Chapter Five
BECCA
One Week Later
M afia funerals are strange. They’re also loud, uncomfortable, and excessive, like a giant business meeting on steroids.
To be fair, I’ve only attended one funeral.
I was twelve, and it was my mother’s. The main thing I remember is the sickening stench of white lilies.
They spilled from all four corners of the church, invading every breath I took.
All around me, mourners wept, while I glared at the tacky arrangement draped over her casket, thinking how much she would’ve hated it.
My mother despised lilies. She thought they smelled like cat piss.
But there isn’t a lily in sight at Marcello Marchesi’s memorial service, only blood-red roses, Chianti, and a framed picture next to an urn.
“ Cremation prevents exhumation ,” Gianni explained.
Which is about all I’ve heard him say this past week. He’s gone when I wake up in the morning and comes and goes at all hours of the night. I never ask where he’s been, and he never tells me. It’s easier that way.
Tightening my grip on my wine glass, I hover near the back of the church, my gaze drifting over my shoulder again at the heavily tinted black sedan parked across the street.
“Staring won’t make them go away.”
I jump, dark red wine sloshing onto the back of my hand. Without a word, Gianni encircles my wrist and brings my hand to his mouth and licks it off as if it’s simply good manners.
Each day, he slips deeper into the mafia don role. He definitely looks the part. Expensive black suit. Diamond studded cufflinks. His dark hair slicked back like a gangster from a Hollywood movie. He seems so much older now.
Colder. Harder .
It’s like watching another personality bleed from the inside out.
“I know. This is just the first time I’ve seen the FBI crash a memorial service.”
“And it won’t be the last.” He leans close, that deep, gravelly voice winding around me like a thorny vine. “Don’t worry. Without a warrant, they’re powerless.”
“I’m worried about you ,” I say with what I hope is an innocuous shrug. “You know what they say—‘with great power comes great risk.’”
“I believe that’s, ‘with great power comes great responsibility.’”
“Responsible people settle their conflicts with words.” Cocking my hip, I fold my arm across my shitty black dress, placing the elbow of the one holding my wine glass on top. “When’s the last time you stopped a bullet with a well-aimed barb?”
He drags his tongue across the bottom of his teeth, a heavy silence falling between us before he flashes a dark smile. “There she is…”
I blink. “Who?”
“The competitive, infuriatingly tenacious psychiatrist who wields intellect like a fucking weapon.” He pushes the brand-new glasses he insisted on buying me back up my nose, then taps the end with his finger. “I’ve missed her.”
“You’re deflecting.”
“You’re distracting.” At my frustrated groan, he winks and presses his lips to my temple. “I appreciate the sentiment, but trust me, that curb is the closest they’re going to get.”
“Then what are they waiting for … someone to walk outside and drop a smoking gun?”
“Something like that.” Slipping his arm around my waist, he tugs me forward. “Come on, we have to go pay our respects.”
I glance up to find his expression layered with ice. “Are you seriously asking me to go in there and act like you didn’t kill the man we’re supposed to be mourning?”
“Yes.”
With his clipped tone leaving no room for argument, I swallow my nerves and walk inside the sanctuary, letting him maneuver me through a congregated “who’s who” of the underworld. My stomach lurches as, one by one, heads turn our way.
Just get through this. You can throw up later.
I tense as we edge close to the four gray-haired men from Marcello’s execution.
They’re milling around like campaigning politicians, looking nothing like the cold-blooded killers I watched from the shadows.
Immaculate suits and gleaming smiles make them seem deceptively dignified, like shapeshifting demons draped in human skin.
The moment we’re in front of them, I freeze. I’m barely listening as Gianni introduces the three on the left. All my attention centers on the one on the far right with the cold eyes.
Red. Red. Red.
“...and this is Benito Toscano, don of New York and capo dei capi of the Five Families.”
I blink, the image fading away, leaving only a distinguished older man with an unreadable stare.
Jesus Christ, pull it together.
Clearing my throat, I extend my hand for a polite greeting. Instead, I feel Gianni stiffen beside me when the man brings it to his lips for an uncomfortably long kiss.
“Boss of all bosses,” Toscano translates, staring down at me.
My teeth slam together at the condescension in his tone. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter who this asshole is or what he’s done. I’ve heard this chauvinistic tune sung by richer, more impressive men than him. Misogyny sounds the same whether backed by bullets or credentials.
“I know what it means, Mr. Toscano,” I clip.
“Forgive me.” The words are as sincere as a death row apology. “I wasn’t aware Italian was a common study in Providence.”
“It isn’t, but as a doctor with three degrees, I don’t consider myself to be common in any capacity.”
His cutting stare is like a laser hell-bent on burning me from the inside out. The harder I try to stand still, the more I shift from foot to foot. Finally, he turns to Gianni, a dark expression sweeping across his tan face. “You may have met your match, Marchesi. Tread carefully.”
The redirect draws an audible exhale from my lungs.
However, Gianni’s jaw clenches, the cords in his neck pulled taut. “Likewise,” he says so sharply, even I flinch.
The two men exchange silent glares, each waiting for the other to speak. I don’t know if it’s respect or rage I see glimmering in Toscano’s dark eyes, but when he turns to me and his lips peel back in a tight smile, I realize I don’t care. Both options chill me to the bone.
I have no idea how much time passes, but when I feel Gianni’s fingers press against my ribs and steer me away, I know it was too much. Once we’re secluded in a quiet alcove, he pushes me gently against the wall and lowers his head for an uncomfortably long moment of direct eye contact.
I sigh. “Go ahead, say it.”
“He’s trying to get in your head. You can’t let him.”
“You’d think that wouldn’t be a problem, but…” Frustrated, I wrap both hands around my glass like a lifeline. “I’ve never met someone like that before.”
“You’re a psychiatrist. Flip the script on him.”
“I tried,” I groan, my body slumping. “It’s like he…”
“Got off on it?” At my reluctant nod, he gives me a low chuckle. “Why do you think that is, Becca?”
“Because he’s a sociopath?”
“No, because he’s a criminal who sees himself as a master of intimidation and manipulation. Sound familiar?”
“Are you seriously drawing parallels between you and that man? Because the depth of derangement is off-the-charts unfixable in one of you.”
“Then combat it with the same stone-wall bullshit you used on me. It kept me at arm’s length.” The scent of burnt pine envelops me as he braces his palm on the wall above my head, a cocky smirk spreading across his face. “Well, for a few weeks, at least.”
The corners of my lips twitch. “Jokes, really?”
“Made you smile, didn’t I?” A buzzing between us prompts him to step back and slide his hand into his pocket, returning with his phone. He stares at the screen, a line forming between his eyebrows.
“Everything all right?”
He glances up, then quickly shoves his phone back into his pocket. “Yeah, that was Owen reminding me about our meeting.”
“Now?”
“It’s bad timing, I know. But this is important, and it can’t wait.”
Even in the muted lighting, I see the truth in his eyes. There’s more to this than simple mafia business, more he isn’t telling me. It twists a hard-edged knife in my gut.
Not out of anger, but fear.
He motions for his underboss, who appears next to us like a phantom. “I need you to take Becca home,” he says, stepping back. “I have to take care of something.”
“Of course.” Anton nods dutifully. “Everything okay?”
“It will be,” he says, a look passing between them that sets me on edge.
Before I can ask what the hell just happened, he dusts his lips across my cheek, his voice lowering to barely a whisper.
“You have the burner phone I gave you. Anton is contact one and Owen is contact two. Call either for anything at any hour.”
And then he’s gone.
I bite my lip, my gaze drifting to my right.
Anton shakes his head. “Don’t ask.”
“I wasn’t. Just tell me if he’s in danger.”
“Gianni can handle himself,” he insists stoically. “He always could. Kid has nerves of steel and a set of iron…” I’m about to comment on his heavy-handed use of metallic metaphors when his eyes shift, and a low “oh shit” falls from his lips.
I turn to see what he’s staring at, only to lock eyes with one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.
With her long dark hair, brown eyes, and voluptuous figure, she’s every inch the mafia princess.
But it’s the way she’s staring at me, like roadkill left on the side of the highway, that leaves me unsettled.
I know who she is, immediately.
Cathalina Damiano.
My pulse quickens as she makes her way over to us.
While instinct tells me to walk away, morbid curiosity keeps me rooted in place.
That, and the searing need to ensure she understands that while Marcello’s ruse was nothing more than a smokescreen, the ring on my finger is anything but .
I’m Gianni’s wife legally, emotionally, and most definitely physically.
She stops in front of us, her hip cocked, slowly swirling her wine around in her glass. “Considering the way Anton is hovering over you like a hawk, I take it you’re Gianni’s wife.”
I extend my hand and force a plastic smile. “Dr. Rebecca … Marchesi.”
“Doctor?” She takes my hand and arches a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Gianni didn’t mention you were an MD.”