Chapter 23
LUNA
“Repeat that, please,” I say, reasonably sure I must have misheard Priest.
Because when he stalked into the living room a minute ago, looking dangerous and hot and like everything I shouldn’t want, I swear he said I’m getting out of my underground prison.
But that couldn’t be right. Could it?
“Is that ink on your fingers?” he asks instead of answering my question, taking my fingers in his and holding them up for his inspection.
I hate the jolt of sheer electricity that goes through me at his touch, almost as much as I hate the heat that rolls down my spine and the pulse in my clit. The faintest hint of smoke clings to his designer suit, and I can’t help but wonder where he was.
“Yeah, it’s ink.” I tug at my hand, but he won’t let go.
I’ve spent the morning and the afternoon writing a hailstorm of poems. Maybe none of them are good. Maybe all of them are. They’re too fresh and too new for me to have a handle on them, all raw and messy, like the woods after a summer thunderstorm.
He smirks. “You liked my gift.”
“I liked finally being able to write again, even if the medium is archaic,” I correct acidly.
He doesn’t need to know it, but I’ve always written rough drafts of my poems by hand.
There’s something about the tactile scratch of a pen on paper, the smell of the ink, the slight bleed, that is necessary for my process.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve grown up with my fingers practically attached to a keyboard or a cell phone.
I’m a pen-and-ink girl, and I always will be.
Priest gives me a knowing look, his gaze dipping to my mouth. “You telling me that this isn’t the brand of pen you have about two dozen of stashed in your things?”
“I don’t know.” I raise a brow at him. “Are you telling me that you were digging through my things, gangster?”
Okay, it’s kind of cute that he made an effort to buy my favorite pens. The writer in me is swooning. The rest of me still knows what I’m dealing with here—a dangerous Mafia don who forced me into marrying him.
Too bad my ovaries don’t care all that much.
They’ve never been sensible.
“The rest of your apartment boxes arrived late last night,” he says. “I went through them this morning and managed to obtain a few similar supplies.”
Managed to obtain. Oh God. Is that code for stealing?
“Do I want to ask how you obtained them?” I ask weakly, thinking about depositing all the beautiful new pens in the nearest trash can.
“If you’re asking me if I stole them, the answer is no,” he says easily, pulling me into his chest and then releasing my fingers. “If you’re asking me if one of my guys did, the answer is what you don’t know can’t hurt you. Now, give me a welcome-home kiss, baby.”
I turn my head as his lowers, and his lips land on my cheek instead. “Haven’t you learned by now that I don’t take orders from you?”
He chuckles, the sound low. “There have been a few times when you have.”
Heat licks through me. He’s not wrong about the times I’ve allowed him to order me—but that’s different and he knows it, the arrogant bastard.
“What did you say when you first came in here?” I ask, veering back to the original subject.
He’s so good at distracting me. At getting what he wants.
He inhales deeply like he’s drinking in my scent, and then he runs his nose along my jaw, his mouth finding the sensitive place under my ear. “I said that we’re leaving the safe house in the morning.”
His lips feel so good on me, but I’m focused even if my nipples are hard. “You mean you’ve finally regained your senses and you’re letting me out of here?”
“You’re coming back to the penthouse.” He catches my earlobe in his teeth and nips me softly.
Disappointment surges through me. “I’m still a prisoner, you mean?”
“Not a prisoner. You’re my wife. But I have to make sure you’re safe, amore mio .” His hands settle on my waist in a possessive hold as he kisses my throat. “You’ll have guards, and you’re to go nowhere without me at your side.”
My heart sinks. “So I’m trading one prison for another—only the new one will have windows and sunlight.”
I miss the sun. The outside world. I miss my life, and I don’t belong in this one. I flatten my palms on his broad chest and shove. He releases me.
“Why not just keep me here if I’m to be in a gilded cage?” I demand, hurt and frustrated and furious.
He gives me pens and journals and smoldering kisses that make my toes curl, but he won’t give me what I really want.
His jaw hardens, and he passes a hand over it, those long, inked fingers catching my attention. Like the rest of him, Priest’s hands are so beautiful, it’s a sin.
“There’s been a slight hiccup with the alliance between our families,” he says.
“What do you mean a hiccup?” I cross my arms over my chest so he won’t be able to see my stupid nipples poking through my bra and dress.
The action draws his attention to the rest of me. His icy-blue stare does a thrilling sweep down my body before returning.
“You look fucking amazing in red, baby.”
“Answer me, please.”
He rolls his broad shoulders, like he’s shrugging off some tension. “Your cousins have taken exception to the fact that you haven’t been seen in public since the wedding. They’re stirring shit with some of the Revello capos. They want proof of life.”
I reel back, feeling like I’ve been punched. “So this isn’t about me wanting to get out of here, then. This is about you and your little Mafia war games.”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. “They’re not games, Luna. They’re painfully fucking real.”
I shake my head, trying to make sense of this revelation. “But the reason you were keeping me here was because you said it wasn’t safe for me on the outside, that whoever was behind my father’s murder could also want me dead. What’s changed?”
His nostrils flare, and for a long few seconds, he says nothing.
With his silence, he says everything.
“You motherfucker,” I say quietly. “Not a single thing has changed, has it? Someone still wants me dead, and that’s why I’ll have to have guards twenty-four seven.
But it’s convenient for you to let me out of this dungeon for now because my cousins and the Revello capos have you between a rock and a hard place.
If you don’t show them I’m alive, they might retract the alliance. ”
He reaches for me, his expression hardening. “I’ve warned you to watch that mouth.”
I slip from his grasp, not wanting him to touch me.
“You know what’s sick? For a second there, I actually allowed myself to start believing you might be different.
That you weren’t just like my father and every other made man I’ve ever known, driven only by greed and the need for more power.
But you’re exactly the same. All you care about is your precious empire, regardless of what it does to the people around you. ”
He jerks like I’ve slapped him, but that’s the only hint of a reaction I get. His face remains a cold, impassive mask. “You were born into this world, amore mio . You know the way it works. Gather your things so that everything is ready to go first thing in the morning.”
Priest turns and stalks from the living room, leaving me alone.
Fuck him.
I’m so angry, I could throw something. If he thinks I’m going to casually follow his edicts like a good Mafia wife, he’s wrong. I grab my pens and a journal, curl up on the couch, and start writing another poem.
Persephone kept by Hades?—
for a heartbeat, I forgot
you’re foxglove and poison hemlock,
the land before a flood.
I’ll keep from you my grain,
sow your blood into pavement.
You think to lock me in my cage,
but I bide my time and wait.
My hand trembles as I look down at the words I’ve written. A stupid, fat teardrop falls on the word poison . I reread the poem three times before I tear the page from my journal, crumple it into a ball, and toss it in the trash.
When this nightmare is finally over, I don’t want any reminders of this place.
Or of him.
But even as I think it, I know it’s a lie. No matter how much time passes or how far I run when I can finally escape, nothing will banish Priest from my memory.
Priest
In the gym, I take out my frustrations on the punching bag until my fists are bleeding and raw.
That’s when Saint ambles in.
He takes one look at the blood dripping from me and whistles. “You should have taped them up before going at it.”
“I didn’t want to.”
I don’t have to explain why; my brother will know because we’re alike in this way. Sometimes, we need to experience pain just to remember that we’re alive.
I had to release some of the fury boiling inside me because Luna’s accusations affected me a hell of a lot more than I was willing to acknowledge or let her see. I hate that I have to use her like this, and that I may be putting her in danger, all for the sake of the unified families.
“Your little talk with Luna went well, then, I take it?” Saint asks wryly.
He’s got a glass of whiskey in hand, so I guess he’s not feeling any better about our meeting with Amedeo the Animal and Squeaky than I am.
I shrug, flexing my knuckles, still dripping on the gym floor. “She didn’t try to stab me in the eye with one of her pens.”
“Does she know why she’s moving back to the penthouse?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t say anything else. No need to.
Saint takes a long sip of his whiskey. “I don’t blame her. No one would want to be bait for scum like that backstabbing asshole.”
“She’s not bait for Amedeo,” I snap, not liking the accusation. “She’s proof that we’re committed to the families becoming one. If the Revello capos don’t trust us, we’re not going to be able to hold the alliance together, particularly not with Squeaky looking like he’s switched sides.”
I’ve tasked Scorpion with trying to get to the bottom of what Amedeo might have on Squeaky. But so far, no word.
Saint runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck. I don’t like this. There’s got to be another way, one that won’t put Luna in harm’s way.”
“There isn’t.”
“What about a picture or a video?” he suggests.
“AI is too good these days. Anything can be faked with an app.”
“A video call, then.”
“I’m not ready to put a phone in Luna’s hands just yet.
I give her a phone with internet capabilities, and then next thing I know, she’s calling 9-1-1 and telling them Matteo Andriani and his brothers kidnapped her and are holding her against her will.
Think the Feds won’t have a field day with that? ”
Saint blows out a breath.
It’s plain to see he cares about Luna, and that still bothers the fuck out of me, even if I understand why. She gets under your skin, into your blood and bones, to the marrow. She’s feisty and smart and mouthy and beautiful and vibrant, and fucking damn it, I can’t let anything happen to her.
“This dinner you proposed,” Saint begins, apparently finally coming to grips with the fact that this is the only way to proceed. “Where do you want to have it?”
“Our territory somewhere. Wherever you think we’ll have the most advantages for defending ourselves if it comes down to it.”
We’re going to be armed to the teeth. There’s no way I’m allowing Amedeo the Animal or any of his men within a mile of Luna without knowing we’re prepared for all outcomes. We don’t have any proof of who was behind Antonio and Tomasso, but Amedeo is far from having been ruled out.
The more time that goes by, the higher he climbs on my list of suspects.
“What do you think about having it at Lucchese?” he asks.
It’s one of our newer ventures, a private supper club for city elite. Membership costs fifty grand a year, and our clientele is a who’s who of the upper echelons of society. We can close it down for a private event, with security high, and it won’t even raise an eyebrow. Plus, it’s on our turf.
I nod, liking the idea.
“Lucchese could work. We’ve been keeping the Revellos off the membership list ever since it opened, and a ladder-climbing asshole like Amedeo will likely jump at the chance.”
“It’s settled, then. I’ll look at the calendar of bookings and see what we need to move so that we can have the club empty and all to ourselves that night. I’ll also make sure we have triple the men. I’ll handle security.”
“Make that quadruple the men,” I say. “I want a motherfucking army, Saint. If this prick is after my wife, I want him dead before he can even so much as raise a finger against her.”
“You know I’ll do everything in my power to make sure everything is as secure as possible.
” He pauses, his expression serious. “But you also know there’s still going to be a risk.
There’s no way to keep her one hundred percent safe.
All we can do is take every precaution we can and hope for the best.”
It’s a sobering reminder, but one I don’t need.
I’m already aware of the danger involved in this meeting and in bringing Luna out of hiding so soon, none of which are part of my original plan.
But it’s what I need to do for the good of the family—the combined families.
It’s what I promised our father I would do when he was on his deathbed after the heart attack that left him brain-dead.
“I know the risks, and I know the rewards. It’s a chance we have to take,” I tell my brother.
“It’s a chance we’re taking with Luna’s life.”
His mouth is tight at the edges, and for once, all traces of Saint’s odd sense of humor are gone. He’s deadly serious.
“Handle it,” I order him quietly.
Saint downs the rest of his whiskey, knowing when to argue with me and when to retreat. Quietly, he leaves me alone in the gym, blood still trickling down my battered and bruised knuckles. In the silence he’s left behind, I go back to the punching bag, pummeling the shit out of it.
None of this was part of the plan.
I was never supposed to become obsessed with my wife. Tomasso Revello was never supposed to get clipped at our wedding. Amedeo the Animal wasn’t supposed to have any strings to pull. And the two families were meant to combine peacefully.
It was supposed to be an arranged marriage that brought all the chess pieces carefully into place on the board.
It wasn’t supposed to be a bloody fucking war.