6. Cami #2
“Funereal. Let the groom know what happens if he fucks around.”
“You’re funny.” Julian hadn’t laughed once.
He was leaning against the counter, arms crossed, watching me over the top of his glasses with the patient attention of a man doing math.
“Funnier than I expected. The boss pulls a woman off a warehouse floor in a wedding dress, and a day later she’s cracking jokes with the men holding the guns.
That’s either very brave or very stupid. I haven’t decided which.”
The kitchen went a few degrees cooler.
“Julian,” Pedro warned.
“It’s a fair question.” Julian didn’t look away from me. “You ran Caldwell’s company. You know his money, his contacts, his secrets. For all we know you’re still his. For all we know you smile at us and eat our eggs and then pick up a phone the second our backs are turned.”
So there it was. The test under the warmth. They’d been sizing me up the whole time, the jokes a soft glove over a very hard hand.
Fine. I could play that game too.
“You want to know if I’m loyal to the man who let his mother hand me over to cover his gambling debt?
” I set my fork down. Met Julian’s eyes and didn’t blink.
“Use your imagination. And since we’re asking honest questions, here’s mine.
If I stood up right now and walked toward that door, which one of you would stop me? ”
Silence. Hendry’s grin faltered. Pedro’s jaw worked.
“That’s what I thought.” I picked my fork back up. “So let’s not pretend this is brunch. You’re guarding me. I’m a prisoner with very good eggs. We can be polite about it or honest about it, but let’s not be both.”
For a long moment nobody said anything.
Then Pedro laughed. A real one, surprised out of him, big and warm.
“Oh, I like her,” he said to no one in particular. “Julian. I like her.”
“She’d stop herself at the door.” Julian’s mouth twitched, the math apparently coming out in my favor.
“Too smart to run with nowhere to go. Smarter than the last three people who tried.” He uncrossed his arms. Something in him had settled.
“Eat your eggs, Camellia. Nobody here is going to shoot you. Probably.”
“Probably,” Hendry echoed, cheerful as anything, the grin roaring back to life.
The laugh that escaped me was almost a cackle.
God, when was the last time I’d actually laughed?
Before the wedding, probably. Before the suspicious texts and the late nights and the slow creeping feeling that something was wrong.
Months, maybe. It had been months since I’d felt anything close to genuine amusement.
And now here I was, laughing with mafia soldiers about napkin colors and funereal wedding themes.
My life had become a fever dream.
“Camellia.”
Salvatore’s voice cut through the laughter, sharp enough to sever it.
I turned to look at him. The easy warmth that had been building in my chest froze solid.
He was frowning. Not angry, exactly. Something else. His jaw was tight, his gray eyes narrowed, his whole body rigid with an emotion I couldn’t quite name. The look he was giving Pedro and Hendry could have frozen lava.
The two men noticed. Their grins faded. They exchanged a quick glance, some silent communication I wasn’t privy to.
“Right.” Pedro cleared his throat. “We should, uh. Get back to work.”
“Lots of things to handle,” Hendry agreed, already backing away. “Things that need handling. By me. Because that’s what I do.”
They disappeared so fast they might as well have teleported.
I stared after them, then turned back to Salvatore. “What was that about?”
“Nothing.” His voice was clipped. Controlled. “We should continue the tour.”
He turned and walked away before I could ask any more questions. I followed, still confused, the warmth of the laughter fading into something more complicated.
“Camellia.” Salvatore’s voice drew my attention back to him. We’d stopped in a large living area, his men gathered around us. “She’s not a prisoner. She’s with me.”
The mood in the room changed. The casual friendliness from Pedro and Hendry vanished. They went careful. Formal. They straightened their spines, adjusted their stances, looked at me with new eyes.
“With you,” Pedro repeated slowly. All trace of the grinning jokester was gone. “Like, with you with you?”
“She’s under my protection.” Salvatore’s tone made it clear the conversation was over. “Treat her accordingly.”
We moved on, but I could feel their eyes on my back. Curious. Assessing. Wondering what exactly the boss had gotten himself into.
***
The rest of the day passed in a blur.
Salvatore disappeared after the tour, off to handle whatever it was mafia bosses handled on a random Tuesday.
He didn’t tell me where he was going. Didn’t ask if I needed anything.
Just left me alone in this massive compound with nothing but my thoughts and a phone full of contacts I didn’t recognize.
I used the time to grieve.
The gardens were quiet. Private. I found a bench near a fountain and sat there and let myself fall apart.
My sister.
My baby sister. The one I’d protected and defended and loved my entire life. The one I’d held while she cried over stupid boys and bad grades and all the small tragedies of growing up. The one who’d crawled into my bed during thunderstorms because she was scared of the lightning.
The one who’d watched my whole world end and said nothing at all.
How long had she been fucking him? The photos went back at least a year. Had she been sleeping with him when she cried on my shoulder about her last breakup? Had she been texting him from my couch while I made her tea and told her she deserved better?
Had she ever loved me at all? Or had I always been just an obstacle between her and whatever she wanted?
My parents.
My mother who’d begged me to think about Rosalie. To understand. To forgive. Like the affair was something that had happened to my sister, not something she’d chosen. Like being pregnant somehow erased the eighteen months of lies and betrayal.
My father who’d half risen and reached for me and then let Greta sit him back down with a single sentence. Who’d found his voice for ten whole seconds and then lost it again. Who always tried, and always folded, and somehow that was almost worse than if he’d never tried at all.
They were supposed to be my family. They were supposed to love me unconditionally. They were supposed to be on my side.
But I’d never really had a side. I’d just had a role. The fixer. The one who absorbed everyone else’s problems so they never had to carry them.
The daughter they could take for granted because she’d never leave. Never make waves. Never demand more than they were willing to give.
Until now.
My life.
The apartment I’d given up to move in with Logan. The savings I’d emptied to pay for a wedding that never happened. The job I’d loved, running a company that belonged to a man who was fucking my sister behind my back.
Four years. Four years of building something I thought was real. Four years of compromises and sacrifices and looking the other way when things didn’t feel right. Four years of making myself smaller and smaller to fit into a space that was never meant for me.
All of it gone. All of it ashes. All of it lies.
The tears came and I let them. Ugly, gasping sobs that echoed off the garden walls and scared away the birds. I cried until my chest ached. Until my eyes swelled shut. Until my throat was raw and my body was empty and there was nothing left inside me but a hollow space where my heart used to be.
I cried for the wedding I’d planned, the future I’d imagined, the children I’d thought I’d have with a man who loved me.
For my sister, and the relationship we’d never have again, the little girl who used to look up at me like I was her hero.
For my parents, the family I’d thought I had, the unconditional love that turned out to have so many conditions I’d lost count.
And then I cried for myself. For the woman who’d ignored her instincts and swallowed her doubts and convinced herself she was being paranoid.
For the woman who’d learned the truth standing at her own altar.
For the woman who’d been handed off like garbage to a mafia boss by her almost-mother-in-law.
I cried until there was nothing left.
When I finally stopped, the sun was setting. Orange and pink and gold streaking across the sky like someone had set it on fire.
I wiped my face with the sleeve of my borrowed sweater. Straightened my spine. Took a deep breath of garden air.
The grief wasn’t gone. It would never be gone. But the tears were finished, at least for now. And underneath all that pain, something else was waiting.
Anger.
Cold, hard, patient anger. The kind that didn’t burn hot and fast and fade away. The kind that settled into your bones and stayed there. The kind that could fuel a revenge plot against the people who’d destroyed you.
Good.
I was going to need it.
I stood up from the bench and walked back inside.
***
The bedroom was a problem.
I’d assumed, stupidly, that Salvatore would put me in a guest room. Somewhere private. Somewhere that wasn’t his personal space.
I was wrong.
The bedroom I’d woken up in that morning. The one with the silk sheets and the chandelier and the masculine scent I couldn’t quite name. It was his bedroom. His bed. His space.
And he was currently lying in the middle of it, scrolling through his phone, wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants slung low on his hips.
I froze in the doorway.
“Problem?” He didn’t look up.
“This is your room.”
“Yes.”
“This is your bed.”
“Also yes.”
“I can’t sleep here.”
Now he looked up. Those gray eyes pinned me in place, cool and assessing and completely unconcerned with my obvious discomfort.