21. Ariana
21
ARIANA
I stand in the middle of the room where Dominic just left me and breathe deeply, trying to get a grip. Telling him other people could get hurt if I contact anybody isn’t a lie. I don’t know what dominos Franco had put in place before he kidnapped me and then took me to Boston. For all I know, some of his henchmen will start mowing down my team if I even contact one of them. It’s a risk I can’t take.
My best bet is still to get back to Italy. Once I’m there, I can make contact after I’ve sussed out the situation.
For now, I stay right where I am and figure this out while holding my cards close. Observe, adapt, and only act when the time is right.
Dominic has locked the door, and I’m a prisoner again. From what I’ve seen yesterday and experienced today, I now know better than to mess with my hosts. When it comes to Il Consiglio , I’ll have to wait it out until the time and space is right. It won’t hurt to work on my physical strength and mental fortitude in the interim.
At least this is peaceful, what with the stunning garden view from my bedroom window and the sense of light and space with the high ceilings. The room smells of lavender-scented wood polish and is spotless. The antique furniture gives it a homey feel, one I didn’t expect to find. There’s a small adjacent bathroom with a shower, handbasin, and toilet. It must have been added on during a restoration, because this house is old and wouldn’t have come with this type of amenity two hundred years ago.
I close the bathroom’s door and cross the room to the desk placed by the window, and the old hardwood floor creaks underneath my feet. My mind is too busy to focus on anything but my dilemma while glancing through the stack of magazines and puzzles. I’m in an Il Consiglio stronghold. but it isn’t Dominic’s place. I don’t even know who heads this crime ring, but since escaping isn’t an option, maybe I can barter my way out of this situation. With information. I just need to figure out what I have they’d want, desperately. Beyond what I can tell them of Franco Fiore, I’m screwed.
My ears prick. Was that?—?
I freeze. Listen closer.
There. Again. A strained scream sounds from afar.
No. Impossible.
My head is messing with me.
After weeks in that dungeon without light, I’ve started hearing things, making up for loss of sight.
But there?—
Chills crawl over my skin as I sink down on the bed. Not here, too. I close my eyes, drop back to the pillows and pull one over my head to block the sounds. And still, the screams slice right through my skin like a scalpel. No, it’s just me, hearing my inward screams at the memories of what Franco has done to me. I bore every cut in silence, refusing to feed his sadistic needs.
Dominic said they had some work to wrap up here so I’m going to be alone for a bit.
This is the work. What did I expect? For him to take his laptop bag and go punch numbers at some audit firm? Put on his construction hat and go do stuff on a building site? These people aren’t normal, and things went down yesterday. It’s never a one and done. Every action has a reaction, sets something else in motion that needs to be contained, controlled, subdued.
With Franco Fiore on the hunt for Gigi Trapani and her fleeing here, things didn’t pan out for Franco…but they didn’t pan out for someone else either. Someone who is being tortured to death. If I don’t watch out, I could be next.
I’m going to have to give them something, or else?—
For a long while, I lie there, my head squashed between two pillows, my thoughts and heart racing, and then the sounds die down, and the adrenaline seeps out of me.
When a soft knock sounds on the door, I startle. I’m hardly sitting up when the bedroom door swings open, making me cower.
“Shit, sorry. Didn’t think you’d be sleeping. I’ve been knocking a while, so…”
I blink. It’s just Dominic. He won’t hurt me.
Outside, the bright summer’s light has turned to dusk. I was out stone cold for hours.
“I think the jet lag must have gotten to me.” And everything else. I’m amazed I managed to fall asleep at all. My pulse skips a beat as I recall the earlier sounds I heard. “What time is it?”
“It’s already past seven.” Dominic takes two steps into the bedroom. His gaze jumps from my face to my bare legs and to where the flip-flops Portia gave me have slipped from my feet onto the covers. “I would have checked in with you sooner, but things came up.”
I hasten to pull my skirts down to be decent as they’ve rucked up in sleep, exposing more than I’d ever want to a man, never mind a man who thinks he could be my brother.
He’s standing with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets, his white dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves. For the first time, I see the hint of a tattoo on his inner arm that disappears underneath his shirtsleeve. His forearms are dusted with dark hair thinning towards his hands. Muscles flex as he seems to pump his fists in his pockets, veins embossed on his skin from where they run their course from his wrists to his elbows.
My gaze glides from his arm to his face, where his jaw ticks.
“You have blood on your shirt,” I say softly. “Just a few specks on your collar.” But blood all the same.
“Yeah?” He reaches for his shirt’s collar as if he should feel the blood on him. “Occupational hazard. Come, I organized dinner for us.”
The way he says those words so casually makes my stomach turn. Occupational hazard. How can he want dinner after what he’s done? He doesn’t even try to hide what he is to me, open and almost mundane about killing someone in cold blood. This evidently runs in the family, but what did I expect after yesterday’s brutality?
Get real. I’m familiar with the fucked-up world of the Mafia. I was born into it. Grew up in it. I turned my back on this world, but with a vow to one day tear it apart. Now I’m a sheep in wolf’s clothing, but here are wolves aplenty, and they protect their own first. One of them is going to see through me.
I drop my flip-flops to the floor, shove my feet in, and straighten my skirt as I stand. He waits for me to walk out of the room, and then with a hand on the small of my back, guides me through the quiet house. I should shudder at the intimate contact and pull away at a minimum, but I don’t do either. I don’t want to acknowledge it to myself, but I can’t reconcile this man, who looked after me with such gentle care, with one who would torture someone else.
“Portia was here earlier, but I was busy?—”
“I know,” I say softly. “I heard you.”
“What was that?” he asks as I’ve spoken under my breath.
I’m not even sure why I said anything. I’m literally poking at the beast with a stick, provoking him as if I have a death wish. “I heard a man screaming. Through the vent.”
“I’d hoped you wouldn’t hear a thing.”
He stops me with that soft grip on my wrist, gently turning me to him. For a few beats, we just stare at each other, summing one another up.
“So tell me, Ariana, what would you do if they come for your family? If they threaten to torture and kill every single one of your brothers in the vilest way humanly possible?”
Dominic raises his eyebrows in question, waiting for my answer. Seconds tick by, and I don’t know what to say.
“Not just black and white now anymore, is it?” he says when I don’t answer him. “Think it over, sweetheart, and tell me what you would do.”
I don’t have family, and the little I had got torn from me by Randazzo and his machinations. I’ve promised to avenge both my mom and Elena Bianchi, but now, it’s too late.
But I have a team—the closest to family I’ve ever had since my mom died. And then the Mafia in Italy killed Elena, the only other woman I connected with at fifteen—my mentor who got me through life in the aftermath of Franco. I’ve made it my mission to be independent and detached from the world, but when it comes to my team, I’d do anything to protect them, as they would protect me.
I can’t tell him about them, so instead, I admit to another truth. “I have no family.”
“No family? You’re a loner with no burdens. My brothers’ safety gives me sleepless nights. I think about them about ninety-nine percent of the time.”
“Lucky them.” What else can I say? That it’s fun to have no family and no place to belong? Nobody to think about me ninety-nine percent of the time? How lucky I am!
“For now, you think you have no family, Ariana,” he says with a soft smile. “I’m getting the DNA tests back soon, and then we’ll know.”
He nods, and we continue towards the kitchen, his hand still wrapped around my wrist in the stance that says bullshit will only be tolerated to a point .
I bet he can feel my pulse where it flutters wildly through my veins.
As we walk inside the spacious kitchen, all white marble and chrome, he lets go of me.
“From experience,” he says, “I can tell you what those men went through wasn’t half-bad.”
“Experience,” I scoff, but I sound bitter. I’ve had ample experience when it comes to torture, and it started the day Franco Fiore decided it was time to ‘train me’ for my ‘job’ in his extortion scheme.
On the kitchen island, there’s a spread of take-out.
“I got a variety of things,” Dominic says, promptly ignoring my remark. “Reckoned you’d be hungry, and I don’t know what you like, so…” He tapers off and draws some of the dishes closer and opens the lids. “Green Thai curry with chicken and rice, some spaghetti marinara—it’s really good, gets my vote for the best in Boston—and some pizza. We’ve beef tenderloin, cooked medium-rare, with Greek salad, and some vegetarian options… You know, hummus with pita and some dolmades, olives…”
I bite my lip. It’s extra, and everything looks delicious. This isn’t some random take-out either; this looks like food from top-tier local restaurants. “Thank you. I’m starving.”
“And by the look of you, you’ve been for weeks.”
“Let’s not talk about that,” I beg, but I bet it’s all he wants to talk about.
He has the plates and cutlery ready and is holding them out to me, but I hesitate. “Do you mind changing your shirt?”
I guess it doesn’t bother him as much as it bothers me, since he can’t see it. It’s the only thing I see when I look at him, and it drags my thoughts all over the place.
He gives me a calculating look and then shrugs. “Sure. Come with.”
He shows me the way in the opposite direction of where my room is situated, and I lead, passing closed door after closed door.
“In here,” he says and opens the one to his room. He switches on the lights but immediately dims them.
The interior is similar to mine, but much bigger. Darker colors, more masculine, yet impersonal. He walks past me to the mirrored closet, his eyes never leaving mine, and opens it to reveal a row of suit jackets, shirts, trousers, and drawers. It’s as if we’re in a hotel room but he’s been here for a while.
I drop my gaze when he turns to keep an eye on me while he unbuttons his shirt.
“Pick a color then, sweetheart.”
I can’t stop myself. My eyes flicker over his hands, where they’re busy with the suddenly very sensual motions of unbuttoning his shirt. And then, my gaze glues to his chest as the fabric falls away, with every button revealing more of his tattooed pecs. The visual sets loose a riptide of tingles down to my core.
No. Not this man.
I felt it when he carried me, when he held me in his arms. Dominic Scalera is strong, virile, and a man in his prime. Every muscle is toned, his abdomen ripped with subtle ridges of a six-pack, and as he plucks the shirt from his trousers, my gaze dips to the V-shape muscles on his hips that draws the way south, to something I’ve never wanted. Not after my first time.
And yet, I find myself taking in the shape of him and the subtle hint that he isn’t small, not in any way or form. Heat flushes my face, and I look away to the bed, and then I blush even more.
“Grey,” I say, my voice edgy and maybe a bit louder than needed. There are several black shirts, but seeing him in one would only remind me of Franco and that’s the last thing I need. This man and Franco will never fall under the same category in my mind.
He chuckles as he tosses the bloodied shirt to the laundry basket in the corner, completely unaffected. “Grey, like my morals. Good choice, sweetheart.”