Chapter 18
Damiano
My heart is still pounding in fear that Lucy nearly got hurt, but I follow her gaze. The Montoni don is glowering at us through the windshield with vengeance sparking in his eyes.
I killed his cousin.
Now he’s here to kill us both.
Blood for blood.
“Stay here,” I tell Lucy as I get out of the car.
But Lucy being Lucy means she doesn’t listen to a word I say. As I approach Cristiano, I hear the car door slam behind me and the click, click of high heels on asphalt.
Cristiano gives Lucy a contemptuous look as she reaches my side and turns to me. “I don’t care about whatever fucked-up thing the two of you have going on, but you just murdered my cousin, Barone. Your sister threw her engagement ring at his corpse. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you both right now.”
His gun is still pointed at the ground. For the moment. “You will not hurt Lucy. She’s already suffered enough at your cousin’s hands. If you want your pound of flesh, you’ll take it from me.”
Lucy pushes between us and glares up at the Montoni don. “You will take a pound of flesh from no one, Cristiano Montoni. If you were following what I said in church, you’ll know why Damiano did what he did. Were you even listening?”
She has wrapped my jacket tightly around her, but it’s obvious that she’s wearing nothing but lingerie underneath.
Cristiano presses his lips together and looks from one of us to the other. “I was listening. My cousin tried to rape you, and he was selling Barone secrets to the Sokolis.” His voice is flat, emotionless.
The tension is strung tight in the deserted street. Our lives depend on whether he believes Lucy or not.
“If a man had done that to Adora, you would have killed him on the spot,” I tell him.
Cristiano says to Lucy, “Adora told me just now that you’d sooner cut out your tongue than lie about what you say Andreas did to you.” There’s a short, heavy silence. “But she also told me that you lied about being blood-related brother and sister. For years. So how am I supposed to believe you?”
Adora knowing that we’re not blood related is news to me.
Lucy must have told Adora about us and sworn her to secrecy.
While it explains why we’re so in love, it does make us seem deceitful, and my mind races, wondering how to play this.
“It’s none of your concern what Lucy and I are to each other.
The question is, do you believe Lucy when she tells you your cousin is an attempted rapist and a traitor?
If you don’t, then you and I can get down to killing each other, because I won’t let you live if you accuse her of lying about such a terrible thing. ”
The tension between us crackles with barely controlled violence.
Lucy puts a soothing hand on my chest and turns to Cristiano.
“Let me explain why I lied about me and Damiano, Don Cristiano. It was for Mom and Dad. The Barones never wanted me when they adopted us from a group foster home. They only wanted a son. If they’d found out that I’m not Damiano’s sister, they would have put a bullet in my head and buried me in a shallow grave.
” She reaches for my hand and grips it tightly.
“I’ve loved Damiano from the first moment I laid eyes on him.
It’s been killing me all these years to pretend I’m just his sister. ”
“You were going to marry my cousin while you’re in love with another man?” Cristiano asks Lucy.
She gives him a challenging look. “What, like it’s never happened before in Malus that a husband and wife don’t love each other? Are you going to claim you’re desperately in love with my sister?”
Cristiano glances away, his jaw flexing.
But Lucy isn’t done talking. “I was going to do my duty to your cousin. I would have been a caring wife, right up until the moment he pushed me forcefully onto my bed, called me disgusting names, and tried to do the worst thing a man can do to a woman. While I was planning my wedding to him, he was meeting with Sokolis. Selling my family’s secrets to our enemies.
Are you proud to call that kind of man your cousin?
A rapist and a traitor? Is it worth shedding more blood over a pathetic man like him? ”
The heat is slowly fading from Cristiano’s eyes. “You know, I’ve been wondering how the Sokolis knew to ambush us in that restaurant. I believed it was your fault, but now I’m wondering if it was mine. I told Andreas I was meeting with you, Vincenzo, and Rafiel.”
I had no doubt that Andreas ran straight to the Sokolis with that juicy detail.
“I’ll make you an offer, Cristiano.” I draw my weapon and offer it to him. “If you love your cousin as much as I love Lucy, if you still want revenge for his death, you can put a bullet in me right now. You can even use my gun.”
Cristiano gazes at the weapon for a long time.
Finally, he does a strange thing. He laughs.
A humorless laugh, as if this is all preposterous.
“Me? Love Andreas? That weak, pathetic excuse for a Montoni? He brought shame on our family twice over—once as a rapist, and again as a traitor to the Sokolis. You did me a favor, Barone.” His coldness sends a shiver down my spine.
Cristiano turns to Lucy, and says courteously, “Miss Barone, I apologize for my cousin’s behavior. I hope that your brother…your boyfriend…”
“Her future husband,” I tell him.
“I hope that Damiano has given you the vengeance you desire.”
“I’m satisfied. You’re not going to attack us for killing a member of your family?” she asks warily.
“I have no desire to continue my father’s bloodshed,” he tells her.
“Then thank you.”
He shrugs carelessly. “Don’t bother thanking me. You’ll probably be killed by your own father. Good luck.” He gets back into his car without another word and drives away.
I pull Lucy into my arms and hold her tight. That could have been so much worse.
It still could be.
We haven’t faced Dad yet.
Lucy burrows into my arms, and there’s a scared note in her voice as she asks, “What are we going to do now? How are we going to deal with Dad?”
I hold Lucy tighter against me. “You and I are going to lay low for a few days, until tempers cool. Then I’m going to do what I should have done weeks ago when this whole ridiculous plan was proposed.
I’m going to tell Dad the truth about us and how we met, and why we had to lie to him all these years. ”
“And if he refuses to understand?”
I press a kiss to the top of her head. “Then I’ll deal with it, whatever it takes. I’m not going to let him hurt you, and I’m going to try my damnedest not to let him kill me, either. Now, how about we go and enjoy your wedding night?”
I wish I could take Lucy to a luxury hotel, but Dad’s men will no doubt start checking those at nightfall. It’s too risky to take her to Giovanni’s or Antonio’s houses either. I end up driving to the outskirts of the city and into one of the less prosperous neighborhoods.
Lucy presses her hand to the window as she gazes out at the passing streets. “I never thought I’d be back here.”
“Where?”
She hesitates before saying, “This is not far from the neighborhood where I grew up. You see that convenience store? Mom—my birth mom—abandoned me there one time.”
My stomach flips. I grip the wheel, preparing to do a U-turn. “Shit. Sorry, Lucy. I can take us somewhere else.”
She turns to me with a smile. “Don’t. It feels good coming back here with the man I love. Look at me now, bitches. I’m Lucy goddamn Barone.”
I grin and pull over in front of the motel, then turn and cup her face. “Only you would say such a thing. You’re so goddamn brave. It’s why I love you.”
We head inside the dingy motel, and what a picture we must make, me covered in blood, and Lucy wrapped in my suit jacket, her stocking tops peeking out beneath.
“Your bridal suite, please,” I tell the receptionist. There’s a spider web behind him up on the ceiling, and the pattern has worn off the linoleum beneath our feet.
The man behind the front desk stares at me, my joke going right over his head. “No bridal suite. Single or double rooms only.”
“Then we’ll take a single room. Can you send champagne up?”
Beside me, Lucy smothers a giggle.
The receptionist gestures over my shoulder at the vending machine. “There’s soda.”
I take the key, feed some money into the machine, and punch the buttons for two cans of soda. We head back outside and along the covered walkway to our room. I’ve put Antonio’s Mercedes out back where it won’t be visible from the street.
We sit on the creaky mattress and toast each other with our sodas.
“To us, and the fact that we’re still breathing. Sorry that there’s no bridal suite.”
Lucy takes a sip of her soda and puts it aside. “I don’t need a bridal suite. I just need you.”
Somehow I manage to put my soda on the nightstand while I’m kissing Lucy. I push my jacket from her shoulders and tug the pins from her hair so that her curls tumble down her back. Now she looks more like the Lucy I know and love.
“Will you wear your hair down when you marry me?”
She smiles. “You haven’t asked me to marry you.”
“So I haven’t.” I slide my hand between her legs and groan when I feel how soaked she is through her thong. “Holy hell, Lucy.”
“I’ve been turned on ever since you killed Andreas,” she pants. “You avenged me. You protected me. Please don’t make me wait.”
I can’t refuse Lucy when she pleads so sweetly.
Slowly and gently, I loosen and undo Lucy’s bridal lingerie, kissing her body as I go.
I want to wipe away all the pain in Lucy’s heart after what Andreas did to her when he tore at the lace on her body.
The tight corset slips from her ribs, and I hold my future wife in my arms as I press kisses to her naked breasts.
Next comes the suspender belt and filmy white stockings, and then I finally ease her thong down over her legs.
“So beautiful,” I murmur, pressing kisses to her inner thighs. Lucy has her hands buried in my hair, and she’s gazing at me with love filling her eyes.
Finally, we have everything we want.
I sit up and wrap my hand around my iron-hard cock, lining myself up against her slippery pussy. “Beg for me, my love.”
“I’ve been begging for you all my life.”
I grin wickedly down at her. I’m enjoying the tension strung tight between us. I want to know if she’s ready for me, and that she really wants this after everything she’s been though with Andreas and today’s violence.
“Please, please,” she whispers, dragging her nails down the sparse black hairs and the viper tattoo on my forearm.
Her sweet, breathy voice undoes me, and I push into her. Lucy gasps and clutches my shoulders, and I groan as I feel her tight grip on my shaft. Finally, there’s nothing between us.
“You feel like you were made for me,” I whisper, moving in and out of her. I let out a deep, slow, “Mmm. That’s my girl.”
After just a few thrusts, Lucy’s already looking hazy-eyed and her cries are growing sharper. “Don’t stop. I want you so much. Please don’t stop.”
Her gaze flickers to the door, and I know she’s worried about someone coming in here and interrupting us or killing us.
“Lucy. Look at me,” I command. “Only at me.”
Lucy turns her face back to mine, and there’s anxiety swirling in her eyes.
“The only one who matters is me. You’re the only one I’m thinking of. Got it?”
She nods and takes a deep breath, the rigidity in her body and the apprehension in her eyes softening.
I brush my lips over hers, and murmur, “Good girl. You feel my cock? You like that?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“I going to make you mine, one stroke at a time.”
“Please, Damiano,” she cries. “All I want to be is yours.”
As she climaxes, I watch with rapt attention at the pleasure flickering over her face.
Pushing her knees up to her chest, I fuck her harder and deeper with more purpose.
Every stroke reminds me she’s mine. Ever thrust is pure pleasure.
As I come, I’m rewarded with Lucy’s second climax, and we ride out the wave together.
My head drops close to hers as we pant, my cock still deep inside her.
“Perfect,” I whisper and kiss her.
Slowly withdrawing, I gather her into my arms. Lucy cuddles against my chest and closes her eyes. She must be exhausted after the day she’s had, and the engagement she’s had. I press a kiss to the top of her head and silently vow to keep her safe while she rests.
As she dozes, I notice my phone lighting up every few minutes on the nightstand, but it’s on silent, and I can’t see who’s calling me. Finally, I reach out and check the screen and see that I have seven missed calls from Mom. As I’m looking at my phone, it rings again.
Lucy lifts her head with a frown. “Who’s calling you?”
“It’s Mom. I’ll ignore her.”
Before I can reject the call, Lucy puts her hand on my arm. “If you don’t talk to her, she’ll just keep getting angrier. Tell her that we’ll talk to her face to face as soon as we know it’s safe.”
This time should just be for me and Lucy, but she does have a point. I answer the call, and I try to cut off Mom’s diatribe. “Mom. Before you say anything, I had to kill Andreas. No one hurts Lucy and…”
I trail off as the sound of Mom sobbing hysterically fills my ear.
I’ve rarely seen her shed a tear in ten years, let alone lose all emotional control like this.
“Mom, why are you crying over Andreas Montoni? He had it coming after what he did, and I’m furious with you and Dad for keeping it from me. ”
“This isn’t about Andreas,” she shrieks, before going back to sobbing. “This is all your fault. Yours and Lucy’s. You’ve killed him.”