Chapter Eleven
Clarissa collapsed against him with a little laugh.
They hadn’t left her sewing room, but they had just finished their fourth sex-a-thon.
At least, she believed it was their fourth, as she collapsed on top of him.
Their first one was Lorenzo taking her from behind, and that had blown her world.
The second had been missionary, but it felt even closer than ever.
The third time, they’d been spooning, and Lorenzo lifted her leg and made love to her exactly like that, while also bringing her to orgasm.
Their fourth time together, she had climbed on top, and Lorenzo had shown her what he liked from his woman.
He was still inside her, and she was collapsed over him.
“I have a feeling we’re going to need to take a shower,” she said. However, part of her didn’t want to leave her sewing room, because it was proving one thing—sewing rooms were freaking awesome. Anything could happen in them.
“Yeah, and then, once we get all cleaned up, I can make you all dirty again,” he said, running his hand down her ass and giving it a squeeze.
She chuckled. “You know, there was a time I wouldn’t even imagine doing anything like this in the sewing room, or even through the day.” She couldn’t help but smile down at him.
“I’m glad I’m helping to broaden your horizons.”
She giggled. “It’s fun. I don’t think this is what my grandma had in mind when she told you to build me a sewing room.”
He groaned. “Don’t talk about your grandma.”
She couldn’t help but giggle.
“She was a good woman, you know. She loved and cared about you,” Lorenzo said, pushing some of her hair out of the way.
“I loved her as well. She and my grandad had a lot of patience with me.”
“Do you remember anything from before your final walk with your sister?” he asked.
Clarissa shook her head. “No, I don’t. I know that night Isabella had been told she was going to be married to you.”
He nodded and then she saw him frown. “In June?”
Clarissa frowned. “No, in November.”
“But I was aware of the marriage in June,” Lorenzo said. “That was when I was told.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“Five months’ difference.”
Clarissa stared down at her husband. “Okay, I feel like that is supposed to mean something but I don’t know what it means.”
“Did your sister ever talk about another engagement?” he asked.
She sighed. “It’s kind of hard to think about this stuff, when we’re like this.”
He smiled and rubbed at both her sides. “You’re right.”
She saw it was important to him. “She did mention that I was going to have to get used to it, because there would be a guy out there for me. She wasn’t going to be the only one who was married off.
” She shrugged. “It’s no different than what happened.
But I get the feeling you’re thinking of something else. ”
“It might be a long shot.”
“Okay, what is the long shot?”
“What if there were two arranged marriages?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t know if there were. After Isabella’s death, it’s all kind of a blur, and I only know I was told I had to take her place. You’re serious, though, aren’t you?”
“You said yourself someone was coming to kill you.”
“The backup?” she asked, and he tightened his arms around her. “You don’t have to get nervous. I heard my parents call me that so many times. Even my brothers would call me the backup.”
“But even a backup would need to be married off.”
“So, you think my parents had intended for me to ... I don’t know, marry someone else?”
“It’s an option, and let’s not talk about it now.”
“I’d like not to talk about it. It was scary, Lorenzo. One of the scariest moments of my life.”
“You’ve never opened up about that day,” he said.
“With you. Sometimes with Grandma, not a lot, though. It happened so fast and yet, at times, I think it was slow enough I could have stopped her from doing it.” She licked her lips. “What was she thinking?”
“I didn’t know her, but you said yourself, you two were friends. I imagine she was doing everything she could to save her sister. Her best friend.”
Tears filled Clarissa’s eyes, only this time she didn’t swat them away.
“I couldn’t stop the bleeding. She didn’t have long. Just enough to tell me I was going to have to take her place.” She let out a breath. “This is so hard.”
He took hold of her hands. He was still inside her, and she felt him all around her.
“I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” Lorenzo said. “You’re safe. I’ve got you. You’re completely, one hundred percent safe.”
She closed her eyes and pressed their joined hands to her forehead. “There’s something I want to tell you, but I’m so afraid that once I tell you, something bad is going to happen.”
“Nothing bad is going to happen,” he said. “I’m here. I’m with you.”
Clarissa lifted her head and stared at him. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be.”
“But, what if something bad happens? This is ... I’ve wanted to tell you, but, I’m scared.” She’d been wanting to tell him this for a while, and it scared her how he made her feel, and she knew she kept on repeating herself.
Nerves gripped her. She felt sick to her stomach.
“What is it?”
“If I tell you this, you can’t freak out and you’re not allowed to die.” She nodded.
He stroked some of her hair back from her face. “It is going to take a lot to kill me, baby.”
“I love you, and it scares me because I don’t want anything to happen to you.
I love you and I don’t care what was said at that party.
I want to get over it, and I want to have a family with you, and love you, and be with you.
” She had tears in her eyes. “And I feel guilty because I want to be happy and you were supposed to belong to my sister.”
He lifted up and took possession of her lips.
Clarissa cupped his face, as she sobbed against his mouth.
Suddenly, she moved, and he was over her.
He broke the kiss first, and she looked up at him as he stared down at her.
“I love you,” he said. “I love you more than anything in the world, and I’m so sorry about what happened with your sister.
Truly, I am. I love you, and there’s no one else I want.
It’s just you and I want you to be the mother of my children.
I want to live the rest of my life with you.
You’re not boring. You’re not dull. I’m the fucking asshole that didn’t know how to treat my wife the way she deserved to be treated, and that is on me.
Trust me, I know what I’ve got, and I know you’re the best woman for me. Marry me, Clarissa?”
“We’re already married.”
“I know, but I want to marry you, for real. Me, you, and our friends. Just us. Our wedding.”
Clarissa gasped. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“But, Tatiana ...”
“When we find Tatiana, we’ll get married for real.”
She smiled and held him tightly, not wanting to let him go.
****
One Week Later
Lorenzo drove down the long driveway of his father’s home, and he saw his mother’s car was gone. There were several guards on the front door, and the moment they looked at him, they nodded their heads and left.
It had been a full week of revelations.
Emilio was no closer to finding Tatiana.
They discovered the train where she journeyed to, but from that point, the security cameras were out, and they had lost the trail.
His friend was moving from town to town, figuring Tatiana had learned to lay low and probably was using a different identity to hide her tracks.
They were all on call, ready to get to wherever Emilio needed them to be.
Stepping out of his car, he buttoned up his suit jacket.
It was neither designer nor off the shelf.
He finally wore the suit Clarissa had made for him.
This was meant to be his Christmas present, but he fucked everything up by saying some stupid shit about her that he didn’t fucking mean.
He couldn’t believe how quickly he nearly messed up his marriage.
He’d learned his lesson. All four of them had learned their lessons.
He and Clarissa were now doing fine. They were closer than ever. Mia and Giovanni were doing great, as were Liana and Diego. All that remained were Emilio and Tatiana. They needed to help their friend to fix this, because being married to a woman you loved was the best fucking feeling in the world.
Stepping up to the door of his parents’ home, he felt absolutely nothing. He didn’t knock. There was no butler in sight, and he stepped inside.
The air was clean. There was always that overtly clean smell that was close to bleach, and lemon that always grated on his last nerve. He hated the scent, it made him feel sick.
So many years wasted in this house. His father berating him, claiming he was making him a better man. A Capo, a soldier, someone others feared.
He stepped into his father’s office, and sure enough, he was bent over his desk, a whiskey and a mountain of paperwork spread out before him.
The moment he looked up, his father, Lorenzo Senior, let out a little gasp.
“Son, you startled me.”
“You’re doing a lot of work,” Lorenzo said.
“There is never any rest from work. To what do I owe this visit?” His father rang the bell.
It was literally a silver bell, and usually the butler would come and take whatever his father ordered.
Lorenzo stared at his father. The butler didn’t come.
He saw the anger cross the older man’s face, as he rang the bell again.
“Phillip won’t be coming,” Lorenzo said.
“Blasted man. What is his excuse this time?” his father asked.
“I told him to leave.”
His father looked at him, and Lorenzo stood in the doorway.
He saw the moment his father had tension in his shoulders. “Your mother will be back soon,” he said.
“No, she won’t. She is going away on a cruise for the next six months. It was a gift for her from Clarissa and myself,” Lorenzo said.
“You should have told me,” his father said.
“It was a surprise.”
Lorenzo stared at his father. Silence fell on the room.
“Why did you do it?” Lorenzo asked.
“I have no—”
“Cut the fucking bullshit. She was a fifteen-year-old girl! Why the fuck did you do it!” Lorenzo was fast losing his patience.
Ten years ago, there was a deal for his and Isabella’s hand in marriage, which was arranged in June. That was when Lorenzo was told, but Clarissa informed him they were not told until November.
After a conversation with Clarissa’s parents as he started to believe they wanted to remove the threat of their backup, he discovered another arrangement had been set in motion.
Enrique Valdez was only five years older than Clarissa but came from a very wealthy family.
Valdez was also a rival Mafia family. The deal would have secured peace between the Colombo and the Valdez, and it would seem they were both “backup” children, and it would be the perfect chance for peace.
An agreement that would have set Clarissa’s family further above his own.
It would have cemented their families for life.
An even better agreement than that of a Vitale.
The deal was struck the night before, but it was on the condition that the backups were the ones to make the agreement. Clarissa and Enrique.
Until Isabella was killed.
The same death that was meant for Clarissa.
There was only one other party that knew about this agreement, and Lorenzo filled in the blanks.
His father was always thirsty for power.
He made agreements with the understanding that he was by far superior than anyone else.
He was a top-ranking Capo of the Colombo Mafia.
This deal would have knocked him down. Clarissa’s father would have been higher in rank.
His father had set the wheels in motion, and when Lorenzo talked to his mother, even though it was so long ago, she had remembered that for a short time, he had someone paint the ink of an enemy gang member on his neck.
All the information had been presented, and he had it under Colombo authority to deal with the problem.
Lorenzo had two options—answer for the sins of his father, or remove his father from the equation.
“That stupid girl wasn’t supposed to get in the fucking way!” his father said. “Clarissa wasn’t important. She was a fucking dud. A pain in the ass.”
“But that was the problem, wasn’t it?” Lorenzo asked.
“She was going to bring about your decline. You were not going to get to be so high and mighty. Her life was joined with Valdez. It would have lined the two mafias for life and ended the fucking bloodshed on the streets. Instead, you destroyed it.”
“Look, I was not supposed to kill Isabella. But, one of those girls needed to die, and I made that decision.”
Lorenzo pulled out his gun.
“Do you think you can kill me?” his father asked.
“I don’t just think it,” he said. The gun was already loaded.
“Do you have any idea the war you will start if you end me?” his father asked, defiance in his gaze. He didn’t for a second think this was going to end.
Lorenzo pointed his gun, knowing his dad had tried to alert his guards. “Dad, no one is coming. You’re on your own. No one gives a shit about you. It’s over.”
He looked down the barrel of his gun, and his father went to move.
He saw the twitch, but Lorenzo had known this man all his life.
Every twitch, every single move, he learned to survive, and as he went for his own weapon, Lorenzo fired a single bullet that went straight through his father’s forehead, ending his life.
This was the agreement he made. It was one he was going to live with, and he was more than happy about it.
Lorenzo put the safety on his gun and turned on his heel, stepping out into the morning sunshine, even though it was fucking cold.
It was getting close to Christmas. He climbed into his car at the same time the soldiers returned.
As Lorenzo left, the cleaning crew came inside.
This was how they cleaned up their messes.
He headed home to his wife. There was still no call from Emilio, but Lorenzo knew Tatiana had to be safe. She had to be alive.
Arriving back home, Clarissa was on the doorstep waiting for him, wrapped in a jacket. He climbed out of the car and went to her.
She knew what he had to do today. Once all the blanks had been filled in with the help of Diego, old security footage, and the missing details from her parents, they were able to connect the dots.
His father hadn’t changed his watch. It was such a minor detail.
Ten years ago, his father had pretended to be one of the enemy gang attempting to join.
The story had played out, but Lorenzo had finally seen the video.
It was the same watch his father had given him after his first kill—custom-made by his father. That was what it came down to.
“I love you,” Clarissa said.
“And I love you.” He kissed the top of her head. “Forgive me, for everything.”
She tilted her head back and offered him a smile. “There’s nothing to forgive.”