30. Ilaria
30
ILARIA
D ante had come to bed a couple hours after me. Most likely having to pack with all the themes that he was just learning about.
I had woken up when he crawled into bed, his arm wrapping around my waist as he pulled my back to his chest.
Who knew mafia bosses were such cuddlers?
Kissing my cheek as I pretended to stay asleep as he wrapped himself around me like I was Dante’s teddy bear and he couldn’t fall asleep without a snuggle.
It made me feel bad about planning to leave earlier for the bachelorette party but this was a girls crisis and we needed time without the men to solve it
Dante thought he was slick putting Francesco on Becca and acting like he was trying to protect my friends. He had given each of them a guard but with the way Francesco was valued it was clear that something had leaked back to him.
And since it was Becca that had the attention it made us realize that the Cartel was onto us.
We always figured it would be Becca that was recognized first because of Logan, her boyfriend who had died in the car accident a few years earlier.
Logan who had been the love of her life. Logan who had been in a car accident that was really a retaliation from the Cartel for refusing to get involved deeper, not that he should have been involved at all.
It was because of Logan’s death that we always made sure to hit up card games that the Cartel owned, hitting them where it hurt with their finances and trying to keep a low profile.
But apparently being a card shark and a mafia boss’s wife wasn’t going to be the low profile.
I waited for Dante to fall asleep before slipping out of bed, tapping my phone and seeing it was almost 4AM.
“Please forgive me for this.” I mutter, unplugging his phone that was only on 2%.
It would be dead before I left the house and let him sleep in and throw off some of his schedule. Giving us just a bit more time to be on our own.
Dante was involved with the Cartel because of me in a way that made me feel guilty and I needed to set this all right. Sure, he had his own business with them but our engagement party had been shot up because my friends and I wanted revenge.
Men think it’s their job to get vengeance but getting even with someone is something anyone could do.
It was supposed to be a five day trip in Vegas.
If we could meet with the Cartel boss today before Dante got there it could help us be a step ahead and maybe keep my future husband out of the scandal I had firmly put us in.
How I was going to do that hadn’t been ironed out which was why the girls planned to get to Vegas early and an operation to lose the guards was in full swing.
Sammie and Tessa had lost their guards the night before, thanks to a lot of partying and crowds surging out of the bars. They had already made it to the jet where they were spending a few hours sleeping off hangovers before getting new ones.
Madeline had hacked into the phones of a few people, pulling a bunch of guards for a security issue at Dante’s club giving me and her a way to the jet to meet our friends.
Her guards were distracted and the men that usually guarded our penthouse were all pulled thinking that Dante could watch over me.
Poor Dante.
Becca was supposed to seduce Francesco and slip a sleeping pill into his drink so she could escape the devils clutches but a quick glance at my phone showed that she hasn’t texted back yet and was therefore a wildcard.
And I hate wildcards.
I still manage to escape the building easier than I should be able to. Dante’s guards never checked in when they got the text, following orders like well trained machines but leaving weaknesses in the building.
When Dante becomes the Don the security will need to be tightened so I don’t become a widow in the first year of marriage.
I blink, stopping as I thought about how I was caring for Dante.
How I wanted this marriage, this relationship with him. I knew my whole life that I would have an arranged marriage but now that it was happening with the right person I was suddenly thinking how my destiny had landed me right where I wanted to be.
Swallowing, I pulled out my phone knowing I shouldn’t be texting Dante so soon but the guilt of tricking him and the feeling of missing him after only being gone for a few minutes overwhelmed me.
I can’t wait to marry you. If you keep tempting me we might need to make a trip to Elvis
It was flirty and it felt nice to flirt with my fiancée.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t lose his mind when he woke up and found out that I was already in Vegas.
Why did I care so much?
Maybe because my friends and I had gotten ourselves into this mess and I didn’t want to have him clean it up for us. It wasn’t supposed to get so serious. We just wanted a bit of revenge.
Who knew we’d be so good at it?
I slipped into the taxi that I hailed, rubbing my forehead as I drove towards Logan thinking about how things were going to eventually come out and wondering what that meant for the rest of my life.
Dante seemed like the type who would want to fix all the problems. He wanted to be the man who was the head of his daily life and I wasn’t sure what going behind his back to deal with the Cartel situation would mean for him.
My parents always had said marriage was hard work but I didn’t realize it would be so many emotions, so many decisions. And I wasn’t even married yet.
“Miss?”
I opened my eyes, realizing we had arrived.
Moving out of the taxi, I grabbed my bags, heading over to where I would be boarding the jet with my friends.
“We need to go, Ilaria. NOW!”
Looking up I watched Becca barreling towards me, reaching out with one hand as she pulled me along at her full out running pace.
Our bags bounced behind us as we reached the tarmac and towards the jet that I was once more taking the liberty of borrowing.
Sorry papa.
Her eyes swept around to Sammie and Tessa asleep on the bed and Madeline on her laptop, tapping away as she probably put our plans into motion. Becca threw me forward as she moved towards the pilot, barking orders that we had to leave now.
“What the fuck is going on?”
I looked at Becca, the way she pushed her blonde hair away as she bit her lip, eyes wild as she grimaced.
This wasn’t good.
Becca was usually the calm, cool and collected one. The one who had her shit together when she should be the one who had it all falling apart around her.
To see her unraveling like this was freaking me out.
“Francesco wouldn’t drink anything I gave him. Or eat anything. He knows about the way I mix things so he has been very cautious.” Becca bit her lip, looking at me like she was about to tell me something that was bad…very bad., “So I had to use other…methods.”
My head tilts as we sit down next to each other. My heart is beating as I worry about the bodies we might be leaving behind.
I don’t want to make my friends’ killers.
How am I going to explain to Dante that my friend killed his cousin?
“What other methods, Becs?”
“He wants to fuck me.” She says it like it’s disgusting, which to Becca it probably is.
There hasn’t been anyone since Logan and in her mind she never wants anyone else. She doesn’t see the whole life before her. She’s stuck in the past that none of us have been able to get her out of.
The way she swallows, tucking her hand behind her ear like she can’t quite believe what she’s about to say, “So I seduced him. Got him into my bed…where he is now.”
“In your bed how, Becca?”
She killed him. She killed him and it’s my fault. Dante is going to find his cousin dead and know that it’s my fault.
This is definitely not the new start I was talking about.
“He’s currently bound because I told him I was into rope play…and I gagged him.” My eyes widen and she groans, “Oh fuck he’s going to kill me.” her head hits her hands as I stare at her, feeling the way that my lips pull into a smirk.
At least he’s not dead.
As we take off I can’t help but start laughing thinking Francesco, serious and intense bound and gagged in Becca’s bedroom. Becca who has all white silk sheets and sheer canopies having tattooed Francesco naked and bound, tied up for someone to find.
He was going to leave a trail of bodies.
I wish I could text Dante to take a picture for me.
She looks at me like I’m crazy as we start to rise up in the air. And maybe I am because as soon as Dante finds out that Francesco was bound and gagged he’s going to understand that I left him on purpose.
“Do you want to see a picture?”
Becca pulls out her phone as she shows me a zoomed in image of Francesco on his knees.
What looks like a pair of yellow lace panties are in his mouth, a silk cord from a robe holding them in. His eyes are slits, the anger oozing off of him as the ropes are twirled between the tattoos of his torso, his hands behind his back, attached to what I see are ropes that go up his legs to his ankles.
Her bed of white silk with heart shaped pink pillows, trimmed in lace are such a distinct look with the mafia enforcer against them.
“I told him the only way I would blow him was if he was tied up. Men will do anything to get their dicks wet.”
But Becca is protecting Francesco.
I can tell from how she cropped the photo so I can’t see all of him. She wants that piece to herself and I don’t comment on it. Becca hasn’t wanted anyone since Logan and as much as I’d like to tell her that Francesco is a made man in the mafia and probably the worst sort of person to be attracted to, I won’t steal whatever sense of joy or attraction she feels for him.
It’s only 6AM and I’m sure that we are running on a shorter time table than originally planned now. But there is nothing to be done about that. We’ll get to Vegas and this will all have to work out.
There is no other choice but this working out.