Chapter 10
SOREN
“We’re going to my father’s house for dinner tonight. Make sure you wear something nice.”
Kade’s demand had been playing in my head since this morning, so much so that I couldn’t focus on the book that was currently in my lap.
Not only was I annoyed about his demand, but I was a nervous wreck about being in the presence of his family again.
It was only my second time, and before I wasn’t worried about what they thought about me.
I had no idea why I was so concerned now.
Not to mention the fact that there would likely be more of them in attendance this time.
Why did it matter so much what these people thought of me?
They didn’t matter to me. Maybe it’s because I had a feeling they were going to be scrutinizing me more closely.
Their eyes would be on the dress I chose to wear down to the way I ate my food.
Before I was just something for them to ignore, just Jude’s arm candy.
But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, right? I had to try to at least have a little bit of hope. No matter how small and flickery the flame was, I had to keep stoking it to keep it alive. Because what would I be without hope? A shell of the human I currently was.
No matter how optimistic I tried to be, my stomach still turned every which way. I had hopped into a book hoping to escape, but it was doing nothing for me. I swear I’d read the same line fifty-two times and not comprehended it in the slightest.
“Mrs. Peirano?” A gentle voice came from behind me. Besides Vanessa’s surprise visit, I’d only been used to men around here, so the feminine voice that came out of the small woman that met my eyes when I turned around surprised me.
“Yes?” I asked skeptically, wondering who she was and what she could need from me.
“My name is Astrid, and I am Kade’s housekeeper,” she said. “He’s asked me to help you get ready for this evening.”
Now my stomach was knotting even harder, entangled in an endless snare of anxiety, because I had no idea that tonight was such a big deal I needed someone to help me get ready.
“Thank you for the offer, but that won’t be necessary,” I said kindly, not wanting to kill the messenger.
“Mr. Luchetti insists,” Astrid said as a nervous blush crept on her cheeks.
I sighed the biggest sigh I could muster before closing my book and gesturing for Astrid to lead the way to my bedroom. I knew I had no dresses good enough to wear tonight, so imagine my surprise when she opened the walk-in closet and a bounty of dresses laid before my eyes.
“Please take a look at the selection from Mr. Luchetti and choose your favorite,” Astrid said kindly, before closing the doors to the closet and giving me some much-needed privacy.
I have no idea how on God’s green Earth I selected something to wear, but somehow I had made a decision. And a good one at that.
The silky material of the lilac spaghetti strap dress combined with the slit up the side felt delightful on my skin. My silver strappy heels I’d picked were necessary because apparently I had decided to be scandalous tonight.
I made my makeup light, and after a lot of fuss, Astrid braided the front of my hair to keep it out of my face, giving me a crown made out of hair.
I hadn’t loved what I’d seen in the mirror in a long time, but standing before it now, I was absolutely feeling like hot shit.
It gave me a boost of confidence I hadn’t had in a while.
It could easily be due to the fact that I knew Jude would never have the pleasure of seeing it.
Who knew my time away from him would make my spite so much stronger?
The voice in my head was such a chaotic, sarcastic bitch that I had grown to adore. It’s lonely when the only person to talk to is the voice in your head, and that’s the only person urging you to carry on.
So my alter ego in my mind and I had a love-hate relationship, but she’d never left me alone, figuratively and literally.
“You look beautiful,” a deep voice said from behind me, pulling my attention away from myself in the mirror.
I made eye contact with the dangerously beautiful man behind me, who was no stranger to wearing a suit but looked good every single time he put one on. His hair was tousled purposefully, and his eyes were the color of thunderclouds waiting to rain on my confidence parade.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, not used to getting a compliment from this man, let alone in general. “You clean up nice yourself.”
“I know,” he said with a smirk. The man was so sarcastic I could have throttled him. But alas, slapping a Mafia man could lead to me losing said hand.
“Ready to go?” he asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the door, causing a feral zing of attraction to zip straight to my core. There was nothing this man could do that wasn’t attractive at this point and it was downright annoying.
A man hadn’t made me feel this way in well…ever. It was a foreign feeling to me, and not one I was really tempted to explore.
My life was already so chaotic and full of baggage, and even if I thought it was a good idea, it wasn’t. Kade and I were wrong for each other on so many levels. Maybe one day I could find a normal man, with a normal life, if I ever got the courage to leave Jude.
“Soren?” he asked, the tiniest bit of worry lacing his features. Why did he look as if he actually cared?
“Sorry, lost in a daydream. Yes, I’m ready,” I replied, breaking eye contact and smoothing my dress down one last time.
I walked past him, just barely grazing him when I stepped through the doorway. I could feel his eyes watching me and burning a hole into me the entire time until my entire body felt like a wildfire that had no hope of being contained.
The drive to Kade’s father’s mansion was quicker than I expected, and before I knew it we were pulling into the circle in front of his father’s house. That was if you wanted to call this extravagant mansion anything other than that.
I was in awe of my surroundings, and I hated to admit that I admired everything that I was taking in.
We pulled up and parked, and before my hand could even graze the door handle to let myself out, the door opened on its own accord.
“Good evening, Mrs. Peirano,” Isaac, Kade’s bodyguard, greeted me. He had ridden behind us and I hadn’t seen him before we left. I had very few interactions with this man, but already I could tell he oozed experience, and he was not to be fucked with.
One of my least favorite interactions would be the time he watched Kade carry my unconscious body through the garage door.
Of course, I have no memory of it, but it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together since he seemed to be the only man whom Kade allowed within a five-foot radius of either of us, besides his own family.
It also had to do with the way he looked at me whenever he saw me, with such pity that it made me feel ill.
Isaac walked ahead of me before opening the double door entrance to the mansion and leading me inside the main hallway. I tried to wait patiently for Kade to make his way inside and lead the way into the den of vipers.
My heels on the shiny, granite floors were the only sound echoing off the walls as Kade walked with his hands comfortably in his pockets and into the dining room, as if he owned the place.
Arrogant bastard.
As I made my way through the doorway, all eyes landed on me, the tension so thick I could almost smell it in the air.
This is going to be harder than I thought.
I took a deep breath, hoping that my nerves didn’t show, and held my head high as I made my way to the empty chair Kade had pulled out for me. He’d moved so suddenly to the table that I hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t at my side anymore.
He scooted the chair in gently, and I prepared myself for what I felt would be the interrogation of a lifetime.
After the initial moment of anticipation and curious eyes when we entered the dining room, it felt like his family had paid me little attention.
Conversation had started up as the food was served, and I felt like I was seeing the true side of this family.
I even saw Matthias crack a small smile, something I never thought I would ever witness from the Mafia King of Boston.
But the love he had for his wife and his sons was evident.
He cared about them a great deal, and they were his kryptonite.
I was seeing the side that they didn’t want the world to see, the one that they could be behind closed doors and in the safety of their own home.
I was incredibly surprised Kade and his family acted this way in front of me, and that they allowed themselves to be so vulnerable.
I didn’t know if I should take that as a blessing or a curse.
Were they letting me be witness to their quality time because they knew I wouldn’t tell anyone?
Or because they would make sure I told no one?
Being in this life was full of surprises. You never know what each day is going to bring. There were times it could be exciting and dangerous all in one—it just depended on which side of the coin you landed on.
“So, Soren, tell us about yourself,” Elizaveta asked, suddenly giving me all of her attention and causing all eyes to snap to me once again.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, nervously gripping my fork and causing my knuckles to turn white from holding it too hard.
“Anything you feel up to sharing,” Elizaveta said with a smile. “I can imagine you know plenty about us. Though I’m sure not all of it is good.”
A chuckle escaped Kade’s lips, and I almost choked on my bite of lamb in surprise. He smirked as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. Which was that she was absolutely, irrecoverably correct in my less than kind knowledge of the Luchettis.
“Well, I’m just your average girl who has an undying love for books,” I answered timidly. “That’s pretty much the only good part of my days.”
Shit.
If Jude knew I was speaking negatively about my life with him, he would make me suffer for it. I don’t know what came over me to open up to Elizaveta, but I needed to be careful and watch my tongue.
An awkward silence fell over the table, and I willed everyone to turn their attention somewhere else. I would have thought it would be a cold day in Hell before I saw every single one of these men silent.
“So, Mom, tell me about the latest flowers you’ve planted in your garden,” Kade said, breaking the silence.
“Soren, will you help me grab dessert in the kitchen?” Vanessa asked, gesturing towards the doorway on the opposite side of the dining room with a nod. I pushed my chair out and followed her into the very impressive and extensive kitchen.
“Matthias secretly loves to cook, so this kitchen is his domain,” Vanessa answered as she read the awe on my face.
“I would never have imagined that,” I mumbled, causing a laugh to spring out of Vanessa. She didn’t say it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she too had similar thoughts when she first met this family. Which begged the question of how she got wrapped up with them in the first place.
She pulled two chocolate pies out of the fridge and worked silently to cut and prepare them to be served.
“How do you deal with it? Being married to a Mafia man?” I asked quietly, wanting to know the answer since I walked through the door and saw Sawyer’s love for his wife.
The way he looked at her with love so deeply in his eyes just seeing her smile, and how he held her close like he never wanted to let her go.
It was a night and day difference from the way my relationship with Jude was. He had only ever looked at me with dollar signs in his eyes, and whenever he held me close it was all for show. It was like Sawyer and Vanessa actually loved and cared for each other and wanted to be together.
“It wasn’t easy at first. I’ll be the first to admit that,” Vanessa replied.
“Isaac is my dad, and he thought that marrying one of Matthias’s sons would keep me safe when he couldn’t.
With Finn being the heir, Kade being an asshat, and Maverick being young and rambunctious, I would say I got lucky. ”
“Wait, Isaac is your dad?” I asked in shock. “He doesn’t look a day over thirty.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Vanessa laughed. “I’m pretty sure he took up the job of being Kade’s bodyguard so I would stop giving him gray hair from stress.”
“Well, it must be working since he doesn’t even look his age,” I laughed back, feeling comfortable for the first time since I walked through these doors.
“I’ve heard the…rumors, and I know that your relationship with your husband hasn’t been as lucky as mine with Sawyer. But not all Mafia men are heartless and cruel. I’ve not seen Kade light up like this since I’ve known him, so you might even be cracking his icy heart.”
“I don’t know why I’d have any sway over that man. It’s definitely not me causing the lightness within him,” I tried to explain, but I could tell it was useless against Vanessa.
“Say what you will, but I know what I see,” Vanessa teased.
This may have only been the second time I’d been around her, but I already was finding comfort in Vanessa. In the things she was telling me. She was bubbly, open, and happy.
She reminded me of me, back when I remembered what it felt like to be an actual human being, and not this husk of a woman I was now.