father had been murdered and he was lost. I was back in Italy, burning to make a name for myself.
To be the biggest and baddest of them all.
Without constraint.
Without thought.
Joey…he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and called me for help.
I was neck-deep in an underground poker game with the dredge of the Earth, and with twenty grand in the hole, I didn’t give a fuck about anything but winning, riding the edge of danger, the thrill of sex and booze and money and power.
I stayed in my game.
He got in the middle of a gunfight.
I lost my fucking car.
He lost his fucking life.
I was stupid, arrogant, and toxic.
So, I got my shit together. I found my focus. Built my armor and made sure my brothers didn’t fuck up like me.
And in Joey’s honor I did more than focus and grow stronger. I honed my talents, sharpened the ruthless streak inside me, built my world of structure and pulled all that wildness back deep inside. I don’t let it out. Ever.
It doesn’t matter. As I stand and stare at the church it strikes me. Not the building. I’m not religious. But her.
Heaven.
My bride-to-be.
Heaven’s snuck under my skin.
I knew that could happen. My plans work better that way. And maybe she’ll live; as I said, I’ll send her away and let the rest die. She’ll hate me, but it’ll be worth it. She’ll be bound to me, but I can leave her in a dusty corner of Sicily under my family’s watchful eye, and I’ll build and strengthen my ties and empire.
And I’ll burn Dominguez down to the ground when I’ve used up what I need from him.
None of it matters except winning. Fulfilling my goals.
“Matteo,” a gravelly voice says.
Every nerve goes on high alert.
That’s not my father.
I turn slowly and face Jorge Dominguez… This time, he’s wearing a blood-red tie with his ill-fitting expensive suit. I’ll bet the tie’s not a coincidence. Fucker.
“I came to wish you congratulations,” he says with a smile, yellowed teeth flashing. “Your bride is not here?”
“I’m not in the mood for your games. Why are you here?”
“I’ve been thinking, Matteo. About what I said at your club.”
I narrow my eyes. “We stick to the plan. There’s no changing the rules. Unless I decide to do so, and if I do, you’re not going to like it, Dominguez.”
“My trust in you is wavering.” He eyes me up and down. “What are you going to do about that?”
“Your problem. Not mine. You can walk but then you get nothing.”
“I get dead Mulligans.”
I smile. “They’re under my protection until I say otherwise. Remember, I have things you want. I control avenues you need. Both my own and theirs. And you know it.”
“True, yes. But I can make changes. Suffer a little.”
My spine starts to prickle with ice. “You like it easy.”
He leans in close, pointing a finger at me. “I know it was that little prick, Conor. And you do, too. I wanted a piece of their pie. And I know he was there that night in Harlem.”
“This doesn’t change a thing.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’d hoped he’d take a little longer, but this is an easy adjustment. Or should be. I don’t like the nasty gleam in his eye.
“That Conor killed my second?” He shrugs, but that gleam remains. “No, that doesn’t change. I am smart, I suspected that was why you put them under protection so quickly.”
“It’s only a small part. Marrying the daughter comes with protection. Everyone has enemies. Even you.”
“And you.”
“Yes,” I say. “Even me. Difference is, I have better resources. Do not screw this deal.”
“And if I want changes?”
I stare down at him. “The deal stands as is.”
“Not anymore. After talking to you the night at your club, I’ve been thinking about your bride-to-be. A lot.” He pauses. His smile is slow and nasty. “Heaven. I want a slice of Heaven. And I’m gonna take it.”
I force a laugh as the cold grows, spreading through me. “Not on your fucking life.”
“You’re sweet on her.”
“No, but I have plans, and my plans work. We both get everything we want. You wanted Declan gone, you also want the person responsible. And I’ll wrap a fucking ribbon around Conor and hand him to you. But you don’t get Heaven. She’s strategic to my plan.”
“Or your dick. I bet it’s real heaven between her thighs. I bet that cunt is tight. But knowing a Mulligan did this, things have changed. It wasn’t only my second who died. Conor killed someone else with his spray of bullets. She just died.” Now his eyes get hard. “She died . And I get Heaven. Fair is fair.”
The foreboding grows. But I push it down.
“What are you going on about? Heaven was never on the table as an offering for you.” I never mentioned her specifically, and I know it was a given she’d be part of the Mulligan package, but an unspoken given, which gives me a little leeway to subtly change the deal.
Because I find I don’t want her paying with her life. And I sure as fuck don’t want this monster touching her.
“It’s only fair, Matteo, that Declan’s girl pays up. For the death, you see.” Dominguez looks at me, the hardness making his eyes almost black with grief that’s twisted into ugly and deadly rage. “A daughter for a daughter.”
I had known others had been shot that night. And I should have pushed harder, looked deeper. But I didn’t. And now…
Oh, fuck.
That prick Conor killed Dominguez’s only daughter.