Chapter 11
Mario
The table sat thirty. A dozen chairs each squeezed together on the long sides while three odd chairs graced each end.
My father, in typical fashion, set himself in the king’s chair nearest the center of the dozen facing the best view.
Opposite him was one of his blander political allies, but the far ends were reserved for his primary foes or bitterest allies.
Quadrants were drawn. My father clustered useful allies or assets nearest to him, staggered between guests of varying power or beauty.
His counterpart across the table was sandwiched between their rival’s wife, a formidable force in her own right, and the wife of a wealthy businessman.
The rival on his far right held court with a race car driver and a leading fashion house maven.
Flanking them were two men of high status.
That would be a boring conversation, but endlessly fruitful for them, no doubt.
On the opposite end, were men of infinitely more power.
Don Manca leading the charge with a wealthy Greek financier at his side.
With a deft move, I captured the card at Don Manca’s right hand, and placed my card next to Allie’s place on the corner.
The poor soul who’d lost his card was stuck next to Dianora.
Between the antipasto and primo, I collected Allie’s hand and pulled it to my lips.
The ring on her finger was warm as my kiss brushed it.
I lingered there, savoring her skin and the beauty that was my bride.
As I did, I played with her fingers, positioning them so the table would glimpse the gold adornment on her left hand.
“You’re being obvious,” Allie noted.
“I am?”
She nodded, a smile playing on her lips. “I’m beginning to think you plan farther ahead than I do.”
If she only knew. “It’s called plotting against enemies. And I’m very good at it.”
The words carried across the table, and Dianora’s eyes narrowed.
“What he isn’t good at is honoring contracts.”
Her words carried, creating little ripples of reaction in their wake. She pointedly toyed with a large diamond ring on her finger I hadn’t noticed before.
Allie leaned to me and quietly asked, “What did she say?”
“Does your lady friend not understand Italian? How… rustic.” Dianora smiled and switched to Greek to address the financier. “To think, Americans go their entire lives learning only one language. It puts them at a disadvantage, don’t you agree?”
Once she convinced the man to be her accomplice, she shot a barb in Allie’s direction, switching between languages with ease. “Do you know any German? French? Russian perhaps? Or even the lovely Greek language this esteemed friend of our families speaks?”
The man smiled at her compliment.
“She’s mocking me, isn’t she?” Allie’s whispered question didn’t beg for an answer.
Dianora laughed and whispered to her friend.
He piped up, “Charles the Fifth was once rumored to say, ‘If I had to speak with God, I would do so in Spanish, because the language of the Spaniards radiates seriousness and majesty; if I speak with friends, it is in Italian, because the language of the Italians is intimate; if I need to flatter someone, in French, because there is nothing more flattering than their language.’ But it was Marcus Aurelius who said, ‘If the Gods speak, they will surely use the language of the Greeks.’”
Dianora beamed. “Such brilliant phrases. I only know a quaint one my father spoke often. ‘Wife and oxen from your own country.’ All else brings trouble.”
Don Manca cleared his throat and spoke in his heavily accented Gallurian dialect. “Mario, tell that Tuscan bitch to shut up and pass the bread.” Then he switched to English. “Speaking of oxen, my grandson’s wife is an animal doctor.”
Nervously, Allie confirmed to the curious guests that yes, she was a licensed veterinarian and fielded a follow-up question with ease.
“Was that how you met? Tending to a beast’s injuries?” Dianora skewered me with her glare.
Allie paled and shot a panicked glance at me, giving our secrets away.
“We met when I stole her cab.”
Her eyes dropped to her plate, but she smiled. “It was a ride share. And I don’t know how you ended up at the same destination.”
“He wouldn’t take me where I wanted to go. Claimed he couldn’t reset the route.”
“Really?”
“It’s true.”
Her little huh of surprise was cute. “Someone stood up to you?”
“No, he was too panicked to think of anything else. I’m lucky he was so flustered.”
“I stole your grandmother’s best milk cow and five goats. I ransomed them back to her father to buy her hand in marriage.”
Allie laughed and smiled at Don Manca. “That’s so… roguish. And, sweet. I see where he gets his behavior from.” Her eyes drifted to me, and I was caught in their colors.
Mostly, they picked up the pale, earthy green of her dress. My heart drowned out the conversation around us. My senses were tuned solely to her.
The service setting down the tiny servings of cheese and fruit startled me.
“That’s all it took? A stolen car?” The Greek asked.
“No, we… later we attended an opera performance.” Allie’s amusement almost gave her lie away.
“And a masquerade,” I added.
“That mask was so sexy.” Allie traced my face where the half-mask had ended. Her finger drifted down to my lips. “And we kissed.”
“Yes.” The memory of her lips trembling against mine transfixed me, bewitched me. It entangled me in spells I had no defenses for. “That is when I decided to make you my queen.”
“Lovely, but a bit sudden, no? I mean last week your father was in talks with my father to finalize our engagement contract.”
Dianora’s words and the way she rolled her left hand in the air to show off the diamond on her finger silenced one half of the table. They’d traveled far enough that my father cut off his conversation mid-sentence and glared down the expanse. But it didn’t land on her. It landed on Allie and me.
Whispers started up in the background. Little titters built into the glamour of wicked birds who valued gossip over substance.
Allie’s eyes went wide and moisture flooded the edges.
I needed to halt the damage before she bolted.
She had that look—one of utter devastation, and terror.
I stood up, holding my hand out for hers to hold.
Once I was sure of my grip, I spoke loud enough for the entire room could hear my words clearly as I spoke them in English, then repeated in Italian for their benefit.
“I am my own man. I do not need my father’s guidance to choose a bride.
” To Allie, I spoke more softly, “I have chosen you. There is no other woman for me, for as long as live.”
My grandfather’s voice cut through the tension, “Dio li fa e poi li accopia.” God makes them, then joins them. I was uncertain he meant well by that because it was commonly reserved for ill-fated couples. But the tension broke with laughter, and there were toasts to our union.
In the furor, Dianora’s cousin, Leandro, leaned over her chair, whispered in her ear, then disappeared.
Much later, I snuck Allie up the back stairs so we could retire. As I stepped into the foyer, Leandro rushed from the shadows. But his knife wasn’t aimed at me, he targeted Allie.
When I promised to protect her with my life, I meant it.
His arm swept out as I shoved her behind me.
It left me vulnerable, but his strike swung wide, still on target for Allie.
I blocked the initial thrust and tied up his arm.
If this were Ringo, he’d drop the knife into his other hand and I’d have left my back exposed.
But Leandro was an amateur. The blow I’d braced for didn’t come.
Another shadow rushed forward. I lost ground quickly as Leandro panicked.
As Loppa crashed into us, a sharp searing pain shot from my wound, and I crumbled to the ground.
Luckily, Loppa was almost the same size as Dianora’s hulking cousin, and he was faster.
He broke our attacker’s hold almost immediately.
Leandro, sensing the odds had shifted drastically, ran toward the main stairs and slid down the rail with Loppa hot on his heels.
It had only been seconds, and I was spent. My breaths were jagged and raw. Between the stars in my vision, Allie stirred.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She groaned a little, but rallied. “I’m fine, just…
jostled. Oh my God, are you hurt?” She scrambled to my side and checked me for injury.
Her frantic motions stilled as her hand touched the patch of blood soaking into my shirt.
“Damn it. I think there’s a small wound dehiscence on this end.
Tell me that doctor left his suture kit. ”
“I don’t know.”
“Fuck!” She pressed harder against my injury. “Where’s Loppa?”
She’d just finished cursing again when he stomped up the stairs. “I lost him, boss.”
“Check on Don Manca.” I gritted out.
“He is well, I was in his room when I heard the struggle.”
“Is there anything I can use to stitch him up again?” Allie held my wound with one hand and unbuttoned my shirt with the other.
“The doctor left supplies.”
“Okay, I need somewhere…not here.” Her fingers were gentle against my chest. “Can you move without pulling anything else loose? I’m going to have you use your shirt to hold things in place until I can see better.” She turned away from me. “Loppa, are you okay to pick him up?”
“Yes, Signora Valentini.”
“On three.”
We ended up in our suite. Allie checked the wound, cleaned the area and checked for damage. She chose to add what she referred to as a “zipper” to close the end that had torn open.
As she worked, my grandfather peered over her shoulder. His eyes met mine. The corner of his mouth curved upward. Then he shocked the hell out of me. “Signora Allie, would you like to learn a language that witch and her soon-to-be-dead cousin will never know?”
Allie paused. “Depends. Is he going to stay alive long enough for me to get the first lesson?”
Don Manca laughed long and hard at that.
“With your help, I’m certain he will. First lesson, I am, Aiaiu.
Grandfather. When you are around family, this family, you will call me that.
‘Nonno’ if there are people who aren’t in this circle, sì?
” He paused as Allie blushed. When he spoke again, he raised his voice.
“That includes nosy fathers who stand behind doorways.”
My father stepped into the open. “How is he doing?”
“No thanks to you, he lives,” Don Manca said.
“I was trying to stop the animosity between our families.” Father fired back.
Allie nervously packed the kit she’d disassembled for my care. I caught her hand so she wouldn’t flee. “Wait. Please?”
Grandfather continued berating my father. “By selling him like a cow? Now he’s hunted because you meddled.”
“Aiaiu,” I cautioned him to speak kinder to my father.
Logistically, it had been a sound tactic.
But he should have asked me before making arrangements.
“Allie, I need to speak to them about things you shouldn’t know.
It is for your safety that I can’t include you.
I promise I will not talk around you, or about you. ”
She nodded, but tugged her hand away. Its loss left me wanting.
I quickly laid out the problems I’d found.
“Adelmo turned down an offer of money to bail him out.
He wanted his operation in the States only and wished for his family to leave him out of the global issues.
But his father was not in agreement. His stipulation was for Dianora to marry someone from one of the leading families.
Then she could manage her assets through proxy if she wanted, but not as an heir to the company.
“Adelmo thought his father was right to marry her into another family to protect her share. I don’t think she or her father knows that. But also, I don’t think either of them know their father is making bad decisions for both of them.
“I spoke with Edward in Las Vegas. Father, you remember him, the real estate investor you were so keen to work with last year?”
“I remember.”
“He gave me information that Don Conti has sold five family estates in the last year. His bank in Cyprus owes over 120 million in fines. The noose is tightening on him.”
Don Manca’s face turned grim. “When was this fine?”
“September of last year,” I said.
“That’s eight of our compatriot’s targeted.” He fixed his gaze on my father. “And you? Any nooses?”
“None. I know the laws.”
“Let’s hope you know the laws,” Grandfather sniped back.
My father’s tone sharpened. “If you and your family weren’t always killing everyone, I wouldn’t be in the crosshairs at all. If anyone has a noose around their neck, it is you.”
Grandfather frowned. “He still blames me for your mother’s death.”
The tendons in Father’s neck tightened and stood out, but otherwise, he remained calm. “I know you didn’t plant that bomb. But your enemies did.”
“And you court them. Dangle my grandson out as bait for them to devour whole.”
I quickly switched back to English. “Enough! I’ve said my part.” I studied my wife who had moved to the far side of the room to study the wallpaper. “Allie, I am so grateful you’re with me. Very grateful.”
She studied my father and grandfather before coming closer. “I think you both need to let him rest.”
Grandfather kissed her cheek before he exited.
My father lingered. He studied the lattice of tiny plastic zip ties now holding my wound together. He turned to Allie. “You did this?”
“Yes. It’s a becoming common practice for dogs. There’s talk of using it on horses soon. But for people, it is quite common. You’ll note I couldn’t use it on the smaller section of the wound where the knife cut upward on its way out. But that part is healing well on its own.”
Father turned white.
Allie noticed and pulled a chair behind him. He sat, almost bonelessly.
“Twice. You were almost killed twice.”
He spoke English for Allie’s sake. But I wasn’t going to be as kind and switched so only my father could understand. “Tonight, I wasn’t the target. My wife was.”
His eyes met mine. In their depths was fear and a grief he’d never gotten over.
I was a bit too young to understand it all at the time, but the way he shut down after she died hurt me harder than losing my mother did.
Now I finally understood how he survived.
I felt it in my heart. I’d been the cold, calculating shadow of my father for so long, just a few short days with Allie opened a door I barely remembered.
If my father loved my mother half as much, and if she had brought half as much light to his world, losing her must have broken him. As losing Allie would likely break me.
I was only beginning to know her and was already drowning.