56. Lorenzo
CHAPTER 56
Lorenzo
“ Y ou have my word that I will call the moment I get word on Amalia,” I promised the sobbing woman in my ear. Amalia’s mother wasn’t the kind of woman who fell apart at the drop of a hat, nor was she the kind of woman who would ignore a time where a little bit of histrionics could go a long way.
She was trying to wheedle me into giving her Sienna’s fox fur coat, and I was nearly ready to hand over the moth-eaten old things if it would get me off this phone.
“I’ll call again soon,” I said. “Uh-huh. Goodbye.” I set the phone back into its cradle and squeezed the bridge of my nose between my fingers. The Bianchis had to be told about Amalia and I still had to call all of the minor families about the Volkovs.
The Gallos were sure to pitch in for whatever I might need them for…but for a price. A lot of the minor family Dons were nothing if not predictable, and I knew that asking them to join me in taking down the Volkovs would not be free.
I scrolled through my contacts for Don Gallo’s number when a smashing sound stopped me. I dropped my phone and grabbed the gun at the small of my back, running entirely on instinct.
Sienna’s study was open again, and when I pushed the door fully open, there was Isabella. All around her were the remains of the lamps that Sienna liked to turn on when she spent hours reading. One of her rare books was in Isabella’s hands, and she was ripping out the pages and dropping them to the ground.
“What in the fuck are you doing?” I clicked the gun safety on and set it down before I rushed her. I yanked the book out of her hands, cringing about the idea that the oils on her hands were ruining the book even more.
Isabella didn’t seem at all fazed by having the book taken away; she lunged for another one, and the only thing stopping her was me catching her around the middle. “ Dolcezza , what’s wrong? Why would you do this?”
She was shaking in my arms, and for a moment, I thought she had to be crying. She had to have lost every bit of her fucking mind. But when I let her go enough to get a look at her, Isabella was laughing. “You asked me how I could do this?” She was laughing harder now: deep laughs that came straight from her belly. It would be charming in a different context.
“ Hai perso la testa? ” I wanted to shake her…but it was also startling to realize that I wasn’t so filled with rage that I went homicidal. “ Dolcezza. ”
“Don’t call me that!” She screamed in my face, voice immediately ragged. “Why don’t you tell me what you called her, huh? Tell me what special little nickname Sienna had?”
I didn’t know what to say, or how she wanted me to respond. I didn’t expect her to shove a picture into my face.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
I stared at the picture of Sienna that she’d forced on me. That was my wife; I hadn’t so much as looked at a picture of her since I saw her crumbled on our bed. It was the last image I ever had of her.
And now, I had this: Sienna and Amalia, both younger but definitely after I married Sienna, sitting at a kitchen table somewhere. It looked like they were playing poker or something. “Isabella, this is?—”
“You wanted me because I looked like her.” My eyes snapped to hers. She was lost somewhere between devastation and rage. “Are you going to deny it?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said, and Isabella snarled at me. “Even if I had come to that clinic for a legitimate reason, I would have taken you.” I tried to touch her, and she all but threw herself away from me. “Careful now, you are pregnant.”
She convulsed, disgusted. “Oh my God. You wanted a baby with me because I could give you her baby now that she’s gone. You could start the family that you didn’t get to with her.”
Thick, bitter tears were running down her face now, but I knew better than to think that meant she was on the way to calming down. “I’m not going to deny anything,” I said. “You’re spot on about why I brought you here initially.”
Isabella stared at me, tension crackling between us, before she launched herself at me. She rained her fists down on my chest, demanding that I explain why I would ever do this to her. I barely felt the blows. I would let her do this until she tired out, and then we would talk.
“ Dolc— ”
She punched me square in the jaw, and even I had to admit that it was a good punch. I caught her wrist when she tried to do it again. “I let you smack me, Isabella,” I said, my voice a deep, angry rumble. “But you will not do that again, or?—”
“Or what?” She was hysterical. “What could you possibly do to me, you fucking psycho? How much more could you break me down?”
“There’s a lot.” My cell phone trilled. I didn’t pick it up, and it eventually stopped. “You’re just going to have to—” The cell began again, and I knew something was wrong. I let go of her and stepped back. “Hold that thought,” I told her.
Isabella
My ears were ringing. I could hardly focus on what Lorenzo was saying to whomever was on the other end of his phone. All of the anger that had filled him moments before seemed to melt away. “How many casualties were there?”
Casualties?
Despite myself, I had to ask: “What happened?”
Lorenzo waved me off with an impatient flinging of his hand and let out a sound like a growl. “Don’t talk to anyone,” he barked. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He hung up and looked at me. “The Volkovs blew up the casino. I need to go handle it.”
The words barely registered with me; my own anger was too all-encompassing. “You’re going to leave?” I demanded, hoarse from screaming at him.
“People are dead, Isabella,” he said. “I have to deal with it.”
I couldn’t believe him…or myself, for that matter. I felt like there was a glass wall between me and the angry monster that had taken over. The ruins of Sienna’s study lay around us, and I should have felt incredible guilt for taking those things from him.
But that wall kept me from feeling it. I would do it all over again if I was given the chance.
“I’ll call Cristian to come be with you,” Lorenzo said. “You and he can talk until I get back.”
A secondary blow came with the idea that everyone that I had come to care for knew that Sienna and I could have been sisters. They had known her; they had seen her and Lorenzo as a couple. They had all lied to me.
“Go to hell,” I told him. “Every single one of you can go to hell.”
He grabbed my chin between his fingers and forced me to look him in the eye. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. “Behave for Cristian, get this all out, and then we can talk when I get home. Okay?”
I spat in his face.