Chapter 11
Someone tried to kill Adelaide and me.
"Another big one," the nurse murmured as she pulled a shard of glass from my neck.
"You saw nothing?" My papa frowned. "What were you even doing?"
"They shot right through the glass."
Papa rolled his eyes, his tirade interrupted as he answered his phone.
"Give me an update, Ale—" He cut off what he was about to say and strode from the room.
My focus hadn't even been on Jesse when he crashed our date and begged Adelaide to take him back. My thoughts were tied on a string, to Lara, and the farther she walked away from me, the tighter the string got.
I couldn't digest how off guard I'd been.
Too busy thinking about a brunette who made me feel like leaping off a cliff headfirst into churning waves.
She'd gifted smiles to her date and Goldman.
Each one made my insides clench. Her flippancy at the boutique earlier scored my insides. The ease with which she displaced me.
Me, Raimondo Donato.
"That's about it, just keep the gauze pressed against it, and you should be fine." The nurse gave me a smile, an invitation, one I ignored.
I could only think about Lara.
When we were together, she fit inside my chest. My heart crushed up against my ribs to make space for her.
I'd taken her to meet Tony and my true family.
Did she not understand how rare that was?
Frustration bubbled in my veins, and adrenaline chased it like vodka.
Her diamond necklace was a collar, and she belonged with me.
I was a petulant child, foot raised in the air, poised to stomp until I got my way.
I swung out of the hospital bed. Adelaide stayed to speak to Jesse when he woke, but I had someone else I needed to see first.
Lara had been calling me repeatedly, but I couldn't speak over the phone. I wanted to sink my nose into her dark locks and taste the salt off her skin. Nothing else would satisfy me.
I grabbed my jacket and exited the hospital room.
My dad was hissing into his phone. His free hand was a fist at his side.
"Those sneaky, unseen bastards are going to give us this city. They promised me. Payment for how they fucked our family over decades ago. We just have to sit tight and wait for their guys to tie up loose ends."
He slammed his fist on the wall as I tried to walk past him.
"Where are you going?" My papa abandoned his call.
"To find out who dared try to kill your heir and wash the blood out of my collar. Italian silk isn't cheap, you know."
I clenched my fingers around the keys, trying to stem the jitters.
My papa dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand.
He insisted his calluses were built with hard work.
But he smelled of the cologne he favored from a specialist store in Italy.
His shoes were perfect, shiny leather with gold buckles.
He wore an expensive watch with the care of someone who had ten more locked in a safe in his enormous walk-in closet.
I waited for his sharp tongue, used to the lash of its disapproval.
"You should be with Adelaide. She's the one they were after."
Thanks Papa.
I rolled my eyes internally. Of course, he only cared about the Orazio heir, the one I was supposed to be dating. I was only important because of my proximity to her.
"She didn't get hurt."
"Because her ex-boyfriend was there to take the bullet. You couldn't be a man and be the one in hospital instead?"
This time, I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes.
Talking to Papa made my throat dry, the way only liquor could satiate.
His insults and dismissals didn't hurt me anymore, not after years of enduring them.
I tried to please him when I was younger.
But Harold Donato was unmoved by anything I did.
Every time I was victorious, he only moved the goal posts.
"Glad to see you're concerned about me, Papa." I flirted with danger.
Even though he was older, he could still beat my ass. He wasn't above using other methods to control me, either. When I was eighteen and ruined the arranged marriage between Adelaide and me, my father punished me accordingly.
His dark, sunken eyes narrowed with a flicker of malevolence. "Don't mistake this for concern. Remember what happened the last time you messed up with Adelaide Orazio? Two weeks in a cell didn't break you, but we can try again. You don't matter, only your blood does."
I curled my upper lip. Nobody ever accused me of being intelligent.
I was reckless, and my papa made me pay for it.
He moved nimbly for an older man, and his flat palm slammed across my cheek.
Metal flooded my mouth, and I thumbed my tender lower lip.
Papa waited, coiled and ready for a fight.
But it wasn't a fair one. His guards lurked in the hall, and amusement flickered on their faces as they watched the scene.
Harold Donato always stacked the odds in his favor. Even if that meant breaking his only son.
"You're a Donato. Try to pretend you deserve the name." He made a noise of disgust and showed me his back.
I didn't reply. There was no use. He didn't want conversation, only for me to jump imaginary hoops. But even if I cut myself open and flayed myself for his approval, he'd berate the stain my blood left. My hands clenched as he cleared his throat.
"If I find out you're putting this family in jeopardy because you want to get your dick wet, I won't tie you up alone.
Adelaide's friend called, asking if you were okay.
She's no one, got it? You're going to marry that grassa cagna bionda, Adelaide, and fix what you ruined five years ago, you hear me? "
"Don't speak about her," I hissed, and my papa's eyes flashed.
He thought I meant Adelaide, but I meant both her and Lara.
"Good. Maybe you can learn after all. Don't disappoint me."
His mocking laugh echoed in my ear as I drove to Lara's apartment building.
Adelaide had grown up in this world. Violence in any form wasn't new to her.
But it was to Lara, and now my papa had threatened her.
My chest was a vise, and air whistled out of my lungs in harried breaths.
The streetlights bled as I ran two red lights to get to Lara.
I remembered when I messed up the Orazio Donato alliance.
How could I forget the sensation of my shoulder blades almost tearing through my skin?
Lara didn't know the dark, icy terror and endless pain my papa could inflict.
It had taken me months to even chew properly without pain.
I still had a click on some cold winter days.
My papa would ruin Lara. On the same night I realized how much I wanted to keep her, I had to let her go. I rang Lara as I paced in her foyer.
"Ray? Are you alright?" Lara was breathless, and my ribs ached.
"Let me up." It was hard to get the words out.
I was half in the present, half in the past. Lost in a thousand different scenarios, and all of them ended in death.
Lara's face was pale when she opened the door.
She held out her arms, but I ignored her offer of comfort.
They hung for a moment before dropping. She changed out of her dress into blue tracksuit pants and a plain white T-shirt. My necklace glittered around her neck.
"Ray?" Her eyes widened as I strode past her. "Is it Adelaide?"
"She's fine, I'm fine, but it's a fucking insult."
"Why are you bleeding, then?" Lara grabbed my hand, and I stared at the line of dried blood winding down my wrist. I muttered a curse and shook off her grasp. "And your face?"
I dodged her pitying gaze as it landed on the throbbing mark my papa left on my jaw. "The shooter came from outside, and glass shattered in on us."
Lara grabbed a wet wipe from one of her drawers.
"I can…" She looked at the blood with her eyebrows raised.
"It doesn't matter."
"Someone tried to kill you, Ray." She sucked in a breath. "That's not nothing."
Her fingers shook as she wiped the blood away.
A shard of glass had left a slight cut, barely a scrape.
A fortunate escape. Of course, Lara would look at it that way.
She hadn't been raised in this world. I'd lost the ability to be frightened for my life.
But I didn't want Lara to have my cold, reckless outlook. She was too good for me.
"I need to get back to the hospital, but I wanted to see you first."
Lara's gaze softened as she mistook my words. Her breath puffed over my lips before she pressed them against mine in a soft, trembling kiss. She tasted sweet and calm, like chamomile tea laced with honey.
"Do you have any idea who it was?" Her fingers sank into my hair, and I leaned my head against her.
"It's too soon. But whoever they are, they won't last long."
Lara made a noise in her throat, and I knew my answer wasn't what she wanted to hear. I couldn't give her what she needed—stability and safety. Not with my papa breathing down my neck.
I pulled back, missing her warmth. "Did you call my papa asking for me?"
"Yeah, you and Adelaide weren't answering your phones.
I needed to hear your voice. But he made it very clear I had no business asking after you, and he expected a proposal any day now.
I thought he'd be more concerned about his son getting shot at, but nope.
Just wanted to make sure I wasn't getting ideas.
You didn't say anything about what happened between us, did you? "
I grimaced and ran my hands through my hair. "I have a reputation as someone who spends a lot of time with the ladies."
"Fuckboy. You can say it." Lara's lips twitched, but I wasn't in a joking mood.
I'd been a walking cliché. Searching for connection through sex, but letting no one in.
Unconsciously trapping myself in an empty world.
Orgasms lose their luster after a while, when you can't even remember the faces of the girls who gave them.
I didn't realize how damn empty my life was until I met Lara, and the desire for something new bubbled up inside me.