Chapter 43
COSIMO
The countryside around Grottaglie blurred past the windows as I raced toward the address Rosa had sent me. I tried to stay calm and failed. All of my calls to Fabiana had gone unanswered, and yet her phone was still on.
It didn’t make sense.
If someone had kidnapped her, the first thing they would’ve done was turn off the device. Unless they wanted me to find them. In which case, I might be driving straight into a trap, but I’d just have to deal with it once I got there.
My mind spun with possibilities as to what could’ve happened.
Someone had most likely tipped off the Santoros about us being here.
If I had to bet on who, it would be that asshole Salvatore.
I’d handle him after. But what did the Santoros want with Fabiana?
Maybe they just wanted leverage, and they assumed kidnapping my goddamn wife would get it for them.
They were right. I’d do anything to get Nettle back.
The GPS told me to take a turn onto a long gravel driveway.
The heavy iron gates sat open, and no one came out to stop me as I drove through them.
Ahead was a grand Italian villa—sun-washed stucco walls, shuttered windows, a terracotta roof, and a shallow balcony above the front entrance.
It was quiet and still. No guards were visible on the perimeter, but there was one car—an old Fiat—and a motorbike.
I pulled up and killed the engine. My eyes stayed on the bike.
I got out slowly, drew my gun, and moved toward the front door with my back angled to the wall. My eyes scanned my surroundings for threats, but there was no movement anywhere beyond the branches of the olive trees swaying in the wind.
I pressed my ear against the front door. There were sounds coming from inside the house. I could’ve sworn I heard dishes clattering, but no voices. To either side of the front door were narrow windows. I moved to look through one, trying to see inside—
The door started to open.
I lifted my gun.
Fabiana stepped into view.
“Nettle.” The relief hit me like a hard punch in the gut. She seemed fine—was standing on her own two feet, unharmed, and no sign of distress. Her eyes widened as she registered the weapon pointed straight at her.
I lowered it immediately and drew her into me. “Are you all right?” I asked, pressing my lips to her hair and running my palm over her. I needed her to be okay.
“Cosimo. It’s fine. I’m safe.”
I leaned back to look at her face, searching for any hint she was saying that under duress. But she was completely calm.
Maybe too calm.
She gave me a reassuring smile. “Do you mind putting away your gun? The whole point of this was to avoid an escalation.”
“The whole point of what?” I asked, discomfort tightening inside my chest. It didn’t appear like Fabiana had been kidnapped. Which meant I had no fucking clue what this was.
“What the hell is going on?” My relief at finding her was being nudged aside by suspicion. “Why are you here? What is this place?”
“Dominic saw you pull up on the security camera. He sent me to open the door. He thought it might calm you down if you saw me right away. He didn’t want you to walk in guns blazing.” She looked pointedly at the weapon in my hand.
“Who the fuck is Dominic?”
She rolled her lips. “Could you please just put the gun away? I swear I’ll explain everything.”
“Not a chance.”
She let out a sigh. “Okay. Will you at least promise me you won’t shoot him until you’ve heard him out?” Her voice held the kind of tone you’d use when trying to reason with someone unreasonable.
How the fuck was I the unreasonable one in this situation? I wanted to kiss her and shake her at the same time. Didn’t she realize how close I’d been to losing my mind when I couldn’t find her?
The important thing was that she was fine. Whatever was happening inside this house, she’d clearly decided it wasn’t a threat. I’d find out quickly enough whether I agreed.
She reached down and squeezed my hand. “Do you trust me?” Her emerald eyes—soft, earnest, vulnerable—held mine.
Inside me, everything tensed…and then released.
I did. Of course I fucking did. This woman had proven herself to me again and again. I was done doubting her.
“I do,” I said.
A relieved smile tugged on her mouth. “Good.”
“I’ll hear him—whoever the fuck he is—out.”
She led me through the house and out onto a terrace overlooking a rose garden. Under a pergola draped in purple flowers, a dark-haired man sat at a table in the shade, newspaper in hand, a cappuccino at his elbow.
A scar ran over his cheek and disappeared into his beard.
Up close, I saw he was a few years older than I’d assumed—maybe around thirty. Still, I recognized him immediately.
It was the biker from the funeral.
“Dominic,” Fabiana said, “this is Cosimo Ferraro, my husband.”
The man’s gaze flicked my way and landed on the gun I still had in my hand. A corner of his mouth curved.
“I see what you mean about him being trigger-happy when your safety is involved,” he said to Fabiana, a subtle Italian accent wrapped around the words.
Fabiana sat down on one of the benches bracketing the table and began to scoot closer to the man.
No way. I caught her by the arm. If we had to bolt it out of here, it would take her ages to get out.
“Stay close to me.” I pulled her back toward the edge of the bench before taking a seat in the chair across from the man.
Dominic chuckled. “You do realize that if I’d wanted to do anything to your wife, I had a considerable amount of time before you arrived.” He looked straight at me then, and the hair on the back of my neck rose.
His eyes… Why were they so familiar?
“Please don’t provoke him,” Fabiana said to him, lifting a coffee cup with her lipstick marked on the rim.
“I know, I know.” He raised a hand. “I simply can’t help it. It’s a character flaw. Cosimo, would you like a coffee?”
A coffee? Had these two been sitting here having fucking coffee while they waited for me to arrive? I was confident Fabiana had just met the guy, so how had they managed to become best friends so quickly?
I eyed the tower of Italian pastries in the center of the table with disdain. “Someone better start talking. Now.”
“Perhaps,” Dominic said, leaning back in his chair, “you would consider setting the gun down. It’s rather difficult to tell a long story when I’m preoccupied with the possibility of being shot before I reach the end.” He opened his jacket. “As you can see, I’m unarmed.”
The arrogance of it set my teeth on edge. He wanted to make a show of how little I frightened him.
I set the gun on the table. He didn’t scare me either. I’d killed plenty of men with my bare hands when the circumstances demanded it.
“Excellent.” He gestured toward the pastries. “So no coffee? A pastry, maybe? They were baked fresh this morning.”
“I don’t want a fucking pastry.”
Amusement flashed in this fucker’s gaze. I was this close to smashing the pastry tray in his face, but now that the shock of all of this had worn off, I kept my anger contained. My usual mask had slipped into place with ease.
“Very well. Let’s begin.” He pressed a linen napkin briefly to his lips, cleared his throat, and straightened in his chair. “People on this side of the world know me as Dominic Bellandi. But in the States, my family goes by a different name.”
My pulse picked up speed.
“Santoro. My mother is Rena Santoro.”
My expression betrayed nothing, but my blood ran hot. I was sitting at a table with one of my father’s killers.
I might’ve snapped right then if it wasn’t for the small hand that wrapped around mine. The touch drew my gaze to Fabiana. She looked at me pleadingly. Hear him out.
“For the last thirty years,” Dominic continued, “Mamma has dreamt of revenge against your family. When I was younger, she convinced me that the only way our family could truly thrive was if yours was destroyed.” He paused, turning the cappuccino cup once in its saucer.
“I’m older now. And I have come to believe that dragging both our families into a prolonged war serves none of us—especially when a diplomatic resolution might still be possible. ”
A diplomatic resolution? After they murdered my father? I almost laughed. “Why don’t you start by explaining what this revenge is all about? I have no idea what your family wants from mine.”
“No,” he said. “I imagine you don’t. I assume that particular gap in your knowledge is your mother’s doing. She knows everything I’m about to tell you. She simply chose not to inform you.” He tilted his head. “I don’t suppose that surprises you.”
It didn’t. It made my stomach harden, but it didn’t surprise me. I guess Vita hadn’t been bluffing after all.
“I’ve heard rumors about Vita Ferraro’s ambitions for some time,” Dominic went on.
My gaze narrowed. “Have you?” How? Though if Mother had started buying off capos, leaks were inevitable.
“Given what your mother did to my family, I know she isn’t a woman who follows rules that limit her power.”
“And what, exactly, did she do to your family?”
“She came close to destroying us. Which is why my mother arranged for the bomb to be placed in your family’s penthouse.
” His voice stayed even. “She learned you were closing a deal with Alvarez—a deal she badly wanted—and she acted without my knowledge or approval. In the months before, she made contact with your Aunt Lisa, who had fallen out of favor with Vita. Mamma offered Lisa a new passport, five million dollars, and a flight to Italy. Lisa agreed. She thought there was a microphone hidden in the bonsai tree. She did not know there was a bomb.”
My pulse beat loud inside my ears.
“Then you admit it,” I said. “Your family killed my father.”
A thin smile touched his lips. “Our father.”
Wind moved through the garden. Somewhere in the distance, a bird called once and then went quiet. I became aware of my own fingers pressing into the surface of the iron table.
“What did you just say?” My voice came out low.
“Gino Ferraro was my father too.” Dominic held my gaze with those all too familiar eyes.
But no. No. Lots of men had similar eyes.
I stood so fast the chair scraped behind me. I snatched up the gun and pointed it at him. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to buy that.”
He looked almost bored as he glanced at Fabiana. “This is what they mean when they talk about unruly younger brothers, isn’t it?”
“Younger?” My mind whirred. “You’re inventing a blood claim so you can position yourself to lead the Ferraros.”
“I am not looking to lead your family,” Dominic said. “I already have my own.”
My collar felt damp. “Fabiana, why did you insist I sit here and listen to this?”
“Cosimo,” she said gently. Her eyes shone. “Just look at him.”
I looked.
Fuck me. It wasn’t just the eyes. It was the line of the nose. The angle of the jaw. The shape of his mouth.
And it wasn’t just my father. It was Rom. Alessio. Me.
My breath got stuck in my throat as shock rang through me.
Fabiana stood and curved her small palm over my shoulder. Her touch calmed me. Slowly, I lowered the gun.
“How is this possible?” I forced out. “If you’re the eldest… Dad had a child before he met Vita?”
He nodded. “Gino and Rena were seeing each other in the weeks before he met Vita. A short-lived affair. The moment he met Vita, my mother ceased to exist for him. Unfortunately for him, by that point, Mamma was already pregnant with me. Terminating the pregnancy was out of the question. Her family would never have permitted it. She went to Gino. He told her he would provide for the child financially, but that he had no interest in a relationship with her or with me.” The smallest hint of bitterness slipped into his expression.
“By that point, your mother had already sunk her claws into him.”
That part checked out. Dad had always told us he’d fallen for Vita at first sight.
“That arrangement might have held,” Dominic said, “if my mother’s family hadn’t come under threat soon after.
The Santoros were never a major power in the city, but they were established enough for the Riccis to decide we were worth absorbing.
Mamma went to Gino. She told him she wanted nothing from him—no money, no acknowledgment, no relationship.
Only his backing in the conflict. One clear statement from the Ferraros, and the Riccis would have retreated.
They were opportunists, not warriors. They were looking for easy territory, not conflict with the most powerful family in New York. ”
Jesus. Dad should have helped them. It would have cost him almost nothing.
“Vita convinced him to refuse,” Dominic said. “She did not want him to help the woman carrying his child. She was probably betting the situation would get bad enough that my mother and I would be dealt with for her.”
I thought of Vita and the things I already knew she was capable of. There was no doubt in my mind that she would’ve resented any competition for Dad’s attention.
“Gino refused my mother the first time she came to see him. And the second. By the third visit, she was seven months pregnant. Her father had been butchered in the street, and her brother’s body was hung from a bridge.”
The terrace was very quiet.
“Your father was so completely under Vita’s influence that he turned away a woman pregnant with his child while her family was being destroyed.
He could have stopped it all with a single phone call.
” Dominic held my gaze. “I don’t tell you this to condemn him.
I tell you so you understand why my mother ordered that bomb to be placed. ”
Fucking hell. I exhaled slowly.
“A few weeks later, my mother fled to Italy with what remained of her family and had me here, near Grottaglie. They rebuilt. By the time I was ten, we were the most powerful family in this region.”
He picked up his cappuccino. “She eventually fell in love again. A man named Emilio Quaranta. A potter here in town. He died when a fire broke out in his workshop. A freak accident. In her grief, the need for revenge stopped being a distant thing. It became the organizing principle of her life. She was no longer content to build here. She wanted New York. She wanted what she believed had been taken from her. It took another nineteen years to accumulate the kind of wealth and influence that made that a realistic ambition.”
He set down the empty cup.
“When I was younger, I believed in her vision. I grew up on the story, and I grew up angry. But Gino Ferraro is dead. Now I find myself looking at a feud that has already cost both our families more than it has given either of us, and if your mother takes power, it will cost considerably more.” He spread his hands.
“My hope is that you are more reasonable than she is. We can find a way to end this. Together.”
The flowers above us shifted in the breeze.
I looked at this man—my half brother—and tried to find solid ground after he’d just rearranged everything I thought I knew about my family.
“You want to make a deal,” I said.
There was a satisfied glint in his eyes. “I want to make a deal.”