Chapter 16
LUNA
“What else should we watch?” Saint asks, crossing his booted feet at the ankles.
We’re sitting in the living room, binge-watching crime shows.
Saint’s been providing real-time commentary on all the ways the bad guy dropped the ball and left behind incriminating evidence.
It’s kind of like watching an emergency room documentary with a doctor.
After Priest abruptly left, I showered and changed and then had a Zia Maria dinner with Saint before we crashed on opposite ends of the sectional.
Having the distraction is kind of nice—it’s taking my mind off how long Priest has been gone. But the credits are rolling on the last episode of the series, and now I’m going to have to find something new for us to binge-watch.
“Do you like rom-coms?” I ask him.
“Hard pass.”
“Fine.” I scroll through the options. “Reality shows?”
“Fuck no.”
I sigh. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Priest starting to grow on you, sweets?”
I slant a glare in Saint’s direction. “Like a fungus.”
He laughs. “Perfect description. Just don’t let him hear it.”
“I can’t wait to tell him when he gets back,” I drawl.
Saint’s phone buzzes and he checks the screen.
“How do you have cell service in this subterranean lair?” I ask, craning my neck to see if I can get a glimpse of what’s on his screen. “Or Wi-Fi, for that matter?”
I’m not going to say that I’m going through phone withdrawal.
But I might be going through phone withdrawal.
Also, I’m desperate to know what Priest is doing and when he’ll be back. Not because I like him, but because he’s all I have right now, enemy or no. If something happens to him, I have no idea what will happen to me .
Saint frowns down at his phone and taps out a terse response, angling the screen away from me so that I can’t see a thing and ignoring my nosy questions.
My stomach clenches. “What is it?”
“Business.”
His response isn’t helping things.
“Is it about Priest?”
Saint stops texting and glances up at me. “You worried?”
“No.”
Yes.
Damn it, I am worried about him. Because I’m actually starting to like the man.
I’m starting to like a murderer, a criminal, and a psycho.
But the weird thing is, being down here with Priest and Saint for the last week has shown me that despite everything, nothing is as black-and-white as I thought it was.
These men are gangsters, yes, but there are also parts of them that can be good. It’s all a big, confusing gray area.
“He’s not as bad as you think he is, you know,” Saint says like he was reading my mind.
“Right,” I say sarcastically. “He’s such a great guy, forcing me into marrying him and then imprisoning me in a basement mobster lair, keeping my phone from me and allowing me no contact with the outside world after my father was murdered in front of me.”
Saint winces. “It’s for your own good. Your father knew that, and it’s why he wanted the marriage between you and Priest. Reuniting the two families is what’s best.”
“Maybe it’s what’s best for the Revellos and the Andrianis, but what about what’s best for me?” I’m getting worked up again, so many new emotions rebelling inside me.
“What’s best for the families is what’s best for you. Being Mrs. Matteo Andriani is what’s best.”
I choke out a bitter laugh. “Of course it is, because it’s what suits the Andrianis.”
“You’re the don’s wife. Most women would kill to be you.”
The thought of other women falling all over Priest makes me want to throw something.
It’s an irrational reaction. Despite the fact that we’re temporarily married and I had sex with him, I have no claim on the man.
As soon as this shitshow is cleared up and I can leave the safe house, I’m getting my life back.
He can have all the women in his bed he wants.
“Then he can have any of those women in my place,” I bite out, annoyed at just how much the thought of Priest and other women bothers me, on a cellular level. “Or all of them.”
“I don’t think you really mean that.”
Because I don’t. Or at least the stupid, weak, hormonal part of me doesn’t. That part of me is all in for more rounds of Priest going down on me and then giving me his magical mobster cock. I allow none of this to show on my face, keeping my expression carefully indifferent.
I raise my eyebrows and give Saint a so-what look. “I do.”
“Priest is doing his best to keep you safe. I know you’ve been out of the life for the last few years and your father did his best to insulate you from his business, but this is some serious, fucked-up shit, Luna.”
“You think I don’t know how serious and fucked up this world is? I do. That’s why I’ve spent the last five years doing everything I can to stay far, far away from it.”
I’m so worked up now that I want to throw something.
I’m angry. Angry with myself for coming here at all.
Angry with whoever murdered my father. Angry with Priest for keeping me here against my will.
Angry with how electric we are together.
Angry that I’m actually sitting here, a lump of dread in my stomach, worrying over a gangster I barely know.
A gangster I married.
A gangster who fucked me so good that my body is still humming with the aftereffects, hours later.
“Oh God.” I hang my head and hide my face in my hands.
That last part is the worst, and there’s no way I can pretend it didn’t happen.
“Do you really believe your father was going to allow you to leave this life?” Saint asks quietly.
I stiffen and jerk my head back up. “He promised me. He sent me away.”
“But he broke that promise when he ordered you home under false pretenses.”
Saint’s not telling me anything I don’t already know. I’m more than aware of who and what my father was. His death didn’t magically expunge his record with me.
“The Andrianis didn’t leave him with much choice, did they?”
“Your father arranged the marriage with Priest. It was Tomasso’s idea from the beginning.”
Saint looks and sounds earnest. But he could be lying to me. He is an Andriani. The enemy. He might be oddly endearing now that I’ve gotten to know him a little, but I have no reason to trust him.
I think back on the day I met them all at Club Venere, how convinced I was that the Andrianis were using leverage against my father to force me into marrying Priest.
“That’s news to me.”
“You mean Priest never told you?”
“We haven’t exactly had a lot of heart-to-hearts,” I point out.
Because we’ve been too busy either being at each other’s throats or, most recently, fucking like animals. Not one of my finer moments. I’m still furious with myself for what happened in the casino’s observation room.
“We found out about Amedeo’s plan to clip your father and Squeaky and become don. The bloodshed between the families had finally started to calm down in the last few years after…”
Saint’s words trail away, and I realize he’s talking about Leo’s murder.
The rush of tears pricks my eyes. I suspect it always will whenever I’m forced to think about my beloved brother being gunned down in a dark alley and left to bleed in the street.
“Sorry,” Saint says gruffly. “I didn’t mean to bring it up.”
“It’s still hard for me to think about him.” I blink hard and a tear escapes, rolling down my cheek.
“Fuck.” He gets up and stalks off, coming back with a tissue box he holds out for me. “Here.”
For a second, I debate pretending I’m not crying and that this show of weakness isn’t happening. But then another tear breaks free, so I swallow my pride and grab a tissue. “Thanks.”
“So, like I was saying. There’s not been much love lost between families,” Saint continues. “Your father was an asshole, but he knew the rules and, for the most part, he didn’t break them. The Animal is a different fucking story. He’s unpredictable. A crazy fucker.”
I nod. I had forgotten about Amedeo’s nickname.
He earned it by chewing off a guy’s ear before shooting him in the face.
It’s a heartwarming tale I didn’t learn until I was a teenager, old enough to be curious about the whispers I’d heard and to ask questions.
Questions I quickly discovered I didn’t want the answers to.
“Amedeo is volatile,” I agree, understanding why the Andrianis wouldn’t want to face someone like him as don of the Revellos.
“The Animal has a crew who’s loyal to him, but most of the Revello family doesn’t want to see him become boss. One of them came to us with the plot against your father and Squeaky.”
The animosity and tension of the meeting at Club Venere makes sense. Priest was reluctantly helping a rival he hated, but only because doing so would ultimately put the Andriani family in a better position.
“It was hardly altruistic of Priest to go to my father with Amedeo’s plot,” I point out. “He was trying to protect the Andrianis.”
“That’s his job as don.”
“True. But he didn’t need to force me into marrying him to protect the Andrianis.”
“Yes, he did, Luna.”
I wad up the tissue in my fist, my tears dried up by anger for now. “Explain, then.”
“When Priest went to Tomasso with the plot, your father proposed a marriage between the Revellos and the Andrianis to reunite the warring families. He knew at least half the capos in the family would side with him against Amedeo and that the family would unite stronger with blood ties. Bringing the Revello faction back into the Andriani family would neutralize Amedeo with the least amount of bloodshed and restore peace. It would also ensure that Amedeo the Animal would never become don.”
It’s a lot to take in. Priest has shared some of this with me, but not all of it, and I wonder why he didn’t tell me this whole arranged marriage was my father’s idea.
True, Priest agreed to it. But I’ve spent all this time thinking it was the Andrianis who forced my father’s hand.
Who made him lie to me and lure me across the country for their own selfish gain.
The truth is, my father is the one who orchestrated this entire, fucked-up situation.