36. Dario
DARIO
The look on Liana’s face frightens me. She looks pale, her brows furrowed, mouth parted in shock. I follow her gaze and see Angelo Rossi standing on the porch, swinging Sonny around and kissing all over his face.
What the fuck?
Liana scrambles out of the car and I follow, worried about her. I don’t know how she's going to take this. She’s been through so much, and this has to be overwhelming.
Sonny wiggles down out of Angelo’s arms and he turns. Sonny runs into the house, presumably to play with his toys he’d left behind.
“Hey, baby girl,” he says brightly, and Liana rushes to him, hugging him around the neck.
He hugs her back, chuckling, and then she pulls back and slaps him in the face.
Oof. That had to sting.
He yelps, stumbling backwards, putting a hand to his face.
“I thought you were fucking dead!” Then she bursts into tears, hugging him tightly again.
Angelo laughs. “I see you haven’t lost your fire, caro.”
“What happened? Where the hell have you been?”
He opens his mouth to answer and then a screech and a crash comes from inside the house.
“I won’t go! This is my house too! I decorated everything!” Felicia screams as two of Angelo’s men escort her and a suitcase out of the house.
“You kicked out my daughter and my grandson,” Angelo says coolly as she struggles. “We’re done. I’ll set you up in an apartment, I owe you that much, but otherwise, stay away from my family.”
“You sonofabitch,” she sneers.
He just gives her an unbothered smile and the men drag her out to her car. She wrenches away from them, throwing her suitcase in the back. She gets in with a huff and speeds away.
Good riddance, I think.
I guess that’s what Angelo’s thinking, too, because he looks down at Liana with a smile.
“I guess I owe you an explanation.”
She sniffles, pulling away so she can look up at him.
“Damn right, you do.”
“First, you have to know I had no idea Felicia would kick you out.” He takes hold of Liana’s hands, squeezing them. “You and Sonny are so important to me, and I’m divorcing her right now. I was going to do it anyway, this just cemented it.”
Liana nods. “But where were you? Why didn’t you call?”
He sighs, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck.
“I just got... restless. I thought I could settle down with Felicia but as you’ve seen, she’s not the woman I thought she was. I went on a bit of a bender.”
“For weeks?”
“It’s been a while,” he says, almost defensively. I rub a hand across my mouth to hide a smile.
I’ve been on weeks-long benders myself, in my younger days. I guess some wiseguys don’t grow out of it, since Angelo is pushing sixty.
“All this time, and you’ve been fine?” Liana frowns. “I should hit you again, but I’m so happy you’re back.”
“I’m sorry, caro. I should have called or texted you to let you know I was okay.” He hugs her again. “Tell me everything about the last few weeks. When did Felicia kick you out?”
Liana draws in a sharp breath. “Two weeks after you went missing. She said you must be dead and everything’s in her name, so she had every right.”
He curses. “There are ways to get property out of her name. Don’t you worry.”
Angelo looks over at me for the first time, his eyes widening.
“Conte? What are you doing here?”
Liana bites her lip. “It’s kind of... a long story.”
I walk up to Angelo and stick my hand out. He raises an eyebrow but shakes it firmly.
“I married your daughter.”
Liana gapes at me, mouth open.
Angelo blinks. “You did what now?”
Something cold and hard drops into the base of my throat and I swallow around it. It’s slowly dawning on me that this is the end. Liana will have no reason to need me anymore. She has her father back. She has her status back.
Why would she choose to stay with me?
“I wanted to help her,” I say honestly. “And Sonny. So I took them in, married her so she’d have the protection of my name and access to my finances.”
Angelo scoffs. “Seems like a bit of an overreaction. You could have just financially supported her.”
“I know.” I pause and clear my throat, glancing over at Liana before I speak. “But the thing is, I’m in love with your daughter.”
Angelo’s eyes flick to Liana.
“And how do you feel, caro?”
She looks at him as if she hasn’t heard a word he said.
“Tell me about your fight with Dario.”
“Fight? What fight?”
I sigh, confused as to why she’s so preoccupied about this stupid fight.
“She’s talking about the pocket watch.”
“Oh.” Angelo barks out a laugh, throwing his head back. “I was young and drunk, what else can I say?”
Liana keeps staring at him. “So you don’t have beef with Dario? His father?”
“One of my biggest regrets is not making up with your father,” he says, looking right at me, and grief sweeps over me like their deaths were yesterday instead of years ago. “He was a good man, and I was sorry to hear he passed.”
I nod, looking down at my feet, my heart aching.
“The thing is,” I say softly. “Is that I’m in love with your daughter, but I know she doesn’t feel the same way.”
Liana makes a distressed sound in the back of her throat but I keep going.
“So I’ll let her go. I’ll dissolve the marriage and she can move back in but...” I gasp in a desperate breath, feeling like I can’t get enough air.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Liana pipes up, taking my hand.
I glance over at her, my heart doing a backflip in my chest. “Wh-what?”
She sniffles and tears stream down her face.
“You still want to be my husband?”
“More than anything,” I say honestly.
She squeezes my hand and draws in a shaking breath.
“You might not want to be after what I have to tell you.”
Sonny calls out for Angelo and he seems relieved, disappearing into the house while Liana and I stay out on the porch.
“What do you mean, belissima? There’s nothing you could tell me that—”
“Sonny’s yours.”
My blood turns to ice. “What did you just say?”
She trembles, dropping my hand and taking a step back.
“Sonny’s yours. I kept him from you because I was so angry with you. And I know it was wrong, I know I shouldn’t have deprived him of a father.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger. “He’s really mine? You’re sure?”
She huffs out a breath. “I haven’t been with anyone else,” she mumbles.
My eyes dart to hers. Her gray eyes are wide and earnest.
“You’re not serious.”
“I’m dead serious. I was too focused on Sonny to date after you and I split... you were the only one, Dario.”
God, all that time I wasted picturing her under some faceless asshole, picturing her moaning out a different name, bouncing on a different cock.
Rage threatens to black out my vision.
“Do you have any idea what I went through? Any idea how much it hurt to think you’d moved on so quickly?”
Liana chokes out a sob. “I didn’t... I didn’t know you’d care.”
Anger floods through me and my fists clench, my jaw tightening, shoulders stiff.
“I thought I made it clear what I wanted, Li. I’m going home. Enjoy your time with your father.”
I turn around and she grabs at my shoulder.
“Wait, Dario, don’t. Wait. Just...”
I wrench away from her. “Don’t fucking touch me. Not right now.”
Her lip trembles when she pulls away. I hate that it still hurts me to see the pained expression on her face.
She lied to me. Made me think she was fucking someone else. I should be grateful, but I can’t stop thinking about how I lost myself when she left me.
“Tell me why you left.”
It’s not a question, but a command.
She bites her lip. “Does it matter?”
“It nearly destroyed me, Li. Don’t you fucking get that?”
I turn again, stalking toward my car.
“Dario, wait!” she calls, but I’m past hearing.
I speed out of the driveway but after a few miles, I realize that her father’s sportscar is following me.
I curse and pull over quickly, making my tires squeal.
Liana swerves over too, parking and getting out of the car, rushing to me.
“You can’t leave,” she says breathlessly. “Please don’t leave me, Dario.”
“You left me!” I cry out, slamming the car door as I get out. “You left me without a word and then you were pregnant and you lied to me. You had me convinced you moved on with someone else, do you know how that feels?”
“I do,” she says quietly, and I shake my head, taking a few steps toward her.
I’m so angry with her that my hands are trembling.
“Dario,” she whispers as I pin her against my car with my body.
“I fucking hate how much I love you,” I mutter desperately, my hand looping around her throat.
She draws in a sharp breath, tilting her chin up.
Then I kiss her, because I’m a stupid fucking asshole, and when she moans into my mouth I start to harden instantly.
“I should fuck you right here, on the side of the road.”
I look around. It’s abandoned, no one around for miles. Her father kind of lives in the middle of nowhere.
“Please,” she murmurs, spreading her legs and lifting her dress to show me her bare pussy.
I groan as she wraps her legs around my waist, and reach between us to free myself. I push into her and it’s a tight fit at first, but I keep kissing her over and over and she grows wetter and wetter.
I chase my orgasm, fucking her hard up against my car, sliding her ass up and down the metal. She moans out my name into my ear and it makes my balls draw up.
“I’m coming, Dario, fuck—”
I cut her off by kissing her deeply again, moaning into her mouth as I release inside her.
After it’s over and I’m breathing hard and my heart is racing, she kisses along the side of my face.
“I love you, Dario.”
I pull out of her, setting her down on her feet. Her legs shake but I move away from her anyway.
“Love isn’t everything, Li. Loyalty is, and you’ve been fucking disloyal.”
Her lip trembles, her gray eyes wet.
“Dario—”
“I’ll have your things moved to your dad’s within the week.” My voice is flat, unaffected, but my heart is shattering.
She clutches at my chest. “Dario, baby, please—”
“Don’t.” I squeeze my eyes shut against unbidden tears that burn behind my eyelids.
She’s telling me everything I’ve ever wanted to hear and all I feel is empty.
All I can do is back away, not listening to her pleas as I get into my car and drive towards the house.
I walk in and feel emptier than ever, rattling around in this big mansion.
My parents are dead. Liana’s gone.
What do I have left to lose?