Chapter 16
I feel like I’m going cross-eyed.
Staring down at the seating arrangements that are starting to blur into one image, I sigh and sit back in my chair, my head falling against it in defeat as I close my eyes.
This is exhausting and a bad idea all in one.
I can’t help but feel assured that in some way, shape, or form, this wedding is going to be a cluster fuck and only bring more drama than I ever imagined. I had figured I knew what I was doing by taking on specific tasks for the wedding from Echo, but it’s proving to be worse than I knew. Along with everything I do daily, this has turned out to be something I should have passed to Gio to delegate to someone else. In truth, I thought that the less Echo had to do, the less she would have to worry about Aldo.
Protecting her in my own skewered way since the last time she’d had to see him, she’d had a panic attack.
“Hey.”
Think of the devil.
I look up from my desk to see Echo standing in my office doorway that was open a mere slit. She smiles gently, then enters my office, closing the door behind her. Quiet, I watch her turn back towards me, making me her destination as she walks in my direction. Her wide, curvy hips seem to gently wisp against the material of my oversized shirt she is wearing, alerting me to their presence. Captivating me with the eager swish that they give me with each step. I don’t know what she has up her sleeve, but I still don’t say anything when she reaches me, sitting off to my side on the desk. She leans back on her palms, smirking, and looks down at the seating arrangement on my massive desk.
“Hey,” I mutter.
“Having any luck?”
My hand strokes my chin out of habit, and my elbow rests on the arm of the chair. I look up at her, taking in the beauty I’m enthralled by more daily and sigh. “It’s going to shit.”
She laughs, forcing me to admit that I like the sound of it. I rarely get genuine reactions from Echo. Everything always seems so practiced, learned, and studied. Except for when we’re fucking. Then, and only then, does she seem to let herself go. “Your luck or the seating arrangements?”
She knows what I mean, but she’s trying to start a conversation.
I scoot closer to the desk, my right arm drapes over her thighs, and I look down at the annoying arrangement in front of me. “Assuming the families come, we need enough seating for them, their seconds, and one guard. Some may bring wives or their partners.”
Echo stares down at the model while I look up at her. I steal a chance to stare at her. Sitting this close to her, I notice the tiny freckles that dust across her nose and cheeks that I had never seen before. With her chocolate-colored skin, it’s hard to see them at a distance, but now that I do, I never want to unsee them.
“They’re only allowed one guard?”
Echo turns to look at me, unaware of her current hold on me.
I nod, purposefully turning my attention back to the task at hand. “Yes, Council rules.”
I don’t get it, but it has existed for years. “Rules say that they are allowed one guard inside events that The Council covers, but not how many guests they can bring.”
She makes a face of realization. “I see.”
She looks back down at the chart. “Assuming that everyone is aware of that loophole, you need to separate the families.”
She points at the venue floor plans. “See. Our tables are staggered, but if we sit a family next to people who are not affiliated, it may force them to not only cooperate with The Council’s rules, but they may be more inclined not to bring additional men or have them stationed outside.”
I look down at the chart. Though I doubt anything will force the families to act any better than they should, she has a point. A vast majority of us have legal and illegal ties. While we don’t all get along, we know the burden we carry trying to strengthen our names in our communities by fixing what some of our predecessors left behind.
It’s a smart idea that might work.
“Go on.”
I coax her. My arm that’s slung over her thighs gravitates to her ass, and I squeeze her cheek, then move up to her hip and rub it in a slow caress.
Echo smiles at me. “Not that it will cure any bad blood, but personal thank-you gifts addressed to them may help. Something to say we’re thankful they came to our rushed nuptials.”
“Even the Rossis?”
I ask her.
For a moment, she’s quiet. I sense the turmoil within her until she chuckles, pushing it away. “Even the Rossis. Though I would love to see them dead, we still have to send a message that we’re a united front to them. Any sign of disagreement is a sign of weakness they can use against us.”
Somehow, my pounding head rests right below her breast, and we both still look at the chart. I could stay in this moment as long as life will allow me to. There’s nothing sexual going on right now, but being with Echo feels like enough. “Any other suggestions?”
My question is a joke, but I know that she’ll take it as a challenge.
Echo sighs above me, thinking. “Don’t sit Tanaka next to Petrov. They have bad blood from when Tanaka’s son tried to kidnap Anya.”
She knows about that? Holding in my surprise, I nod my head. Grabbing my pen, I cross off Tanaka’s name from the table next to where Ilya and his family are sitting and write it on another table. “What else?”
If anybody saw me taking suggestions from Echo, they would think I’d lost my mind. But in actuality, she lets information slip whenever I allow my guard to lower with her. For her to know about the brief war between Tanaka and Ilya, she would have needed some intel or had to be in the city then.
“The Chained Disciples are rowdy. They will need to be at a table closest to the back. But to ensure they don’t get offended, give them extra bottles. Also, don’t seat them near any politicians you may have there. You’ll want them near people that they have something in common – Blue-collar people you’ll be inviting. They don’t respect politicians or anyone who didn’t pave their own way.”
I chuckle at the memory of the last time I was with the Disciples. They are rowdy. Kenneth, their leader, is an honorable man but has a beast within him that he never hesitates to unleash. We’re only allies because I introduced him to The Council. His men were trying to establish territory the wrong way, and it would have been inevitable for them to be wiped out.
Their bodies and their loud bikes would have never been discovered.
“Where will The Council sit?”
I look down at the plans and point to our table. “They will evenly sit at our table. Three per side. Shows their support of the union.”
“Ah.”
She massages my shoulder. “Have they ever not approved of one?”
“Yes, a long time ago.”
Quiet stretches for a second. “Yours?”
Of course, she knows about that as well. “Yes, my college girlfriend. I wanted to marry her. Though I’m hardly the first marriage that they’ve denied.”
“You loved her?”
I think about it for a second. Not wondering whether I did love Keyshia or not, but why I allowed them to stop my marriage to her. I knew she wasn’t ready for this life, but I loved the freshness she’d provided whenever I was around her. I had been young and naive and only thinking of securing my future heirs at the time with someone I liked. Someone I could see myself fucking without any brain-altering chemicals and that loved me back more than I deserved.
We would have never made it. I can admit that now.
I would have killed her within the year if I hadn’t gotten her killed. So, instead, I shipped her and her family far away, never looking back.
I look at Echo. “No, I had strong feelings for her, but mostly wanted to protect her.”
“Like me?”
She asks, and I hear the curiosity behind her words.
She knows I want more than to protect her, but we would never say the words to each other. It’s like we’re both consistently going through a battle of emotions. I hate the constant back and forth, but I refuse to show my cards to someone who hasn’t revealed the game that we’re playing.
“Not like you.”
I briefly kiss her thigh. “I was promised to Amelia Rossi at the time.”
Echo stiffens beneath me, and I feel her heartbeat speed up. “Amelia?”
I nod. “Yes. Did you ever meet her?”
Echo scoffs. “Did I? She’s a bitch. As evil as her brothers, if not more.”
“Was.”
We’re both quiet again. I can sense all the questions that Echo wants to ask me, and I want to answer them, but not yet. If she doesn’t already know the details, this will be a story that I tell her at another time.
The story of Amelia Rossi isn’t one I’m proud of, but it has shaped me. I would rather forget the sordid details that are engrained in my memory and that it ever occurred, but that’s not how life is.
“Whatever the circumstance that brought you to me, I’m grateful for it.”
My head lifts, and I stare at her for a second. The earnest look in her eyes tells me she’s not lying to me for the time being.
“I am, too.”
I lean in, kissing her collarbone. “Nothing else?”
She chuckles. “Seat them according to who you think is strongest to weakest. Others may not see it, but they will know.”
I weigh her words, agreeing with them silently. The Council will know. There have been too many times that I’ve outright voiced who I would take care of first in my youth. I hate them all equally, though. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
She smiles down at me, a youthful light in her eyes. “That’s it? No argument?”
From my position, I lay my head down on her cushiony thighs, enjoying the plush thickness that I‘m immersed in. I don’t argue. I know that the families and people will be there because they not only want to see what my wedding will be like, but they want to see me get married.
It’s no secret what happened the last time someone forced my hand in a marriage. And I’m sure they find it ironic that it’s another woman affiliated with the Rossi family.
Above me, Echo’s hands run through my hair, her nails scraping across my scalp in deliberate strokes. If any other woman were doing this, I would think it’s an endearing action, but I can feel the poised restraint in her hands. She probably wants to claw my head off.
That caged, seething fury she has lies just below the surface.
I lift my head and kiss her naked thigh that is exposed past my oversized t-shirt that she’s wearing. “No, no argument. It’s a good plan.”
“Good.”
Echo captures my face between her hands, pulling me into a sitting position. “And now that we know I can have babies, and you can make babies, where do we stand?”
Before I can answer, she leans in to kiss me gently, then pulls back. Guilt for what I’m about to say courses through me for a millisecond. I sit back in the chair, looking up at my future bride. “Where we’ve always stood?”
I’m not sure where this question is supposed to take us. I don’t know what answer she expects.
Echo smirks, but it looks like she’s holding something back. “That’s a start.”
“Is it?”
I sit back in my chair and look up at her. “Were you hoping for something more?”
Confidently, Echo’s foot posts on the arm of my chair, and she leans back. “No, Damiano. I’ll take all I can get from you.”
The way that she says my first name doesn’t sit well with me.
We stare at each other for the longest time, neither moving nor saying anything. The light sounds of a clock somewhere in the office tick, and from where I’m sitting, I can see the cogs in her brain moving, slowly calculating. I want to demand that she tell me what she’s doing or thinking, but I know she won’t. She’s good at deflection. If I get too close to her, she’ll distract me with flirtation and the unsaid promise of a rough fuck that will have me forgetting what I was interested in learning about her. I always give in to my basic primal urges when it comes to her. But it has never stopped me from admiring her tenacity.
She’s so beautiful when she’s conspiring.
She knows that we agreed we wouldn’t have sex until after the wedding. Especially since Benicio said that having sex all the time wouldn’t necessarily mean she would get pregnant. Just that she’d be fucked. Either way, I’m content. He also helped me switch out her birth control pills with placebos that look exactly like the ones she takes without her knowledge.
I’m also unsurprised that she still takes them daily like I wouldn’t know.
“Will you tell me about your mother?”
I bring my attention back to her. The feeling of sharing anything about the only person in my life who loved me beyond themselves makes me selfish. Instead, I exhale a breath. “What will you give me? Will you tell me about the most important person in your life?”
She nods. “What do you want to know about Gaia?”
I chuckle, briefly lowering my tired, heavy head in my hands, then look back up at her.”
No, Bellissima, I mean your child with Aldo.”
On the desk, I see her tense. Her back stiffens for a moment. “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you everything.”
I don’t believe her, and I can tell she knows that. She has her secrets she’s unwilling to let go of, and I will allow it. I see no reason to pressure her into anything when I have multiple men still looking into her.
When the facts line up against the lies, I’m sure she’ll tell me the truth.
“Did your baby die?”
“Yes.”
She shrugs like it doesn’t mean anything to her, but I know that it does from the bitter, nonchalant attitude she gives me. “What was your favorite thing about your mother?”
I think about her question, digging through memories of my mother that I’ve buried because they unearthed emotions I wasn’t permitted to grow up with. “Her laugh.”
I smile at the memory of it. “She had this loud laugh. It was boisterous, almost like a yelp or a scream – Very infectious. Sometimes, when she found something amusing, I wasn’t sure if she was hurt, but then she would keep going, and I would laugh, too.”
The beautiful memory is ruined. “My father hated her laugh. He would tell her it was ugly and unladylike.”
The smile that had spread on Echo’s face at my words disappears when I mention my father, but she frowns with a determined expression after a moment. “She sounds like she was beautiful.”
“She was.”
I used to wish I had gotten more of my mother’s features. Though she was Italian, she had light auburn hair that was almost golden in the sun. Bright, large hazel-blue eyes that showed her every emotion, the will to live life no matter the consequence, and a gaiety that would make anyone feel positive regardless of what they were going through – Everyone except my father.
My mother had been promised to my father in an arranged marriage at seventeen. They had married when she was one day shy of her eighteenth birthday, and according to my uncle, it had been a magnificent wedding. At that time, my father had been in his late twenties, a philander, and had settled down only long enough to get her pregnant. While my mother had held ideals of possibly loving the younger Bianchi brother because he was sweeter on the eyes and smooth, my father had refuted that immediately after marriage.
I recall him relaying to me that he’d told my mother their first child would be a boy or he would kill her for her infidelity. As though he could only make boys. So, when she’d had me, she did her best to keep me away from him until she’d thought to run away.
That consequence had been her death.
I return my attention to Echo, who is staring at me. I clear my throat. “Did you get to hold your baby?”
There’s a shift in her demeanor, and I feel like I scratched the surface of her fa?ade.
Echo stares at me but isn’t looking at me. “I did. When I woke up from my coma, they said that he wasn’t thriving in utero but that they would do what they could for him. Because I was only twenty-four weeks, they wanted me to make it to the third trimester at least to give him a better chance at survival before they induced labor, and they only wanted to induce me if he showed signs of failure.”
I lean forward to study her face when she doesn’t focus on me. The torment I see is undoubtedly genuine, making me feel for her. At such a young age, she had so much ripped from her. And by the man she thought would love her.
Her rage makes sense. She was immersed in reality with an abrupt cruelty.
“What did he look like? Please, don’t say Aldo.”
She doesn’t miss the light joke. Chuckling, she looks at me finally. A quiet moment passes, and she instantly looks away. I want to be angry that she doesn’t want to let me see the real her, but I allow it.
She hasn’t seen the real me.
“Well, I’m not sure, to be honest. He was taken to the NICU right away, and when I finally got to see him, he had so many wires and tubes around him.”
She seems to be reliving her memories with him, and I don’t dare to disturb her. “He had this pudgy little nose and a head full of black hair. It was super straight, but I feel like it would have gotten super curly. I remember I would sit there and count his toes and his fingers over and over. He was so small, way smaller than hi-”
she stops herself. Instantly, I see her wall come back up. Her expression changes to one of immobility, and she looks back up at me. “He was smaller than I expected him to be. He died a couple of days after his birth.”
“My sorries could never be enough to show you how horrible I feel about that.”
Because she’s out of my reach, I place my hand on her foot, which is still plopped on the arm of my chair. “I don’t break promises and promised you that I would help you end the Rossi family.”
She cracks a little and offers a broken smile. “And if The Council won’t allow you to? If they tell you that it’s not sanctioned?”
Padre’s wasn’t.
I sigh. “The Council only involves themself in outright wars. With the Rossi family under attack right now, it will leave little worry if they were to slowly all disappear one by one. A quick investigation will be done and will result in nothing.”
It’s the truth. The Council is filled with old men that are too tired to involve themselves and want to make it home in time to take their Viagra and screw the maid.
“They don’t know who is attacking them?”
Again, I shouldn’t be talking to her about this, but I figure something may come of it. “They don’t have any leads right now. Last I heard, they used their department connections to get any trace.”
“Like the PD? Or FBI?”
She asks. There’s a mocking hint in her tone that almost makes me smile, also.
I nod. “There will always be connections everywhere for people like us.”
She chuckles. “What have your connections told you about me?”
“They’re still searching.”
I give her what I hope is a smug look. “When they return with something, I will let you know.”
“Good. I can’t wait to debunk all of their hard work.”
“You like having secrets?”
She shakes her head slowly. “Quite the contrary, I want to tell you everything. It would alleviate me of so many burdens.”
I doubt that. I know that she lives for the thrill of being secretive. It fills her with a sense of ambiguity and strength that she’s living with something nobody knows. “Why not tell me then, huh?”
I ask her, aware she won’t tell me much.
A dark, threatening silence seems to expand throughout the room as Echo stares down at me from her position on my desk, and then, as if nothing happened, she smiles. “Fine, if you insist. I’ve been killing Tommaso’s men over the last two years.”
We’re both silent. I sit back, gauging any change in her character or face to determine if she’s telling the truth or playing with me. She leans back on the palms of her hands. There’s a slight lift at the corner of her luscious mouth, and I find myself slightly distracted by wanting to touch her lips. Though she looks like she wants to smile, I can’t tell if she’s lying.
Where it usually would drive me crazy, I find myself allured by her game.
“Bellissima.”
I stand, pushing my chair back. Her foot perched on my chair falls dramatically, and she stares up at me as I stand between her parted legs. Her body calls out, arching towards me, demanding me to at least tease her curves the way that I know she loves. “You are unparalleled in so many ways. But taking out Tommaso’s men? Even you know it is beyond your reach.”
Rather than the rash response full of cockiness I expect to leave her mouth, Echo smiles at me. She leans into me, and her hand settles on my neck, just below my jawline, her thumb gently caressing my earlobe. Beneath her calm demeanor, I can see that she’s starving for me as much as I am for her. Her eyes skim over my face, not focusing on one specific place but all over.
After a moment, she moves in. Her lips touch my chin, kissing my bearded face. She pulls back. “When you have nothing left but the breath in your body, and even that seems unworthy, you find out who you really are. You find out exactly what you’re capable of.”
She’s right. I can admit that much. But to take credit for the deaths of Tommaso’s men is more than I’m willing to accept from her. She’s a survivor, yes. A killer, no.
Or maybe she is, and I don’t want to see it because then that would mean that she’s more far gone than I am. She likes to get up close and exact her revenge on people, while I prefer other tactics, less direct and obvious ones. It would also imply that she’s careless. Anytime she got close to one of Tommaso’s men, she came close to losing her life.
A life that I’m glad got tangled with mine.
“At the end of the day, we all have to face ourselves.”
She chuckles. “Why have you never married before?”
The change in the subject calms her tension. I shrug, looking down at her. “Never seemed like the marrying type.”
Echo scoffs. “I’m sure the Amelia betrothal thing was a one-off, but meh.”
The amusement in her eyes makes her seem younger than she is. “Why not? I can’t imagine no woman finding you so undesirable that they wouldn’t marry you. Smart, charming, rocking body, devilish smile, solid cock, you sure know how to show a lady a good time. Seems like they’re missing out.”
I laugh at her words before I can stop myself. “Is that all you see in me?”
“Hey, I said you have a solid cock.”
She smiles at me, and I’m so lost in her stare that when her hand brushes over my hard erection, I smirk.
She’s such a tease.
“It’s solid, huh?”
I press into her hand, and she inhales deeply, biting her lip. Her head dips down to look between us as she strokes me over my pants. “How much longer do we have to wait again?”
I grind my teeth and let out a breath from the way she works over my pants. It has felt like it’s been forever though it’s only been a few days since I last fucked her over the bathroom counter. My body is still familiar with the way that she came around me, the satisfied expression that had taken over her face once she’d relinquished herself to her release, and the whimpering cries that had overtaken her body while I pumped in and out of her until I had lost myself inside her as well.
I press my forehead to hers, angling myself back from her before I give into the temptation of feeling her skin against mine. “Thirty-six hours.”
She groans, but the sound is more like a moan. Her breath lands just below my nose, caressing me into damn near folding the way that she wants. “You’re going to make me wait?”
“Yes.”
I trap her between my arms, planting my palms on the desk. Our eyes meet evenly when I bend down to stare at her. “I love the sound of you begging me.”
The tables have turned. I kiss her lips lightly. “I love the sounds you make when I touch you.”
My lips travel slowly across her jawline, and I stop by her ear. She moans at the feel of my tongue on her lobe. “I love watching you fall apart when I’m inside you.”
I move to her neck, sucking on it. “Fucking you.” I suck harder through her breathy pants. “Making sure you remember who your pretty pussy belongs to.” My hand inches between her legs and up her thigh under my shirt. “Reminding you that only I will ever get you this wet.” My middle finger tests her, moving over her panties. “The same way you’re fucking wet for me right now.”
Through the barrier of her panties, I insert my finger inside her, and Echo moans loudly. Her insides clench around my finger, and I pull it out. Her clear juices coat my finger. Without warning, I lift my finger and push it into her mouth, where she takes it eagerly.
Satisfied that she’s teased enough, I extract my finger from her mouth to grip her chin and bring her to me. Our lips meet hungrily. Tongues clash and merge with desperate moans of pleasure until I pull away again. “You’ve got thirty-six hours to imagine all the ways I’m going to fucking ruin you.”