Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Elio was pouring himself a whisky when Siena joined him in the living room, ravishingly sexy in a sleeveless, scooped-neck black dress that clung to her curves. Her blonde hair, loose and tumbling around her shoulders, gleamed.
He could do nothing to stop his heart from ballooning painfully to know this might be the last time he ever saw her like this.
Her soft blue eyes narrowed with concern. “You okay?”
That she’d come to know him well enough to recognise his moods slashed at his guts. What else could he do but nod?
He hadn’t expected to wake on the day his vengeance was finally being brought to fruition with a heavy weight in his heart.
It had very likely been the last time he would wake with Siena in his arms.
It hadn’t taken much to convince her to spend the day in bed, something they’d never done before. Something they would never do again.
He should be crowing that he’d reached the stage in his marriage where his mortal enemy, the beautiful Siena Esposito, had fallen so deeply in lust with him.
Crowing that the woman who’d declared it would be a cold day in hell before they spent a day screwing each other’s brains out had been unable to hide her sadness when they’d finally had to get out of bed to get themselves ready for their guests.
Crowing that this would all make his impending victory taste that much sweeter.
But he no longer looked at her and saw his enemy staring back at him. He just saw her. His soft-eyed wife, who had the softest lips and smile in the world and smelled of marshmallow.
What he was only hours away from doing was going to destroy her.
“Fix you a drink?”
“A rum and cola would be good… Are you sure you’re okay?”
Knowing it might be the last time he ever did this, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently. “I’m sure.”
He had to be. There was no turning back now.
Pulling away, he reached for the bottle of rum as she said, “I’ve just been in the dining room – there’s three extra places set. Who else is coming?
Glad his back was turned to her, he poured her a large measure of the rum. “My brother, sister and cousin. Sorry, I meant to mention I’d invited them. As it’s a meal to put the past behind us, I thought it would be good to have them here for it too.”
He could feel her stare boring into him, but anything she might have said vanished when the intercom rang out.
The first of their guests had arrived.
* * *
Siena ate the food Rocco had cooked for them – his spinach, mascarpone and ham hock rotolo was every bit as delicious and comforting as his carbonara – mechanically.
Something was wrong. She could see it in Elio’s eyes. Feel it in her bones.
She’d first sensed it when they were making love that afternoon.
The last time that was. They’d spent the day in bed, and it had been bliss.
She’d been happy. Truly happy. And then they’d made love that last time, and something about the way he’d looked into her eyes when it was over and the way he’d kissed her before finally climbing off the bed had sent a coil of fear snaking up her spine.
The fear had been clutching at her ever since, exacerbating every time she met his sister’s stare.
Elvira’s silver eyes were as cold as ice.
Such a chill had they given Siena that she’d slipped to her dressing room and tucked a gun into her suspender belt, just as she’d have been tempted to do if she’d married Elio in a traditional bridal dress.
If anyone else had the sense of something being off-kilter, they were all hiding it.
The Espositos and Ranieris were dining together as if this were something they’d done a hundred times before.
The atmosphere was light and peppered with laughter.
Music was playing, the wine flowing. Even her mother and Tommaso gave the appearance of being relaxed.
But still Elvira’s eyes remained cold. As for Elio’s silver eyes…
He was sitting next to Siena, but he hadn’t looked directly at her since they’d taken their seats.
The dessert of pistachio and cherry nougat pandoro, also made by Rocco, was brought to the table by a member of Elio’s household staff. There were a lot of staff about, she’d noticed. Much more than usual.
She looked again at the people crowded around the dining table. Herself. Elio. His brother, sister and cousin. Siena’s mother and three brothers. Her two sisters-in-law. Eleven of them.
Did it really need five staff to serve and clear up? Three of them she didn’t even recognise…
The fear in her heart intensified, and it took all her self-control not to pat her inner thigh for reassurance that her gun was still there, even though she could feel the cold steel against her skin.
When she’d slipped it into her suspender belt, she’d imagined Elio sliding his hand up her thigh and feeling it there, and raising his eyebrows at her in question. Had desperately hoped she’d find reassurance that she was overreacting in his eyes.
But he hadn’t touched her. Just as he hadn’t made eye contact with her, he’d not let an inch of his body touch hers, not even a brush of his arm.
Once coffee had been served, she tried to catch Rico’s eye and convey that something was very, very wrong.
If anyone could read her facial expressions, it was him, but he was locked in conversation with his angel wife.
She caught Gabriella’s eye, but her friend just stared blankly in response to Siena’s facial beseech.
Her heart racing, her ears started ringing, the chimes of doom getting louder when Elio rose from the table to pour them all a shot of grappa. Instead of returning to his seat, he stood back a little, holding his shot glass.
“Before we drink, I wish to say a few words,” he said, his gaze skimming over Siena but landing on the faces of everyone else.
The hairs on the nape of her neck rising, Siena pushed her chair back.
“It has been my pleasure to host you all this evening. I have heard much appreciation for the food, so I would like everyone to raise their glass and drink to the chef, Rocco.”
The name Rocco happily echoed around the room as everyone duly obeyed. Siena obeyed, too, but she didn’t drink. Her heart was beating too hard. Someone had turned the music off.
“For those of you who don’t know, Rocco was a good friend of my mother’s,” Elio continued.
“When my parents and the rest of my family were slaughtered by your family, Rocco and his partner Carlo did everything they could to help my grandmother raise the three of us orphaned children who’d survived what you Espositos call a war. ”
It was like his words had unplugged the light atmosphere they’d all been enjoying. In just a few syllables, every smile, fake or genuine, had dropped.
Siena gripped tightly to the wooden arms of her chair.
“But let us not pretend. Every person in this room knows it was no war.” His gaze locked onto Gabriella.
“Lorenzo murdered your father and framed my father for it as an excuse to wipe out my family in so-called vengeance.” Now his gaze moved between the Espositos…
all except for Siena, whose stare he still skimmed over.
“It was systematic slaughter. We lost everyone except those who sit here now. Even my grandmother. She died a decade ago of heart failure. She was allowed to live so she could raise her orphaned grandchildren, but buried her two sons and daughter for that privilege. That’s not counting all the other funerals she had to arrange or attend.
Countless numbers of them. The only reason the three of us were allowed to survive was because even Lorenzo knew better than to target defenceless children.
” His smile made the fear in Siena’s spine turn to ice.
“It would have been wiser for him to have killed us too, because defenceless children who have lost everything grow into adults who have nothing left to lose.”
With a flicker of his eyes, he nodded.
“When you have nothing to lose, you have no fear,” he said as the room filled with bodies all holding guns. “The consequences of which you are about to understand.”
They were being encircled, Siena hazily realised as she tried desperately to fight the swimming in her head.
She recognised many of the faces of the people swarming into the room and penning them like cattle.
Guns were being taken from her brothers and Gabriella.
From her mother. Many of those faces taking the guns from them were Esposito men…
Oh dear heaven, Vincent had just walked in. And Aldo.
“What Lorenzo failed to understand when he gave the order for my family to be slaughtered was the ties that had bound our two families and everyone who worked for us. A lot of people from your own side lost people they love. Lost friends. Many neutrals lost loved ones and friends too. And it was all done on a lie.”
It was Siena’s mother who finally spoke. Lifting her elegant neck, she fixed her stare directly on Elio, and in a voice that betrayed no emotion, said, “You’re going to kill us? Is that what this is all for?”
His face and voice were as expressionless as her mother’s. “Your children’s fates are in their own hands.” He turned to Rico. “Except for you. You walked away from the business. No harm will come to you or your wife.”
Rico just stared at him. His expression was as unreadable as Elio’s, but he was holding Marisa’s hand with the same tight grip that Tommaso was holding Gabriella’s, and it was to Gabriella that Elio’s attention now returned.
“You are safe too. If you want to leave, then go, but if you stay, I guarantee no harm will come to you either.”
She cleared her throat. “And Tommaso?”
He shrugged. “Whether he comes to harm is up to him.”
“What do you want from him?”