Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Robyn
T he large diamond winked from between my fingers.
In certain lights, I swore I could see the microdot of information spelling my husband’s downfall, but then in others, I had to wonder if it was there at all. I had to wonder if all of this was just another of Damon’s games.
I set the ring back on the nightstand with a clunk. Whether the kompromat was in there or not, it wouldn’t change how this ended for him. For us.
A week had passed since he brought me to his house, and so far, I hadn’t heard a single word of Belmont or what Damon’s next step in his top-secret plan was. More than once it crossed my mind that it was all another lie. That he’d lured me here because he wanted me. To wear me down. To weave his spell around me. And then to shatter whatever pieces were left.
I was sorely tempted to believe it. Angry enough to believe it. And on more than one occasion, I’d picked up my phone and the diamond ring, prepared to turn it on, call Harm to come get me, and to surrender my husband to the FBI.
But I didn’t.
If Damon’s sole purpose for bringing me here was to get me back, he was doing a shit job of it. Not that winning me back was possible, because it absolutely wasn’t , but even a man with a sense of confidence as inflated as Damon’s would have to admit it was impossible to win over someone’s affection without being present.
Damon had been gone ever since that night in the kitchen.
Where? I had no idea. With whom? Even less of a clue. Or care.
Every day for a week, I woke up and ventured to the main floor, heart hammering and prepared for battle. And every day, I only found Nonna, homemade food, and a puzzle on the coffee table in the living room.
I loved puzzles, so naturally I resisted the temptation at first, but by the third day, I had to do something to take my mind off my evasive husband. So, I sat down and began to piece the landscape together until daylight withered away. But he didn’t come back. The light underneath his bedroom door never turned on. Even as I lay in bed, my senses stayed alert to even the slightest sounds of footsteps above me, but nothing. He was gone.
Instead of the solitude feeling like a blessing, it only lingered like a curse. Each time I caught a whiff of his scent or saw one of his hats missing from the rack by the front door. And every time I looked out the window and the sight of the pool dredged up the memory of him in it…and the memory of what happened—what could’ve happened after it.
The irony that a man who wasn’t present, a man who’d hurt me in the worst possible way, had so consumed my thoughts was like a thousand paper cuts. Individually, their pain was nothing but annoyance. But altogether, their injury was agony.
And I was tired of suffering. I needed answers, and I was going to find a way to get them.
Sliding off the bed, I headed for the door, still wearing the clothes I’d arrived in. Freshly washed, thanks to Nonna, who religiously, though chidingly, took the black leggings and dark tee every other day to launder them. Why didn’t I wear the clothes in the closet? Because I refused to give Damon another inch. I was already in his house. Eating his food. Living with him. Abiding by his rules. I wouldn’t do anything to conflate his confidence that this life here would ever be mine.
The only exception I made was for the lush purple robe hung in the bathroom. Even hotels had robes, and I didn’t trust myself in a towel around him again.
The winter sun drenched the main floor in dwindling light. It was late afternoon, but the sun already hung like a yolk dangling toward the horizon. I heard commotion in the kitchen but had no expectation to find anyone other than Nonna at the counter, shirtsleeves rolled up, and wearing an apron that was covered in flour.
“Buongiorno, Nonna. Is Mr. Remington home?” I buried the twinge of embarrassment for asking about him. Something I’d refrained from doing for days.
The old woman looked up, her expression falling just like it did every time she saw me wearing the same clothes, and then went back to rolling her gnocchi.
“He be back soon, Signora.”
I rolled my shoulders back and took another step closer. “Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“Of course,” I murmured under my breath. Damon didn’t tell anyone anything; it was how he worked. How he survived. How he thrived.
“Do you have a way to contact him?”
Beady eyes scrutinized me now. “Only for emergency.”
“What about Patrick?” The large Irishman had been equally as scarce, but for some reason I felt I’d have a better chance breaking him down than this frail old woman who clearly idolized her boss.
“With Signor Damon.” She went back to her task.
I moved to the counter, resting my elbows on the granite. “Is gnocchi on the menu for tonight?”
“Tomorrow.”
I stilled, noting the subtle change in her voice. “What’s for dinner tonight?”
Her silence was too long to be anything but suspicious as she pressed the tines of a fork into the small potato dumplings.
“Nonna…”
“No cook tonight,” she said.
Jackpot. “Why not? Is something happening? Are we going somewhere?”
“Don’t know. Signor Damon told me to have night off.”
I straightened, banding my arms over my chest. Something was going on, and Nonna might not know, but I was going to figure it out. Looking over my shoulder, my gaze passed and then snapped back to Damon’s bedroom door.
Was it locked?
Maybe the answers were inside.
“He’s a good man, Signora.”
My head swiveled back to the older woman, biting into my cheek to stop my instinctive response— well, then you don’t know him— because she did. She was here every day. He trusted her to be here every day, knowing who he was and what he did. But she clearly had no idea what he’d done to me .
“How did you meet Mr. Remington?”
Damon bargained for his name, but I never agreed to feign that intimacy in front of everyone.
“Signor Damon?” She paused, stubbornness livening the worn creases on her face.
“Yes.”
Grabbing another ball of potato dough, she rolled out another length to be cut into fresh gnocchi.
“In Sicily, my daughter got involved with wrong men. La Cosa Nostra.” The Sicilian Mafia. “Signor Damon was there when they came to take her from me.” Nonna turned her arm, the long scar clearly a result of the confrontation. “He stopped them. Save her. Save Me.” The emotion in her voice carried, and I fought against the tightening in my throat. Stepping back from the counter, Nonna patted her hand to the side of her stomach. “Signor Damon hurt to save us.”
The scar. I revisited the memory of the puckered streak across his side that had been on display that night in the kitchen. As soon as I started to feel something dangerously close to admiration, I caught myself and locked it away.
“You know he’s a criminal, right?” I asked her bluntly. “Mr. Remington used La Cosa Nostra to launder money. He was working with them. He’s no better than them.”
Nonna let out a hiss, her hand starting to tremble on the counter, her loyalty to Damon baked into her bones. “And he ruined all that to save us. Strangers to him.”
My defense deflated like a balloon. I knew he’d used the Italian Mafia to launder money for quite some time before he’d suddenly cut ties with them. Whether it was because of Nonna and her daughter, I couldn’t prove one way or another. In some way, I was sure helping them and severing his ties with the Mafia had somehow worked in Damon’s favor, even if it had earned him a nasty scar in the process .
“When was that?”
“Nine years ago.”
So Nonna had been with him for a long time. “So you came here then? What happened to your daughter?”
“He brought us here. Paid for my daughter to go to university. She graduated honors four years ago. She works for tech company now.” Pride beamed in her voice as she rolled out another length of dough.
“And you worked for Damon this whole time?”
Her gaze snapped to mine at the slip of his name. Shit.
“He’s my family, Signora.” Saliva pooled like acid against my cheeks. “He’s your family, too.”
“No, he’s not,” I said a little too harshly, my tongue threatening to lash out the truth of what he’d done to me.
Losing battle, I reminded myself. He’s saved this woman and her daughter; she would defend him until the cows came home.
“Nine years I’ve been with him, Signora. Nine years, and I see no one else. Nine years, and he speak of no one else.”
The ball in my throat stretched. Widened. Anger and pain and ache formed a bitter cocktail that made me want to heave the contents of my empty stomach.
“As you said, he doesn’t tell you everything,” I countered with a terse smile.
Her thin lips pursed, but before she could say anything else, a sound blared through the room. It took me a second to realize it was coming from her cell phone buried in one of her pockets.
“Buonasera, Signor.” She fished it out and answered. Damon. My eyes tracked her as she pinned the phone to her shoulder and went to the sink to scrub her hands. “Si.” A pause. “Si, I tell her.”
That could only mean me .
My heart drummed, beating out the rest of her lilted conversation until she finally hung up.
“Come with me, Signora.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask where, but what did it matter? We wouldn’t be leaving the house. Not without Damon.
We crossed the main floor to what I still referred to as the west wing, Nonna leading the way straight to Damon’s room. There, I got the answer to my earlier question; the door wasn’t locked.
I slowed my pace, unable to continue past the threshold as I carefully cataloged the interior of the room.
Damon’s bedroom was what I would’ve expected. Windows advertised the darkening city skyline to my right. Beige walls were marked with expensive and probably stolen art. A massive, lavish four-poster bed draped with dark, brocaded sheets.
I tried to focus on the older woman, but as she approached the bed, something caught my eye—a mirror suspended from the ceiling.
Bitterness wedged in my throat. And she wanted me to believe there had been no one else…with a man who had a mirror hanging over his bed.
I didn’t even realize the sound of disgust made it past my lips until Nonna turned. I quickly looked away—another mistake when my eyes caught on a photograph framed on his dresser. Before I knew it, I’d walked over to take a closer look.
I picked up the thin frame and stared at the black-and-white photo inside. It was of Damon and me at Sinclair’s New Year’s Eve party fifteen years ago. My brow pinched. I didn’t…I had no idea someone had even caught this moment—our kiss on one of the disposable cameras Sandrine had put out as a fun little activity for guests to do during the course of the night .
My mouth dried. Heartbeats spattered against my chest, a casualty of the memory hitting me center mass.
Everything stilled until I was nothing but an erratic pulse and this photo, the image coming to life like a trick of my mind. The tension and uncertainty that night. The worry. And how just after the photo was taken, Damon stood on the piano bench and announced to everyone that he and I were getting married.
I remembered the shock that went through me, hearing I was going to be married to a man who’d never proposed. Yet, when he came to me and pulled me into his arms, it didn’t feel wrong or out of place. I didn’t want to protest or even ask why because I didn’t care. It was too late.
I’d already fallen in love with him, and I’d been so certain that he loved me, too.
Why would he have this? Why would he keep this? It was like finding the crown of thorns in Judas’s bedroom. The frame clattered and fell as I tried to set it back. Shit.
“Signora…”
I bit back a curse, righting the stupid picture and quickly facing Nonna.
“For you, Signora.” She handed me the box, but the hint of a smile on her face told me she was just as shifty as her infuriating boss. Damon hadn’t told her to bring me in here; she’d come up with that all on her own. So that I’d see his room—so that I’d see all of this. Like it hadn’t made it worse.
“What’s this?” I stared at the large black box she’d deposited in my arms, holding it as though she’d handed me a live grenade.
“Signor Damon says for tonight. He will be back in an hour to get you.”
“To go where? ”
Her mouth firmed, giving me an answer without even speaking. “He didn’t say.”
I took the box and swallowed the bitter pill. “Why would he?” I muttered as she left me there in his room, humming on her way back to the kitchen and her gnocchi.
Maybe Damon did save her and her daughter’s life. Maybe Nonna did owe him her loyalty and her love.
But I did not.