Chapter 17 #2
“What the fuck? Is this is about keeping Sophia in the dark about what happened with your father?”
I take in the hard lines of his face and the dark, sunken circles under his tired eyes and am reminded his world shifted on its axis in a matter of minutes last night.
“We both know I’m sorry for how royally I fucked up. Believe me, I’m paying the price. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours and I feel like I’m bleeding out from the fucking hole in my heart.”
His eyes glaze over, and I see the anguish there. I almost—almost—let myself feel it. But I stomp on that pesky organ that’s the driving force of the foreign sensation of emotions bubbling beneath the surface.
“No. This is about the arrangement the Gigioliotti men have planned for Chiara.”
“What arrangement?” he snarls
The elevator comes to a stop, and the doors open, revealing AJ’s luxurious penthouse.
“The one that involves her being bartered like fucking livestock to the Rizzos,” I growl.
Marco’s jaw hardens and recognition dawns, like he’s recalled something that gives my cryptic admission more relevance.
“Motherfucker!” he grits out in a hushed tone.
“You called,” AJ drawls, sounding amused.
Until his gaze lands on me and his cockiness morphs into animosity.
I raise an eyebrow at him and glare back. “I hear you called,” I needle him, making him aware Marco had passed on the request.
“Well if truth be told—and seeing as you’re a man of the law, you care about shit like that—I told Chiara to get her ass here quickly,” he replies.
“Then I texted this dipshit to get some fathomable explanation as to why my baby cousin, who I might add, he is in charge of, has pictures blasted across the internet in varying degrees of sobriety and undress with strong suggestions of being your fuck buddy.” His tone is lethal, and even though he’s walking causally across his living room towards us, it’s menacing.
Like a cat stalking its prey. “I may have strongly suggested we meet, but I didn’t mean today.
However, it’s clear that luck is on my side, and it’s a two-dipshits-for-one day. ”
He’s standing right in front of me, almost toe to toe.
I don’t back down. I know I’m meant to fear him.
Falter. Bend to his will. But he’s aware that my ties to his business dealings with Marco mean he can loathe me all he wants, but he needs me as an ally.
Meanwhile, my inscrutable protective need to be Chiara’s ally gives me all the gumption I need to remain stone-faced in the presence of Mr. Mafia and his band of merry mobsters, two of whom have just made themselves known on the outskirts of the room.
“Do you have any idea the clusterfuck those images have caused?” he seethes.
“That was the point,” I deadpan. “Because I can guarantee it doesn’t compare to the clusterfuck that will be her life if you go through with what you have planned.”
“And what is it you think you know, huh?”
“I know that you and your uncle have selfishly put your love of money and power before the best interests of a twenty-four-year-old woman who just wants a chance at living her own life. I know you’ve promised her body and fate to a cruel man who will treat her like a plaything and parade her like a trophy. ”
“AJ, what have you fucking done?” barks Marco beside me as he snakes his hand between us and pushes against my chest to force me to back up.
Then he jabs a finger in his friend and business partner’s face.
“If these plans are the same ones Rizzo alluded to a few weeks ago, I’ll fucking kill you myself, bro. ”
AJ snickers into his fist as his two guards sidle closer. “Eh. Get in line. My dad may do the honors first.”
“I thought you said you had it handled.”
“I did. Until about an hour ago when she was blasted across the internet with straighty-one-eighty Raf Princi. New York’s poster boy for lily-white law and order. And not the type of friend of the law Mob bosses want on their side. We only deal in shades of gray and red, deceit and depravity.”
“Is that what it would take?”
“Raf, wherever you’re going with this, stop,” Marco counters. “I’ll get Gigi to pull the story down now.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and goes to unlock his screen. I place my hand over his to stop him.
“There’s a reason I haven’t graced that blog for two years. Just like there’s a reason my alleged torrid affair with a Mafia princess is the current trending story. I planted it.”
“What the fuck for?” he asks incredulously.
I nod and then turn my attention back to AJ. His expression is dark, and his shrewd green eyes that remind me so much of Chiara’s, minus the sultry twinkle, are narrowed lethally.
“She must have some magic pussy for you to hitch your wagon to her,” AJ mutters sardonically, a mirthless chuckle for good measure.
Without warning, I land a left hook to his jaw, and immediately I feel Marco pull me back by the shirt, but I resist by lurching forward, a shot of adrenaline spilling through my body red-hot and turbulent, the heat of possessiveness rearing its force once more.
I remain steadfast and undeterred in the face of the barrel of a gun that now fills my vision.
“Of anyone, she deserves better from you,” I say, tapping him in the middle of the chest once for each word.
The click and slide of guns being readied ricochets off the silence.
“Boys, that won’t be necessary,” Marco chides before directing his wrath at me. “Are you fucking insane?”
“Stand down,” commands AJ, even and controlled, licking the blood from his lip, which twists into a cruel smile.
His soldiers back up but never take their hard eyes off me.
“You’ve dodged a bullet twice,” AJ continues, circling me like his prey.
I follow him with my eyes, but my body remains in fighter stance.
“Quite literally now. And it’s only out of respect for Marco that I don’t slam my fist square in your fucking face and dislodge every single one of those pearly whites,” he seethes.
“I don’t know what information you think you gathered from your priestly pulpit in the Upper East Side, but you need to back the fuck up. ”
I step in to him again, not at all intimidated by his furious glare and defiant stance.
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“No, you’re one hundred per cent right,” he says in a hushed tone, rubbing his thumb across his bottom lip before baring his teeth and showing the animal within.
“She does deserve to fucking live,” he roars.
“That’s why I’m doing everything I can to ensure she stays living!
You may deal in the law, but that’s fucking child’s play compared to the law of the underworld, ruled by spilled blood and handshakes. My only wish is to save her from it.”
“Well you have a funny fucking way of showing it. Of all the things you could do, standing by and letting this deal for an arranged marriage to a fucking monster happen is not it!” I say through gritted teeth.
A stifled squeak from behind me puts an end to our standoff.
We all snap our heads to where the sound came from.
The strip lighting casts a soft glow on her face. Deathly white, like fear and worry have robbed her of color. Her long lashes glisten, and her green eyes shine. Whether it’s from tears or boiling hot rage, I can’t be sure.
“What. The. Hell. Is. He. Talking. About?” she enunciates, slow and low, fear morphing into fury, though I don’t miss the slight tremble of her hands, one holding her tote, the other pushing her hair behind her ear.
The silence is deafening, her frame tiny in the expansiveness of AJ’s spacious penthouse, and yet Chiara’s demand fills the void to the point of suffocating.
“Someone better start fucking talking before I start shooting.”
With that, she dips her free hand into her Chanel tote and produces a small silver pistol.
I underestimated her backbone. Her Mafia blood runs deep, and pride blooms in my chest. This is swiftly followed by the reminder I need to serve and protect her, but under no circumstances can I fall for her.
Consider me royally fucked.