Chapter 4
FOUR
Lissia
Marchello opened the door, and I froze in disbelief.
Is this a dream? Even worse, is he giving me back?
“Lissia.” My mother stormed through the door and pulled me into a long, comforting embrace. “Dear God, baby girl! What were you thinking?”
“Mom.” I held onto her. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” She let go of me and pushed her dark sunglasses to the top of her head to get a good look at me with her overly dramatic eyeliner eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I took her arm in mine. “What about you? I heard you moved back in with Dad.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She glared at Marchello. “I don’t know whether to thank you or smack you for summoning me here like a common criminal.”
“Rosalie.” Marchello kept his voice calm. “I realize not hearing from your daughter was stressful for you, but as you can see, she’s okay.”
“Okay?” My mom grabbed my chin and tilted my face. “Where did you get that bruise? Did he do this to you?”
I shook my head. “Marchello would never do that to me.”
As furious as I could make Marchello, he would never hurt me the way Danny did.
“I didn’t do that.” Marchello took my hand and brought me to his side. “The arms dealer your ex-husband promised your daughter to did.”
“I don’t know what Gian was thinking with all of that.” She turned her attention back to me. “What were you thinking?”
“Which time?” I asked. “When Marchello took me, or when Danny intercepted me, or when Marchello kidnapped me again?”
“I have a few errands to run.” Marchello motioned toward the sitting room. “Rosalie, why don’t you have a seat while I take a few minutes of your daughter’s time?”
“Don’t be long,” my mother said. “You’ve had her for weeks. It’s my turn now.”
“Of course.” Marchello nodded. “I’ll have my men knock when it’s time to take you home.”
“I’m not leaving without Lissia,” my mother said.
“Mom.” I pointed to the other room. “Give me a minute and then I’ll explain everything.”
“You better.” She stormed into the other room. “Worrying me like that. Running off with a hot, dangerous mafia boss.”
“Ma!” I looked at Marchello. “Sorry.”
“She’s not wrong.”
“You did this for me? You brought my mother here.”
The enormity of the situation hit me all at once. He didn’t have to do this for me. That was out of character for him. Wasn’t it?
“I wanted you to have a chance to visit with her before we left for Florida.”
“That’s what you said I couldn’t tell anyone.”
“You can’t tell her,” he said, his voice lowered. “Do you understand?”
“I won’t.” He had my word. As much as I wanted to tell my mother everything, I wouldn’t betray Marchello.
“Have a good visit.” He placed his palm on my cheek. “There’s a pitcher of mimosas and a platter of fruit and cheese in the mini-fridge behind the bar.”
“Thank you.” I gently kissed him, taking his hands in mine. “Everything is going to be okay.”
“When you say it, I almost believe it.” He pressed his lips to mine, taking his time kissing me. “I want to believe it.”
The slow, soft action ignited a burning passion deep within my soul.
“Lissia!” my mother screeched.
“I’m coming.” I rolled my eyes and let go of his hands. “Thank you.”
“Have a good visit.” He turned and opened the door, nodding into the entryway to the two large and scary men standing there. “They will be right out here if you need anything.”
“Hi guys.” I smiled at them.
They didn’t acknowledge me as Marchello joined them. They must have gotten word that I was a flight risk.
“Tough crowd.” I shut the door behind Marchello and took a deep breath, preparing myself for my mother’s interrogation.
When I entered the room, she was gazing out at the Manhattan skyline. I couldn’t believe she was here.
“Trouble always seems to find you, doesn’t it?” She didn’t look at me. “Marchello Accetti?”
“Mom, before you say anything, I want you to know I’m not a prisoner. I agreed to stay here with him, but I’m free to go if I choose to.” I took a breath. “I don’t choose to.”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“What?” I ran my hand through my hair.
“You heard me.”
“Do you want a mimosa?” I needed a drink for this conversation. “We have snacks too.”
I went behind the bar and took out the pitcher and the fruit platter from the refrigerator. As I set them on the counter, she sat across from me. I grabbed two flutes from underneath the bar, then poured drinks into the glasses.
“Don’t ignore the question,” she said.
“I was prepared to tell you how I ended up with Marchello.” I sipped my drink. “Can’t that be enough?”
“He took you out of the dealership at gunpoint. Is that true?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“What does that mean?”
“If Marchello hadn’t taken me that night, I might be married to Danny right now.”
“Don’t be dramatic.” She chugged her mimosa. “I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
“How were you going to stop it?”
She couldn’t have stopped it. I was convinced of that after my father betrayed me and sent Danny for me at the safe house. My father was determined to make this alliance happen, no matter the cost.
“Daddy isn’t going to listen to either of us. He’s bent on this deal with Danny, and I can’t go back. Danny will kill me or worse.” A chill ran down my spine at the things he threatened me with. “If he finds out I’ve been with Marchello, this isn’t going to end well for me.”
“I knew it.” She poured herself another drink. “You fell for his brooding eyes and dark personality.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Yes, it was.” She bit into a grape. “I did the same thing when I was your age.”
“No.” I gripped the base of my glass. “Marchello is nothing like Daddy.”
“Are you sure about that?” She set her glass down. “Oh, baby girl, what do you think Marchello is going to have to do to keep you safe? What do you think Nico is going to do to keep his son out of harm’s way?”
“I try not to think about that.”
The last time I tried to intervene, I put us all in danger. I had to let Marchello handle this situation now.
“You’re going to have to think about it, because a storm is coming. They are all going to fight with everything they have.”
“Maybe not.”
She reached across the bar and took my hand. “Either the man you love is going to kill your father or your father is going to kill the man you love.”
“The man I…love?”
“Don’t pretend you’re in denial.” She squeezed my hand. “You were determined from the moment you met him. I saw it in your eyes at the dealership that night. You saw what you wanted and you went for it. Now, you’re stuck between him and your family.”
“Dad put me in this position when he ordered me to marry a madman.” I let go of her. “He had to know I would act out.”
“I don’t think he thought you would run into the arms of his enemy.” She pressed her lips together. “He was distraught over that.”
“He didn’t try to negotiate for me. Instead, he started a mob war.” I waved my hands in front of me. “Why are you defending him?”
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m on your side.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.” I held back my tears. I had been doing such a good job of suppressing the reality of the situation. “When Daddy said I had to marry Danny, I was on my own. When I tried to negotiate a truce, he sent Danny for me. When Danny took me into the woods, he threatened me, knocked me out…shot at me.”
The damp and musty smell of that disgusting cabin filled my mind, and my stomach retched. The dust and dirt on the furniture that I had slept on still made my skin crawl.
“I’m sorry. I never wanted any of this for you.” She patted my shoulder. “You’ve been through so much, and I wanted to be there for you, but you know how difficult your father can be. I broke down and he forced me back into his house. When I found out Danny had you, I got word to Marchello. That’s how he found you.”
“I know you’re in a tough spot, but I’ve made my choice. I don’t trust Daddy. He’ll hand me over to Danny the first chance he gets.”
“You’re right.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I should have done a better job of protecting you. It’s just that I’ve been under your father’s thumb for so long. He and I are toxic together. Sometimes, we lose track of who we’re hurting.”
“Marchello has been protecting me for weeks. He will make sure Danny doesn’t hurt me.”
“But at what cost to everyone?”
I already tried to intervene, and all it did was cause me pain. I learned my lesson. I would leave the mafia war to Marchello and my father.
“I can’t control what happens,” I said. “I thought I could, but it blew up in my face and proved that Dad is not interested in stopping any of this.”
“He wants Nico’s territory, and I don’t think he’s going to stop until he has it.”
“Or one of them ends up dead.”
“I thought when I divorced your father, I would be out of this.” She took a long sip from her flute. “I had hoped that by going to college, you would involve yourself in a career and you wouldn’t be burdened with who your father is.”
“The only way that could have happened is if Dad wasn’t using me as a bargaining chip in an alliance.”
That wasn’t true. I was always meant to be in Marchello’s world. There was no going back now.
“How are you going to get out of this?” my mother asked. “I don’t see your father backing off. I tried to reason with him, but he won’t hear me.”
“I don’t know if I can get out of this, but I’m not leaving Marchello.”
“You have fallen in love with him.”
I nodded.
“Does he feel the same way?”
“We’ve had so much going on.” I finished my drink. “We don’t really talk about our feelings.”
“That’s not healthy.” She tucked my hair behind my ear. “Don’t make the mistakes that I made. I accepted your father for who he was and never questioned how he felt about me. Even after you were born, I knew I had let things get too far. By the time I realized there was nothing between us, it was too late.”
“Marchello and I aren’t like that.”
“I’m not trying to compare him to your father, but men like him… They’re damaged to some degree. You have to know that. They couldn’t do the things they do in the name of their business and not be twisted.”
“Marchello is haunted by his mother’s death. Do you remember what happened to Julia?”
“How could I not? Everyone was on edge. I didn’t want to get into a car for months. I was so afraid whoever came after Nico would target your father. You and I went to a private island in Greece for a few weeks until things settled down.”
“I thought that was a vacation.”
“It was for you, but your father was trying to protect us.”
“You don’t think Dad had anything to do with that?”
“Killing Julia?” She shook her head. “He’s a brutal man with a mean streak, but he wouldn’t have done that. Not back then. Today, I’m not so sure.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Time has changed him. Working with a man like Danny Collins and his associates opens up a whole new set of rules. There are no boundaries anymore.”
I put a piece of cheese on a cracker and nibbled on it, but due to the circumstances, I didn’t have much of an appetite.
“You should tell Marchello how you feel.”
“I don’t think he’s ready to hear it.” I took another bite of the cracker. “We have too much going on.”
“You’re always going to have too much going on.”
“I hope our lives get a little less complicated.”
Things were probably going to get far worse before we could move toward our happily ever after, but I wasn’t a quitter. I would stand by Marchello’s side until we were out of the storm.
“I’m glad you’re here.” I smiled. “I’ve been so worried about you.”
“You’ve been worried about me?” She tapped her nails against the counter. “You have no idea what it’s like not knowing where your child is or if she’s okay. Don’t ever do that to me again.”
The upcoming trip to Florida came to mind. She wouldn’t know where I was going to be.
“You say you’re not a prisoner.”
“I’m not.”
“Then come back to my apartment with me,” she said. “I can’t leave you here. Marchello could send a guard with you.”
“You have to trust me.” I came around from behind the bar and faced her. “We both know the next few weeks won’t be easy. If I’m out of touch, it doesn’t mean I’m not okay.”
“Lissia—”
“Mom.” I held up my hand. “I’m not going to leave Marchello. He needs me.”
“He’s going to get you killed.”
“He’s going to keep me safe. If I leave with you, Dad will get to me.” I looked at the floor. “Danny will find me.”
“You’re right,” she whispered. “Your best bet is Marchello.”
Someone knocked at the door, and dread came over me. My mother must have sensed it because she pulled me into an embrace.
“You have to go.” I hugged her. “The longer you’re here, the easier it will be for Dad to find out.”
“We’re going to see one another soon, right?” She continued to hold me. “You’ll stay safe?”
“I promise.” My vow was uncertain. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Okay.” She took my hand and led me to the door. “Tell Marchello I’ll kill him if anything happens to you.”
“I’ll pass along the message.”
“I’m not going to say goodbye.”
I nodded.
“I love you, baby girl.” She pulled me into an embrace. “Always.”
“I love you too, Ma.” I held onto her, knowing that it could be a while before we saw one another. “Be careful.”
I trusted Marchello with my life, but I couldn’t help feeling unsettled. Our trip to Florida weighed heavily on my mind. Would the men there help us, or could we be walking into a trap?
I released her and opened the door—I couldn’t prolong this any longer or I would never let her go. She smiled at me through teary eyes as she stepped onto the elevator with her guards. Once the doors closed, I let out the breath I had been holding, then shut the penthouse door to get away from my guards’ scrutinizing glances.
Why did watching my mother leave feel so final?