28
H eavy rain pelted the windows, keeping a slow yet persistent rhythm. A flash of light forked the darkening sky, followed by the deep rumble of thunder in the distance.
Alessandra lay on the bed, her eyes pinned on a green branch flapping in the wind. Up and down, up and down, the branch flailed its small leaves, and Alessandra's heart mirrored the movement. It had been moments since she'd jolted awake from a nap, her palms sweaty and her chest tight with tension.
She didn't know what had awakened her—not a dream, of that she was certain. For whatever reason, it seemed that her body had once again decided to jerk her out of the peaceful slumber she had fallen into. It was the third time happening in the span of a few days.
Headlights sneaking into the bedroom and the soft purr of an engine set her into motion.
Getting out of bed, she quickly padded over to the windows.
She watched as Roman climbed out of his car and hurried inside the house with something in his hand.
It wasn't even six o’clock yet, and he was home. Again.
Alessandra ran an absent hand through her long strands and sighed.
She appreciated his thoughtfulness and the way he took care of her, but at the same time, she didn't want him to worry so much all the time.
She knew he was neglecting his duties in the organization to spend more time with her, and while she was glad to have him home so early every day, she didn't want to cause unnecessary tension between him and his father.
Things had been strained in the past week or so.
Roman was trying to hide it from her, but she couldn't miss the rigidity lining his broad shoulders and the fire in his eyes whenever he finished a call with Vitaly.
As much as he wanted to conceal the real reason for their conflict, she already knew that reason was her.
The sound of voices drifted up the stairs and through the open bedroom door as Roman dismissed the man stationed in the kitchen. Her husband had insisted that her new bodyguard was to stay inside the house, at least until things calmed down within the Bratva.
She removed her pajamas and changed into shorts and a tank top as she waited for Roman to make an appearance. A couple of minutes later, she heard the sound of his footsteps as he came up and entered the bedroom. Her gaze was immediately drawn to the large bouquet of pink roses in his hand.
She could count on one hand the number of times she’d received flowers—all of them for her birthday, and all of them from her brother.
Men in the Mafia were simply not known for romantic gestures.
Her father always bought her some type of jewelry—none of which she ever wore—and Luca had done the same in the years they had been engaged.
So she stared. And then stared some more, until Roman finally spoke first.
“I wasn’t sure what you liked,” he said, kissing her cheek. “I took my chances with these.”
Alessandra accepted the roses with a smile, bending her head to smell them. “I don’t have favorites, but I love them. Thank you.”
He kissed her again, this time on the lips, before stroking her left cheek with his knuckles. “Your skin is healing.”
“Yeah, the bruises are almost gone.”
Something dark flashed in his eyes at her words, but he quickly pushed down whatever feeling of violence ignited inside of him. Pressing his lips to her forehead, he pulled her to him.
She let out a quiet laugh, moving the flowers out of the way so she could hug him back.
“I saw Nika made lasagna again. Did you eat?”
Though it was her favorite comfort food, she hadn't touched it.
“I wasn't hungry,” she murmured, rubbing her cheek against his chest. He felt so warm and strong and hers .
“You need to eat, baby.”
Alessandra didn't argue because she hadn't, in fact, eaten anything the entire day. But he didn't need to know that. “Will you have dinner with me?”
“Sure. Let’s go downstairs.”
In the kitchen, Alessandra hunted for a vase to put the flowers in water, while Roman grabbed the lasagna casserole from the fridge and cut two pieces.
As the food heated in the microwave, he busied himself with his phone.
Alessandra noticed the frown pulling on his eyebrows as he read something, his gaze darkening with each passing second.
“Everything okay?” she asked from the counter where she was arranging the roses into the only glass vase she could find in one of the cupboards.
He looked up and smoothed his expression. “Everything’s fine.”
“You don't have to do this, you know.”
“Do what?”
“This babysitting thing. I know you're worried, but I can manage.”
He didn't look convinced, though he refrained from voicing what he thought of her mental health. “I like spending more time with you.”
“And I do, too, but I know it's affecting your work. Your father can't be too happy about it.”
The microwave pinged, and Roman turned to get the first plate out. “Let me worry about him.”
As the second plate warmed up, Alessandra finished with the flowers and grabbed two forks. Roman joined her at the island a moment later with the food.
She held his gaze when he sat down beside her. “All I'm saying is that... I'm fine. As fine as I can be given everything that's happened.”
In truth, she was better than even she had expected after being kidnapped and almost raped, not to mention killed.
She still had a lot of anxiety and sometimes nightmares, but as far as her spirit was concerned, she wasn't in complete shambles.
Growing up in the Mafia had to serve for something, after all.
Despite her father's efforts to keep her sheltered, she'd built a certain degree of psychological endurance to the brutality of their world .
Alessandra could still remember the first time she’d ever seen her father’s other side—the one he’d tried so hard to hide from her as a child.
She’d been about ten, playing hide-and-seek with her best friend from school, Alice.
Alone in the kitchen and with no adult around, it had only taken Alessandra a moment of hesitation before deciding to break her parents’ most important rule: never go down in the basement.
Knowing Alice and how she wasn’t scared of anything, chances were she was down there somewhere, and Alessandra was determined to win the game.
It wasn’t Alice whom Alessandra found in the basement, but her father and his underboss, Vito, gathered around a metal chair where another man sat.
Hands tied up behind his back and his body slumped forward, he’d looked like he was barely holding on to life.
Before Alessandra could even begin to comprehend what was going on, Nero had grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair and delivered a brutal blow to his face.
She’d stood there, frozen, watching through the crack in the door as the man who’d kissed her forehead that morning committed an act so atrociously violent, she couldn’t even recognize him as her father.
Weeks of nightmares had followed, but she’d never told a soul about what she'd witnessed, not even her mother.
During the years, she'd seen enough things to make her realize the type of man Nero Rossetti was. Even Matteo, who was always so careful, had once stumbled through the kitchen door, dripping blood from his arm all over their mother’s immaculate floor.
When Alessandra had panicked and tried to help, she’d been sent to her room with strict instructions to stay there until morning .
So, maybe the reason why she was taking it all so well was because she was a little damaged already and she'd never known it before now.
“You didn't look fine to me this morning when I left for work.” Roman’s voice pulled her from her thoughts.
“It was just a bad dream.”
He sighed. “What did you do today?”
Alessandra looked down at her plate, using her fork to cut a small piece of lasagna. She'd stayed in bed almost the entire day, watching sitcoms on TV. “Not much.”
“Specifically?”
“I watched TV and kept Nika company while she cooked.”
“You didn't go to your driving lessons and you were only down for twenty minutes. The rest of the day you spent holed up in the bedroom.”
She met his eyes again and frowned. “Is that why you wanted Vladik inside the house all the time; so he can spy on me?”
Vladik, the security she’d never asked for, was a mountain of a man with a permanent scowl embedded on his face.
He usually spent his time sitting at the kitchen island, drinking coffee and watching soccer games on his IPad.
With his black suits and neck tattoos, the man looked every bit like an Enforcer in the Bratva—and that was exactly what he’d been until a week ago.
Alessandra, who’d overheard Roman talk about it, didn't think he was too happy to have been demoted to the rank of glorified nanny to a nineteen-year-old Italian girl.
“Vladik stays inside because what happened last week stirred some shit up in the organization. ”
She paused at her husband’s candid response. “Am I still in danger?”
“No,” he said firmly. “But I'm not risking anything.”
“Do you trust him?”
Roman looked a little taken aback by the vulnerability bleeding from her voice. He reached out to gently tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I do, milaya . I've known him since we were kids.”
Alessandra nodded and pushed some food around on her plate. A moment later, a warm hand coiled around the back of her neck and soft lips pressed against her temple. When she turned her head, Roman kissed her on the mouth softly. “Eat your food.”
“I'm really not hungry.”
“You're not leaving the kitchen until you eat. You've lost weight, and I don't like it.”
She managed an eye-roll. “I've lost like four pounds.”
“You're skinny as it is. You don't need to lose any more weight.”
Alessandra gave him a smile that was intended to come across as playful. “That's not what my papà said to me when I was sixteen and I gained a few pounds because of the birth control.”
His gaze immediately darkened. “Your father is a fucking asshole.”
The smile slipped from her face. “He used to say that a woman should always look her best for her husband, and it really messed with my head for a while. I refused to eat anything other than salads and yogurt for months. Then it got to the point where I was almost anorexic, and my mom had to intervene. It was the only time I ever heard them fight.”
“Interesting father-daughter dynamic.” By his tone of voice, Roman found it anything but interesting.
“Growing up, Papà was hard on the both of us—me more so than Matty. But I think that in his own twisted way, he loves us.”
Roman remained quiet, and she knew he was refraining from voicing his thoughts on the matter.
She finally took a bite of lasagna. “Was it the same for you?”
“Pretty much; only he treated my sister like a spoiled princess while punishing me and Alek whenever we stepped out of line. That’s why I moved out the day after I turned eighteen.
He still kept me on a leash through the Bratva, but that leash got longer, and I was fine with that.
I had my own place and I could do whatever I wanted with my free time. ”
“What about Alek?”
“Things changed after I moved out. My mom got sick, and my father had to focus on her. It was a difficult time for all of us. As much of jerk as Vitaly can be, he really loved her.”
Alessandra chewed her food slowly, grateful for the bit of insight Roman was offering. “He seems... attached to Yana, too.”
He puffed out a deriding breath through his nose. “He's attached to her fake tits and ass.”
“And she loves his money.”
“His money and the status she holds by being married to him.”
Alessandra stabbed another piece of lasagna and brought it to her mouth. Roman watched her chew, a small smile playing on his lips. “Good girl.”
She elbowed him in the ribs half-heartedly.
They ate in silence for the next few minutes. When they were finished, Roman offered to do the dishes.
After pouring herself a glass of orange juice, Alessandra went back to the bedroom. She set the glass on the nightstand and was about to walk into the bathroom when her phone lit up with an incoming call.
Her heart jumped in her throat when she saw it was her father calling. Similar to conjuring a demon in a haunted house, her mention of him during dinner seemed to have had invoked him from the depths of his deliberate disregard of her. She hesitated for all of two seconds before deciding to answer.
“Yeah?”
“ Figlia mia ,” Nero said in his deep, dispassionate voice. ”How are you?”
She paced the room, gnawing on the inside of her cheek. “Good, Papà. And you?”
“I'm fine. Haven't seen you since you got married.”
“I visited a few weeks ago, but you weren't home.”
“So I heard. Regardless, you've been neglecting your family as of late. I expect you to be home for lunch this Sunday. Bring your husband with you.”
Alessandra met Roman's eyes as he entered the bedroom. “I...uh… I'll let him know.”
“Good. I'll see you then.”
As soon as he hung up, she realized that her father's birthday was on Sunday.
“Who was it?” her husband asked, reading the apprehension on her face.
“My papà. He wants us to attend the family lunch this Sunday for his birthday.”
She expected Roman to refuse the invitation. Instead, he simply nodded and reached for the buttons of his dress shirt, undoing them one by one .
“So, you don't mind going?”
“I'm not going to enjoy it, but I don't want you to go alone.”
She let out a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“Come here,” he cajoled softly, letting the open shirt expose his inked chest. She walked over and wrapped her arms around his naked waist. Roman lifted her chin and pressed his lips to the tip of her nose.
“You are a Leskov now. Your father can go fuck himself and take his demands with him.
If you don't want to go, you don't have to.”
“I want to see Matty and my mom.”
“Then we'll go together.”
Alessandra felt an infinite ocean of gratitude that he was so supportive, even when she knew how tense relations were between their two families. She pressed her cheek to his chest, listening to his strong heartbeats. “Does he know?”
“About last week?”
She nodded.
“No.”
She nodded again in acknowledgement, though she didn’t say anything else.
She didn't even want to imagine her father's reaction if he ever found out about the kidnapping. Nero Rossetti was a shrewd and skilled businessman before anything else. He only needed a reason to capitalize on the Russians' slip up, and she refused to be the one to give it to him.
Not that she cared too much about the Bratva and its future, but Romanwasimportant to her, and the organization was his legacy. For him, she would do anything.