Chapter 19 Ruby
RUBY
It always feels lonely without Dante, even though there are some of his men and various members of staff in the house and grounds.
I’m just settling into drawing on my tablet while sitting on the sofa—I have a new idea that would make an amazing special edition for a cosy monster romance—
“Get up.”
I look up at Giovanni’s barked order, surprised. He has a gun out, pointed at my side, and my heartbeat spikes.
“What’s happening?”
“You need to go into the garden. There’s an intruder. Now,” he adds abruptly when I don’t instantly comply.
Panic seizes my chest. “Is there an attack? Dante was clear that I should go to the safe room in his office if—”
“Get up. Before I drag you up, little whore,” he hisses. Giovanni lunges and a gun barrel is against my throat before I know what’s happening. “Come quietly, and this will all be over soon. Scream and I’ll kill you right now.”
And that’s when I begin to freak out. Because Giovanni is far bigger than me, and Dante is out, and oh-my-god-oh-my-god. I don’t like this.
I don’t dare test Giovanni’s threat, and I’m frozen.
Could Dante return? No. He left for a meeting ten minutes ago. He’ll be hours yet. And if anyone else comes, who’s to say they’ll even side with me?
“I don’t understand,” I whisper, getting to my feet when he drags me up by one arm, wrenching it painfully. I’m trembling with fear.
“You’re not good enough for him,” he says as he marches me out of the house and into the garden. “Not of his heritage, or standing. What do you bring to this union? Nothing.”
I’m not good enough. Tears of terror and self-pity well up.
It’s exactly as I worried. However hard I work, I’ll never be the sort of wife he needs. Or loves. I’d have settled for being acceptable, but really, I want Dante’s love.
Crave it, in fact.
“Don Angelini is so wrapped up in you he didn’t notice that the ‘threat’ I’ve been telling him about is me, dressed up,” he scoffs. “I needed an imaginary scapegoat to blame when you died.”
Ohhh no. That makes sense. And Dante didn’t realise because he’s focused on external threats to the Angelini family.
I’m not part of his family.
That thought more than any other breaks me apart.
Dante isn’t my real husband. Lucia isn’t my sister-in-law, I’m not an aunt. Dante is far too good for someone like me, and I was fooling myself that I could fit into his life.
That he might come to care about me. Love me, as I do him.
I stop fighting. There’s no point. I just go limp as Giovanni half-drags, half-carries me out into the garden. I guess the cameras have been tampered with or whatever so Dante won’t see this.
Maybe he wouldn’t care, anyway. I’m only his accidental wife.
He could dispose of the bed’s decorative cushions if I’m gone.
“He’ll marry a good, Italian girl who can help him run his business,” Giovanni continues. “Who is from one of the Italian families in Clerkenwell and will solidify his alliances and understand his culture.”
Giovanni is voicing all my secret thoughts of how I’m unworthy.
“Not someone like you, who isn’t part of this community and never will be, and who takes his mind away from his job.”
That’s one of a wife’s duties, isn’t it? To be supportive of her husband’s job. I’m a failure.
“I’m the only one who can see what a disaster this is for Clerkenwell. He wants me to do this, you know?” Giovanni says, and it’s a stab to my heart.
Dante. I tried to be a good wife to you.
Tears are streaming down my face.
It’s not like I could fight him anyway. Giovanni has a gun, I don’t. He’s stronger, and experienced in combat. I’m just a girl who got accidentally married to a mafia don.
Giovanni stops by a high wall that borders… Well, I’m not sure what.
“Walk away,” he orders, pushing me from him, and my mind stutters.
What?
Is Giovanni staging this somehow? Making it look like an intruder caught me from behind as I was in the garden?
If Dante wanted me gone, he’d do it himself, I’m sure of that. And all he has to do is ask for a divorce or wait for the annulment to be granted.
Even if Giovanni is saying he’s doing this for Dante, I don’t believe him. And if Giovanni thinks he knows best about me, he might undermine Dante’s authority on other, more important things.
And that’s what makes me finally decide to fight for my life.
I can’t allow Dante to be betrayed. Giovanni might be correct that Dante deserves a better wife than me, but Giovanni isn’t the one who gets to choose. I’m Dante’s loyal wife until the paperwork says otherwise.
And even then, I think I’ll love that man until I die. At the very least, I want Dante to know that Giovanni isn’t what he says he is.
“No.”
My vision still blurry with tears, I spin on my heel and rush at Giovanni. He’s not going to get away with this without Dante knowing it was him.
And then a shot blasts out, and I fall.