46. Dominic
46
DOMINIC
I march Ariana up the stairs and down the dark corridors of the Don’s mansion, to what she called your mom’s sanctuary.
Once she’s led the way to Mom’s walk-in closet and tells me to help stack all the crates with her things to one side, my heart sinks. I’ve been through here. Yes, I did a rushed and shitty job, but it was just old clothes. Some of them sparked memories that had me break down, alone in this room.
Ariana is working the baseboard, and now that she’s at it, I can see exactly how I missed it. I’m on my knees next to her to help, and then she peels the carpet away, revealing the loose floorboards and the secret hiding place.
When I finally have a stack of ten journals in my hands, I’m so overwhelmed, my whole body starts to shake. Holding these seems sacred, a saint’s relic. A last connection to Mom, and it’s as if her graceful fingers are reaching up to me through the pages as I flip through them to brush my cheek. Her beautiful handwriting, her calm acceptance flowing out of pen onto paper.
“The Don never knew about these. It’s the one thing she managed to keep hidden from all of us.”
Ariana nods. “She made Portia promise to never show these to anybody. They were sealed with ribbon and wax, too. Your mom probably only meant your dad, because why else would she mention the six brothers who would look for Gabriella once she’s older?”
“Where? Show me.”
“Here.” She takes the stack from me, extracts one journal, and opens it to the salient pages. “Read here.”
She points to the last lines in the journal.
‘ Until death us all part. And then she’ll have six brothers to find her. Finally I can rest in peace.’
My hands are trembling, my eyes wet as I scan the page, but mine won’t be the first tears to fall to these pages. It’s all here. It’s all been here for years, and us boys were totally fucking ignorant of the whole sick business.
I read and read and go back and forth, my gaze jumping over her words, finding them hard to stomach. ‘ The last thing I ever wanted was to bring a girl into this world, to fulfill the final term and condition of the sick pact they made.’
“She knew it was a girl.” Everybody knew, except us. The plan had always been for Gabriella to go to Italy, the ultimate blood exchange—a life for a life. This has to do with the origins of the war between Randazzo and Scalera. Matteo will know more, but a son for a son, a daughter for a daughter, one for one says it all.
I stall as these words finally sink in: ‘ given that both his and Emilio’s sons are in this house, born from my womb.’
What the fuck? What the actual?—
Who?
Feeling totally drained, I lean back against the wall. Those DNA tests are suddenly taking on a whole new level of significance. What if this was the real reason why Don Scalera got rid of Alex, and not Alex’s quietly planned mutiny? Alex was Randazzo’s son ? Fuck it all. Who else knows we’re not the descendants of only Giuliano Scalera, but some of us are Emilio Randazzo’s sons?
Even worse—did the Don approve of this? Another man fucking his wife with the intention of getting her pregnant with his child? Don Randazzo fucking his own daughter?
Revulsion shivers through me as I recall Bianca Randazzo wasn’t his real daughter. Just a little girl he bought, or stole, or kidnapped.
I’m going to be sick. Ariana was once such a little girl. So was Gabriella. All for the taking.
As I meet her gaze, she’s weeping, quietly, as she does.
“Come here, sweetheart,” I say, holding out a hand for her. If it weren’t for her arrival here, none of this would have come to light. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
Her hand is in mine, small, warm, dainty, and everything that should be wrong in my world. But I clutch it tight, as tight as I can without breaking her delicate bones, and I pull her to my lap so she can straddle my legs.
“It seems we don’t have a skeleton in the closet,” I say, her hands quivering where she settles them on my chest. “We have catacombs full of them.”
“That’s a Mafia thing,” she says with a weak smile. “I just realized this is how Franco knew about your sister. He was there when Gabi stayed.”
Fuck. To think that madman could have had his hands on our little Gabriella. “Tell me she didn’t get hurt.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Tears rush down her cheeks, and I want to kiss them away. “Only she will.”
I hug her close, her body molding against mine. The perfect fit. All feminine warmth against my muscled male form, soft where I’m rough and calloused, fragile where I’m unbreakable, her smooth cheek supple against my coarse stubble.
Heat pulses to where I’ve gone hard against her sex, her body’s pressure just a tease. This T-shirt does nothing to disguise her allure or quench my need for her. It’s because I’m falling for her, for the way she sees me, for how she soothes me. For how she touches me.
Fuck. I need distance between myself and this woman. Permanent distance. Whatever is happening here can never be. I’m fucked up, and I know better than to bring a woman into my world. And this one…this one is poised to plummet into an inner crevice I can never extract her from.
Iease her away and cup her cheek, taking control of this situation. “We need to phone Portia. Franco is dead, but Portia’s connection will know enough. And once in Italy…”
She chews her lip, her eyes fixed on mine, and it’s more than I can take. Once in Italy, things are going to come to a head.
I brush my thumb along her chin, tugging at it so slightly, the skin dents under the pressure as my thumb pulls her mouth open, giving me a peek of that sweet tongue. Fuck. I want to kiss her so badly, my cock pulses with the need.
She shifts in her seat, almost subconsciously rolling her hips, and I close my eyes. It's the perfect friction that would get us both off within minutes if she does it again and again.
“Sweetheart,” I groan, every part of my brain and body going against the logic I try to preach to myself. “We can’t. Never mind everything else, if I ever get to be with you, I want to take my time. Ineedto take my time with you. This is not the place, and we don’t have the time you need—the time you deserve—for me to take proper care of you.”
From afar, a sound penetrates, strange at this early hour. The house’s doorbell. Ariana holds her breath, and I frown. It’s perfectly quiet in this small room. I must have heard wrong. Then the distinct ring sounds through the house again.
When my phone vibrates at the same time, Ariana clambers off my lap, and a second later, someone knocks on the closed bedroom door.
“Sir? Mr. Scalera?”
“It’s one of the guards,” I say to her as I get up and hold a hand for her. “And it’s the gatehouse calling.” I kill the call, cursing how I don’t have a gun on me. And that we’re basically cornered in this small room if for some reason shit is already going down with the Petrovs.
Fuck. Nobody breaches this fortress’s walls. It must be something else. I notice two missed calls from Portia. Maybe she knew better than to make me wait.
I open the door, and the guard is standing there, looking apologetic.
“Sir, Portia is here at the gate with an unknown man. She’s requesting entrance and to speak to you.”
Good. If she’s bringing this man to talk to me, it means she’s wanting to save him from an interrogation. “It’s fine, let them in, but do your usual.”
“Yes, sir.”
They’ll strip them naked if needed to see if they have any weapons on them.
“Come,” I say to Ariana, my hand on the small of her back. “The party is starting. Best we get dressed for it.”
Back in our bedroom, I walk straight to the shower, knowing Ariana won’t try anything now. Not with Portia bringing Rosalia’s dad here. I rush my shower and walk out in just a towel, water still dripping from my hair.
Her gaze follows me all the way to the closet, and I’m so tempted to drop this towel and let her see what she’s missing out on, but I turn my back on her. “Your turn, sweetheart. Who knows what this day’s going to bring.”
As I get dressed, the faucet turns on, and by the time she comes out in her robe and a towel around her wet hair, I’m dressed in my usual suit, but without the tie, and scanning through emails on my phone. I’ll first listen to Portia’s side of the story before I phone Matteo.
Ariana rummages through the small stack of clothes Portia bought her, and a thought zaps through my mind and quietly brews as I watch her surreptitiously. I’d love to dress this woman. Dress her for me. Dress her for her, in things that speak of her worth. Dress her in expensive clothes I’d strip off her body with my teeth, my lips… Not that she doesn’t look perfect in those plain white cotton panties, but fuck…the way she looks in cheap satin makes me want to unwrap her out of the most expensive silks.
She skips the bra, probably because it’s still early and she’s planning to spend the day again at home. I watch with mounting frustration how she pulls on a T-shirt and jeans. When she turns to me, those sweet nipples are hard, as if she felt every caress of my gaze.
A sudden hot flush of possessiveness spreads underneath my skin, fueled by her ignorance about how fucking stunning and sexy she is. I stand, and button my jacket’s lapels to cover-up my erection.
“That’s not going to cut it, sweetheart,” I say, my voice gruff.
“What?”
“If you think you’re going to walk out of here with your breasts on display like that for every fucking security guard in this house and beyond, you’re mistaken.”
Her eyes widen as she looks down, that blush already chasing to the surface. I’m by her side in two strides and pick out the padded beige bra between the other pieces of clothing. “Here.”
She turns her back to me as she takes it, flustered, and slips the T-shirt’s sleeves off so she can put on the bra. I’m so close to her, if I just lift my arm, I can run a knuckle down the valley of her spine.
My hand is burning with the need to touch her, and her movements have slowed to such a snail’s pace, I bet she’s waiting for me to act first.
We’re fucked, aren’t we?