Chapter 13
LEILANI
Sadly, Paxton Maclean turns right and heads to the guests clumped up in the big dining room, while I continue walking toward the back of the house, where a smaller room, but just as sumptuous, is set for us.
The place is draped in warm candlelight as quiet servers wait for us to get seated.
Giorgio sits at the far end of the table, while Sylvia makes a last-minute change and trades seats with an older man so she can sit next to me.
The door closes over my hopes of seeing Callum O’Hara follow us inside.
My heart stumbles, my wings broken, invisible little weights pulling at the corners of my eyes and lips.
It swiftly dawns on me that my expression might be a dead giveaway as Sylvia flicks her eyes repeatedly in my direction.
With some effort, I slap my mask back on and stare at her, my face carved in thick resentment.
Regardless of where we’re headed with this, I won’t make a secret of how much I hate them for doing this to me.
They didn’t do this to my mother.
They let her choose her men, and have extramarital affairs and multiple lovers.
Every time she became obsessed with a man, they looked the other way.
And every time things slipped out of control, they stepped in and fixed whatever needed fixing.
Marrying her to Callum was their first and last attempt to use her in their ploys, yet even that felt like a gift to her.
I flick an eyebrow at my grandmother, and she finally gets my drift and tears her eyes away from me.
Conversations start around the table before dinner is served. Antipasti––melon and prosciutto skewers, cured meats, olives, and capers salad. Primo––pasta and risotto.
Then fish and meat. And dessert.
Most guests are focused on their food, while I can’t stop looking at the door. Feeling like a caged animal, I have a hard time swallowing my food.
I bring a glass of wine to my lips, surreptitiously looking around the table when I catch Marco Sandoval glancing in my direction.
He’s a combination of intense desires and aloof demeanor, with a promissory note for heartbreak written all over his face.
Whoever falls for those broody eyes will need some duct tape to hold the pieces of their broken heart together, but what do I know?
Maybe I was wrong about them.
Maybe they are interested in me after all.
Or maybe, they’re worse than my grandfather, and they’re simply weighing whether it’s worth their time to get involved with someone like me.
One word comes to mind when I look at them.
Merchants.
They are the merchants of death.
Sure, they must look like choirboys next to Andrea Mancuso, but just because their crazy cousin excels at being a nutcase doesn’t make them look like angels.
His brother lifts an empty stare from his plate and shoots me an appraising look that makes me feel like the cured meat on my plate.
I swiftly tear my eyes away and seek a moment of relief.
These men are crazy.
A few moments pass before I notice the two guys conversing with my grandfather.
They’re both over fifty. I can’t tell whether they are of a higher rank or not.
Who knows these days?
Although gathering men here indiscriminately and asking them to have a look strikes me as a desperate move.
What could possibly unsettle Giorgio to such a degree that he summoned all these people here?
I don’t understand.
I’ve never seen him so eager to redraw the map of power since he invited Callum O’Hara into our lives. It must have to do with how things stand in New York.
I wish I had paid more attention to their conversations when I was little, and they thought I was stupid and talked about important matters in my presence. I wish I had learned more about their business practices.
Except Sylvia, no woman in our family has been interested in our family affairs, and now I'm wondering where I should find more information on this.
One of the men next to Giorgio, a stocky guy with a short, thick neck and broad shoulders, glances at me.
I feel like the dessert on the table, and the more I think about why I’m here, the more I lose my mind.
Please, Lord. Make this be over soon.
I have probably had like ten small bites when I drag my stare down to calm my rattled heart.
If I get out of this strange situation, I swear I’ll be the best woman that I can be.
I’ll do my best to make Nona proud of me and dedicate my life to doing good things.
Sunk in thought while in the middle of negotiating to save my soul, I barely check the door anymore.
A server squeezes past me, bringing me back to reality and making me lift my gaze as a chair scrapes back against the wooden floor.
Little do I know what a surprise awaits me.
Tucking his tie close to his abdomen, Callum O’Hara slides into a seat across from Sylvia and me, not far from the patriarch.
The blood drains from my body as I try to make sense of all this. Breathlessly, I move my eyes to the other end of the table, where he would normally sit.
What a big surprise this is.
He doesn’t look at me as I dance away with a bunch of suppositions.
He finally came.
And he’s here alone.
Where is that woman?
Vittoria something.
Is she waiting for him outside?
Why didn’t he bring her in?
Well, he probably couldn’t allow her to witness all this without tying her to him forever and making her swear allegiance to him.
But that’s good, isn’t it?
So, is he here for me?
I doubt it, but a woman can hope.
Even as anxious and confused as I am, I can still notice how his presence commands the room.
A faint sensation of unease gnaws at my awareness when I tilt my gaze to Sylvia and realize she’s been watching him and me.
My infatuation with him has hardly been a secret, mostly because I made an ass of myself back in New York and behaved in such a way that they tasked Nona with watching me around the clock.
But if I were to take a hard look at what they truly know about my crush on the Irish mobster, I’d say they still don’t know whether my feelings are real or it’s just a ploy to make everyone’s life miserable.
No matter how convincing I am, no one believes me one hundred percent.
They know I’m in constant flux, permanently evolving, shifting, plotting, rebelling, and looking for the next thing to satiate my thirst for drama.
They can’t tell how far I’d be willing to go, and can’t anticipate my reactions, which is proven by the variety of men sitting around the table.
The young mafia bosses.
The more established ones.
The handsome ones.
The ugly ones.
I keep them guessing as much as they keep me guessing, as I’m trying to prolong the freedom I still have, hopefully, before they round me up and kick me out.
My eyes move over a couple of blueberries that have fallen off a delicious roll of sponge cake wrapped in glistening spikes of vanilla-scented whipped cream.
Touching my forearm, she’d most likely want to say something to me.
Quicker than her, I excuse myself, push my chair back, and rise, hoping to feel his eyes on me, not hers.
It doesn’t happen, although I do benefit from the attention of everybody else in the room.
Pushing back a prickling touch of frustration, I spin around and leave the room.
My first thought is to go to the bathroom, spend some time alone, and return.
Although witnessing the plotting of my world’s demise isn’t high on my priorities list.
But then I change my mind and turn right to exit the house and get lost in the backyard.
I barely move in that direction when a firm hand wraps around my forearm, and a familiar smell of patchouli tickles my nose.
“Where are you going?” Sylvia asks, and I stop.
Sighing with irritation, I turn to her, my lips heavy with resentment.
“Anywhere but here. I want to leave this house,” I say, disdain folded in my voice.
“I want to get away, change my name, and have a fisherman adopt me. Leaving in poverty for the rest of my life would be a blessing next to this,” I go on, riding a crest of defiance, and watching my grandmother scrunch up her nose at the pungent smell of my disobedience.
One of the few little satisfactions I had in my life was observing her get thrown off by the most outrageous statements I had put out.
Although everything I said just now is one hundred percent true.
I’d live anywhere on this planet, no matter the hardship, as long as I could start all over again.
If I could erase my memory, I’d do that to start with a clean slate and never have any recollection of these people.
She presses her lips together and studies me with a stern look on her face.
“There’s no need to be so dramatic,” she says, her voice dipped in honey. “Nothing will happen to you,” she reassures me, and I would almost believe her if it weren’t for my past experience with them.
Tilting my head to the side, I shoot her a disapproving look.
She sucks in a clipped breath and makes an honest effort to give me a smile.
“I mean it. We’re all talking. You don’t have to act like a savage. No one’s marrying you against your will. You’ll have the final say in this. Trust me, no one will gain anything if you aren’t happy.”
She sounds so genuine that it makes my stomach twist at the hypocrisy of it all.
Why would we be here if not for them to do just that? Force me into doing something I don’t want to do.
Why would they send me here if not to keep me under their thumb and dictate how I should live my life?
I don’t believe this woman in the slightest.
“Why do I need to get married anyway? I don’t get it.”
Broadening her smile, she curls her arm through mine and pivots with me to drag me back to the dining room.
“We made a few mistakes with your mother,” she starts softly.
“As you may as well know, we didn’t interfere when she hooked up with a new man.
Sadly, it wasn’t the right move. Things didn’t work out in the end.
Not for her. Not for you. And obviously not for us,” she says, pushing a door open and walking me down the corridor.
“You must know by now that with great wealth comes great responsibility, and you must follow the rules of this world. As much as I could say, go out there, find a gardener, and make beautiful babies, this is not how our world works. You know how I met Giorgio. There was no love between us in the beginning. Only my family’s word, and his.
I was young. We made it work. We’re still together, happily married. ”
I give her a side–eyed look that she misses altogether.
Yeah, I know that part of their story. I’ve heard it––like everybody else––many times.
What she conveniently omits to say is the dark side of that story.
Her struggle to keep Giorgio away from other women, her failure to raise a sane daughter, and also to prevent the things that happened in the house under her nose.
We may not be much different from other families––there are good things and bad things about that––but we are different in that regard.
“Tonight is all about meeting some of these men. You don’t have to get close to them.”
“They’re here to see me. It has nothing to do with me getting friendly with them or not,” I retort, and her smile dries up and falls from her face.
“Calm down,” she says, her arm sliding off mine. “You’re not the only young woman in Sicily. They come, they take a look, they leave,” she says nonchalantly, trying to lessen the importance of this meetup.
First, they highjacked this party, and now she’s trying to convince me it’s all happenstance.
Right.
“Go inside now and finish your dessert. And stop being such a drama queen,” she goes on, invalidating my feelings and gaslighting me as she always does.
Gesturing dismissively, I turn away from her when I stop and spin back.
“Why is he here?” I ask when my eyes meet hers.
She stares at me, poker-faced.
“He?”
“Callum O’Hara.”
Strangely, my voice doesn’t tremble. Everything else inside me does.
She gives me a strange look.
“What kind of question is that? He was invited to your party."
"Not by me, he wasn’t. He shouldn’t be in that room anyway. He’s not part of our family.”
“He is now.”
That’s what I wanted to hear.
Smiling facetiously, I close the space between us and press my finger against her sternum.
“Right. Then, why do you need to marry me off if he’s part of the family? With him on board, the Gallos should have enough influence and power to overcome anyone.”
Tilting her head back, she looks at me, intrigued.
“Where did you get that idea? We don’t need anyone to protect ourselves. We’re rich beyond belief and have enough power.”
As ridiculous as it seems, her outrage seems genuine, which makes me think she’s in denial, which never bodes well in our family. She can’t be that dumb to think I’m that dumb, but I go along with it.
“Nowhere. It was a simple observation. It doesn’t matter. Our family has always liked to collect things,” I murmur, pulling away from her and going back inside.
My reference to Julian leaves her speechless.
There’s nothing new there. She could never give me a good reason as to why he had to keep living with us, especially after his father passed away.