Chapter 48 – Alessandro
T he elevator opened to the penthouse apartment. I barreled through the businessman’s front doors, not bothering with the courtesy of knocking.
Baldwin clicked on his laptop. Serena nursed a drink by the large window that offered a panoramic view of the city. And Penelope….
“Where the hell is my wife?” I shouted.
Baldwin looked up from his work, shot our sister a pointed look, and then started typing again. “This one is all her.”
I marched over and slammed the computer lid closed, narrowly missing his fingers. “You said you would keep an eye on them,” I snarled.
“I did. And when these two went overboard to escape the raid, I took a life raft for them myself,” Baldwin shot back. “They were safe and sound right up until we docked.”
“And then?” I growled.
“Sorellina,” Baldwin sang out. He picked up his phone and began to tap a message.
Cristo santo, he couldn’t put work away for five minutes!
I rounded on Serena. “Where is she?”
Serena threw back her drink. “Gone. And good riddance to her too.”
Time blurred as I marched forward. Without thinking, I grabbed my sister’s shoulders and slammed her into the window. The cocktail glass fell, shattering with a deafening finality.
In the background, Baldwin muttered. The sound of his chair scraping on the floor, of his hurried steps, sounded, but I focused on my prey.
“Where is my wife, sorella?” I growled.
“She needs time and space.” Serena didn’t fight me, but there was a dark satisfaction in her gaze. “She left you, Sandro. Just like they all do.”
I shook her. “You tell me where she is—”
Baldwin ripped me back, leaning right into my face. “Don’t lay a finger on her.”
I was about to shout I would never, but I stopped. Was I the sort of monster who hurt his own flesh and blood? What was this madness consuming me?
Leaning around him, I tried a different tactic. “The Feds are looking for her—for us. She’s not safe.”
“Safer away than with you,” Serena spat.
I lunged, but Baldwin shoved me back. His fist snaked out and clipped my jaw for good measure.
Rubbing my face, I circled my brother.
“It’s what you fucking deserve,” Serena hissed, heading back to the kitchen. “You are cold and unfeeling, Sandro. No wonder she didn’t want to stay.”
But I wasn’t. Couldn’t they see that?
I stopped, dropped my guard, and surrendered to my brother. He didn’t move for the strike, merely watched me.
“I have to bring her back,” I insisted.
“Why? So you can punish her?” Baldwin cocked his head.
“No, he’ll just lock her up and not give her the time of day,” Serena added unhelpfully. Two large ice cubes rattled in a new cup, and she splashed some of Baldwin’s expensive whiskey over them.
I collapsed into a couch. “I fucked up.”
Silence pulsed in the room.
My confession was the last thing my siblings expected.
I ran a hand through my hair, tugging at the roots. The pain centered me.
Baldwin’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, that’s a first.”
“Save it,” I muttered, raking my hands through my hair. “I need to find her before they do.”
Serena sauntered back, drink in hand, studying me with newfound interest. “What exactly did you do, Sandro?”
The weight of my mistakes pressed down on my shoulders. “I kept her at arm’s length. Made her feel like a prisoner in our own home.” I looked up at my siblings, the truth clawing its way out of me. “I was afraid.”
"The great Alessandro Mancini, afraid?" Baldwin scoffed, but his eyes held something else. Understanding, perhaps. “I thought Papà beat that out of us.”
Apparently not.
“Of what?” Serena pressed, her earlier venom softening.
“Of feeling too much.” The words hung in the air, raw and exposed. “Of losing her like I lost Elena.” The mention of that name still cut like a blade after all these years. I closed my eyes briefly, letting the pain wash through me rather than fighting it. Perhaps that was my first mistake with Penelope—trying to bury the past instead of letting her see those wounds. “Then I saw a path to fix it. I made her my right hand.”
“Let me guess, you fucked that up too,” Serena drawled. She came over and offered me the drink.
I downed it. The cold fire slid down my throat, burning but not numbing the pain radiating through my chest.
My siblings were witness to my failure. There was no stopping the feelings from showing.
They’ll see me as weak for loving my wife.
“Call it what you want,” I said, setting the empty glass on the coffee table. “But I need her back.”
Baldwin crossed his arms. “She left you a note.”
Serena groaned. “I told you that in confidence.”
My head snapped up. “What? Where?”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. I snatched it from his hand before he could change his mind, unfolding it with trembling fingers.
Alessio,
You made me your queen on a chessboard where I could only move in the directions you permitted. I need to remember who I am without your rules.
Don't look for me.
Penelope
The paper crumpled in my fist. “This tells me nothing.”
“It tells you everything," Serena said, her voice softer now. “She’s suffocating.”
That made two of us. How could doing the right thing—what I thought was the right thing—create such a disaster?
“I gave her power. I brought her into the business—”
“Loving her isn’t weakness. It’s what dear old Papà never understood,” Baldwin said quietly, surprising me. He sank into the chair across from me, his perpetually busy hands finally still. “It's the way you did it. Or didn't do it.”
I looked up, meeting my brother’s eyes. For once, they weren’t judging me.
“Of the three of us, Papà messed you up the worst. You locked her in a gilded cage, Sandro,” Serena said, sitting beside me. The hostility had drained from her voice. “Made her your right hand without giving her your heart. What did you expect?”
“I gave her everything,” I argued, but the protest sounded hollow even to my own ears.
“Everything except yourself,” Baldwin countered. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You gave her the mansion, the clothes, the jewelry. You gave her a position in the family business. But you never let her see the man behind the don.”
A hush fell over us like a heavy blanket, stifling even the faintest whisper of sound. Serena approached with the bottle of whiskey, its amber liquid catching the dim light. She poured a generous measure into my glass, the rich scent of oak and smoke filling the air, and offered another to Baldwin. Together, we raised our glasses, the clink of crystal ringing softly in the silence. As the warm, fiery liquid coursed down my throat, the gravity of the situation pressed down on me, enveloping my thoughts in a dense fog.
“Mama told me once that love is the greatest curse a soul can have,” Baldwin said, breaking the silence. “She’d whispered it to me one night after our father beat her so badly she couldn’t leave her bed for a week. I swore then I’d never love like that—destructively, completely. But….” My brother tipped his glass toward me. “Looks like you’re cursed, brother.”
I was.
By trying not to be like my father, I destroyed one marriage and was about to repeat history with a second.
I’ll be damned before that happens.
“Where would she go?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
“Think,” Serena deadpanned. “Where would she feel safe?”
Serena exchanged a look with Baldwin. My brother sighed. “We’re not telling you unless you promise not to drag her back against her will.”
“I’m trying to protect her,” I growled. “That’s all I’m ever trying to do with any of you.”
“From what? The Feds?” Baldwin scoffed. “Or from making her own choices?”
I slammed my fist on the table. “They’ll use her to get to me. They’ll tear apart everything we’ve built.”
“Oh, shut up!” Serena groaned. “She wants this life, Sandro! She was made to be your queen. So stop fucking screwing it up.”
My heart stuttered. “I can—I can do that. I just need a chance to make this better.”
“Then you know where to look.” Serena rose and went to the cabinet, pulling out another bottle.
As I watched her, knowing that these two understood me better than I did myself, it dawned on me.
“She went home,” I breathed. She’s safe.
Serena shook her head. “The mom’s surgery is in a few days. They didn’t go as far as North Dakota, or wherever in bum-fuck-Egypt they come from.”
“Come with me?” The offer fell from my lips before I had a chance to think it through properly. But it felt right.
“Do you mean that?” Serena pinned me with a look.
“You know he does,” Baldwin snorted. “Quit punishing him and accept, sorellina, before we start another fight.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I have plans with an old friend of mine.” Serena tossed her hair, but I didn’t miss the side look she shot Baldwin.
I didn’t know what that was about, and right now, I couldn’t bring myself to care. Serena didn’t have friends, so I should have been grilling her about this other person. But my focus was otherwise consumed. My sister was a grown woman, and she knew the rules. I had to set my priorities straight. First thing in the morning, I was winning my wife back. I would use tonight to strategize with these two lunatics exactly how that was going to happen.