Chapter 10
C ALLUM
I look at the broken woman in front of me and realize how much I misjudged her.
How easy it is to let yourself be fooled by some immature act, or simply not see beyond a facade.
Sadly, Bianca was not a good mother to her. Most of the time, she forgot she was her mother.
It was her idea to send Leilani away way before her untimely death. Way before she understood that she and I would never be a couple.
As strange as it seemed, she was jealous of Leilani, even though, with her antics, her daughter had ruined her chances of being taken seriously by anyone.
Bianca came to me one day and described this property in Sicily.
She wasn’t overly concerned about sending her daughter to college or about letting her live a normal life.
All she wanted was to see her gone. Removed from her life.
The fact that she was going to be eventually exiled was hardly a surprise, although at the time of Bianca’s death, it served a different purpose.
This woman truly has no one.
Her mother failed her.
Her father?
Let’s not even talk about it.
The second man her mother married left behind a son who thinks life is about grabbing ass literally whenever you feel like it.
What an entitled dick.He still lives on the Gallos’ dime.
And the Gallos? Don’t even start me on them.
So, it seems to me that Giorgio Gallo was in business with Stefano Varela from way before the latter expressed his newfound interest in his granddaughter.
In fact––and that doesn’t mean they weren’t enemies at some point––they seem to have played the same side a lot.
If I get that right, and I’m sure I do, Giorgio Gallo wanted to bring me into his family and worked with Varela behind the scenes to set me up and make me do what they wanted.
It wasn’t happenstance, as they pretended to be.
Varela got his money from Giorgio Gallo.
Then Giorgio got his money from me.
Then, something happened.
Bianca’s death came as a surprise to no one.
No one really blinked an eye when they heard the news.
It was expected.
It was convenient.
Convenient for whom exactly?
That’s the thing.
Who wanted Bianca dead?
People looked in my direction––as I have said before––but that didn’t fly. I had nothing to do with the woman, so painting me as the jealous type didn’t work.
Xavier wasn’t married, so having a scorned woman in the mix wasn’t plausible either.
An accident?
As unimportant as Bianca Gallo was in this world of crime, she benefited from protection.
Bodyguards followed her around day and night, yet somehow, that day, they hadn’t checked her car.They didn’t make sure that she was safe in her vehicle.
No one who’d been around the block a few times had bought into the idea that it was an accident.
I honestly suspected that Giorgio himself had plotted his own daughter’s demise.
It made no sense to me, but criminals often don’t.
It made me a widower, and I could still run their empire.
And now this happens, and things begin to make sense. What if it wasn’t the Gallos who eliminated their own daughter?
What if it was the man himself?
Stefano Varela.
What if he’d replaced one heiress with another, and now he wants a bride for himself?
His wife died after I got married to Bianca.
Interesting timing, but I won’t get into that.
His marrying Leilani would make him the de facto ruler of the Gallo Empire.
What do you think would happen next?
A war, and I’d become a prime target. I’d top his enemies list.
I’ll be damned.
Speaking of a chess master. I have a feeling Giorgio has lost control of this entirely, and a little blackmail might’ve done the trick.
If Varela arranged for the killing of Bianca Gallo, he showed her father that nothing could stop him from getting what he wanted.
No wonder Giorgio and Sylvia can't push Leilani out the door soon enough.
And all those red herrings.
All those names they dropped to make their search for a suitor look legit. It was never a real search.
They already had a suitor, and he asked them to make it happen.
If that truly happens, Varela gets what he wants, Giorgio and Sylvia stay alive and maintain control over their wealth, and I’m on the chopping block.
And Leilani?
I look at her as she runs her fingers through her hair, not having the slightest idea of how bad this really is.
What a horrible life awaits her.
She didn’t stand a chance, did she?
Barely opened her wings to fly, and they made a big bonfire to burn and morph the tiniest, most precious veins on her beautiful, like-silk wings into ashes.
She mattered to no one as she was born to be a pawn. A woman in the background. Flesh between the sheets in the bedroom of an old man.
Touched and tormented by every frustration of a man who could get anything by force but nothing as a gift.
And she had thought for a moment that she could live a normal life.
She was born cursed and could easily share her mother’s fate if nothing changed the course of her story.
“Stefano Varela is the man who helped your grandfather convince me to marry Bianca,” I say softly, gauging her reaction, craving to see that flicker of sharpness in her eyes as she puts two and two together, like I just did.
“How?” she asks.
Her eyes glint, confirming that I was right.
“I won’t get into details. He just did.”
“What did he gain from that?”
I shrug.
“I don’t know. He just helped your grandfather. Maybe he owed him a favor.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m sure that’s more to that,” I say mysteriously, not going into details.
“How old is he?”
“He’s your grandfather’s age.”
Her face turns gray and then pale. Life vanishes from her eyes, and tears pool in them.
She looks at me as if she just received a life sentence.
I’ve never seen Leilani more vulnerable, more real. All that acting is now gone.
The spoiled princess is nowhere to be found.
“Why does he want me?”
“I’m not so sure he wants you,” I say, witnessing the shift in her expression.
Her tears collide into each other and then break, a few rolling down her cheeks.
“He wants my family’s money.”
I slide back into my seat and ponder a response.
“He wants everything, but for sure he wants the money, too.”
She scrubs the back of her hand over her cheeks, wiping away most of her tears, and then a different expression slides over her face.
“He won’t have me.”
“What?”
“Stefano Varela won’t have me.”
“What do you plan to do?” I ask, curious about what she has in mind, knowing that it wouldn’t be her call, anyway.
It would be mine.
“He won’t touch me. I can’t sleep with a man my grandfather’s age. That’s all I can say.”
I shift in my seat, resting an elbow on the table.
Her eyes speak to me, showing me her desperation and resoluteness at the same time.
“You plan to kill that old fool,” I murmur, darkly amused.
She nods, and I’m convinced that she’s convinced that she can do it.
“Do you have the slightest idea who he is?”
She finally runs a hand over her skirt and her fingers under her eyes and comes closer to me.
She’s still standing, her leg touching my knee, and I feel an undercurrent of pleasure in my body.
“He must be as hideous as he is dangerous, but I don’t care,” she says, her eyes tilted to mine.
And then she slides a hand onto the table and leans forward, with determination sparkling in her eyes.
She speaks softly, her lips inches away from mine.
“Bad things have happened to me all my life. One just happened tonight. So, what do I have to lose, Callum?”
A downcast smile breaks through her tears.
“Huh? What do I have to lose? Nothing. I’ve got nothing to lose.
I don’t care if this is the end for me. They’ve all mistreated me.
He’ll just be the last one in a long line of miscreants.
And he won’t touch me. I’ll make sure of that.
Even if he restrains me and has his way with me.
Maybe he’ll do it once. Maybe he’ll do it twice.
But one night, he’ll let his guard down, and he’ll find out what little Leilani Gallo is capable of.
I’m not afraid to die. I’ve thought about death more times than you can count.
When you live the life I live, it’s hard not to think about it. ”
My jaw locks as I feel some long-suppressed, hard emotion build in my chest.
Something in this woman’s life speaks to me in ways impossible to describe.
It makes my eyes glint differently, and it registers with her, bringing a smile to her face.
“You know what I mean, don’t you?”
Her smile is tinged with hope.
“You’ve been living this life, too. Only at the other end,” she goes on.
“You must know how it feels. I was at the receiving end. I had men lust after me when they should’ve taken care of their wives.
I’ve had people touching me, like that jerk tonight, when they should’ve minded their own business.
I’ve had men humiliating me and treating me like a sex object and pulling me into a ritualistic hell.
I’ve had my own family look the other way.
I asked them to protect me. They told me I was insane.
The only time they wanted to keep me away from all that was when you became a part of it.
That’s when it suited them. You think I didn’t notice how my mother behaved when she married you.
She thought you were like them. Only this time, she didn’t want you to lust after me.
She didn’t want you to ask for me to be sent to your room so you could pour yourself a drink like you just did now, order me to strip, and then order me to takea shower so you could watch me naked, hair wet, water dripping from my chest and the place between my legs. Night, after night, after night…”
Her voice trails off, her smile fading as she’s about to straighten and step back, when I grab her forearm harshly.
“Who did that to you?”
A grin dipped in resignation touches her lips.
“It doesn’t matter.”
I slide my hand up and wrap my fingers around her neck, pressing them into her delicate skin.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she says quietly, on the verge of crying, when all I want is to wrap my arms around her, hold her against me, and never let her leave this house.
Keep her here with me, teach her how to heal, see her wounds close, and then show her something else.
Protect her for once.
Introduce her to a different kind of life for once.
She did nothing to deserve this.
“No one’s hurting you. Who did this to you?”
She lifts her hand to my face and fans her fingers over my cheek.
“I can’t tell you,” she murmurs, shaking her head from side to side.
“I’ll take this secret to the grave. It’s not a secret for most people in the house.
They all witnessed it, one way or another.
They’ve heard of it, if nothing else. I’m too ashamed to even speak about it.
I’ve never said what I just told you to anyone else. ”
My grip slackens before my fingers trail up her cheek and then remove a few tears.
Her eyes seem clearer now than they were before, as she’s waiting for me to speak.
“Julian York knows about it,” I say, convinced the little prick got emboldened by whatever happened in her family in the past.
“He’s probably heard the stories.”
I spend a few more moments searching her eyes before I rise from my seat, and she straightens at once.
Her eyes follow me as I move away from her.
Her voice swiftly rings behind me.
“Can I get one of your men to accompany me home?”
A few moments pass before I speak again.
I’m standing in the middle of the room, my back turned to her, a hand rubbing the back of my neck.
“You’re not going anywhere tonight.”
The silence in the room makes it seem as if my words have had a magical effect on her, making her vanish.
The atmosphere is eerie and tense when I glance over my shoulder. She seems carved out of stone, her eyes wide, her hair luscious, her lips slightly open.
“What do you mean?”
I step back to her, sliding a hand into my pocket, reaching for my phone.
“Exactly what I just said.”
I break my stare away from her, look down at my phone, and call Cosimo.
“Have someone prepare the guest room. Leilani stays with us tonight.”
I end the call when she begins to protest.
“No, no. This is not a good idea. I need to go back, or they’ll never let me leave my house again.”
Calm and composed, I slide my phone into my pocket.
“They won’t do that.”
“How can you be so sure? They absolutely will. Please don’t do that to me.”
Cosimo enters the room a second later, interrupting our conversation and noticing the broken glass and the wine stains on the tablecloth.
“Someone needs to change that,” I say.
“Sure, Boss. Anything else?”
He looks at Leilani.
“Is she hungry?”
I look at the woman myself.
“Are you hungry?”
“I had dinner, but I could have a snack.”
“Send food to her room.”
“Anything else I need to know?”
“Have every one of our men on high alert, and get ready for war.”
A small smile flashes across his lips.
“Sure, Boss. The room will be ready momentarily.”
He walks out while I shift my eyes to Leilani, who stares at me, perplexed.
“You won’t be leaving this house for the foreseeable future. Everywhere you want to go, you go with me. Every negotiation related to your life and future happens through me. Anyone who needs to talk to you will talk to me first.”
Relief and renewed hope bloom in her eyes.
“What about my friend Rory? Can I talk to her?’
“You can talk to her, but you can’t see her.”
“What about the party in Taormina?”
“You go there with me. You let me do the talking, and everything else.”
Her smile fades in the clutches of worry.
“What do you plan to do?”
“Right now? Nothing. We’ll go along with their plan, and when the time comes, you’ll learn what I plan to do.”
“You won’t touch Julian then?”
“Not now.”
“And everyone else?” she asks.
“Remains to be seen.”
She stares at me, her mouth agape.
“Anything else?” I ask.
The gentle hills of growing hope are swiftly replaced by a mountain of worry.
“What if something happens to you?”
“Nothing will happen to me. You don’t need to worry about me.”
She stays wordless for a moment before she snaps out of her daze and walks to me.
Her eyes are warm again and fearless.
Her arm is soft when she winds it around my neck.
Her chest is warm and jiggling when she presses herself against me.
She pushes up onto her toes and reaches my lips.
Yet she slides them slightly to the left and breathes over my cheek.
“I have no words to express my gratitude. Even if these two weeks are the last of my life, they’ll be the best of my life, too. Thank you.”
She loops her other arm around my neck, and I press my hand to the small of her back when she leaves a kiss on my cheek.
A kiss that has the power to unravel me.