28. Gio
GIO
Vampa is silent in the driver’s seat as he expertly winds the armored Mercedes along the narrow roads of the mainland. The shoreline is shrinking behind us as we drive inland toward the village of Sant’Angelo.
Since day one of my marriage to Vivi, nothing I’ve learned about her tracks with the woman I saw blow up Matteo’s car.
From the first night at the club, to her clemency for the Romanos, to the story she told me about why she was sent to the convent—it all begs the question: how can she be the one who committed such a cold-blooded murder? A straight-up mafia hit.
The whispers in my head say she can’t. My instincts and emotions are at war with my clinical mind and the evidence of my own two eyes.
Vampa thinks I’m cracking. That the past two years have put me under too much stress. Maybe he’s right.
Maybe the flame-haired woman in the Mercedes beside me has bewitched me so completely I’m incapable of rational thought. Having her come so fucking beautifully all over my hand last night hasn’t helped. It’s going to be impossible to evict her from my dreams now.
I don’t know how I did it, but last night I managed to untangle us, get us both cleaned up, and get Vivi back to her room. As much as I wanted to strip her naked and put her into my bed, I knew I couldn’t. Not yet.
The woman I was never supposed to spend time with is on track to becoming the only one I want to see. I can’t put off addressing the giant fucking elephant in the room: am I going to have to sacrifice the woman I’m starting to fall for in order to protect the niece I love like a daughter?
Vaffanculo. A near-debilitating dilemma, especially so fucking early in the morning.
Next to me, Viviana stirs. She catches a wide yawn behind her hand.
The same hand that got me off through my clothes last night.
My first orgasm in years—and the single best one I’ve had in my life.
If having Viviana stroke me off through my clothes makes me come that hard, I can only imagine what fucking her virgin pussy will feel like. Or, fuck, her virgin mouth.
I repress a groan, adjusting the erection that’s misshaping the front of my trousers. I catch a glare from Vampa in the rearview mirror. It’s like the man knows my thoughts…or heard Vivi screaming in pleasure as I fingered her to her very first orgasm on my terrace.
I don’t know what came over me. I should’ve brought her inside, should’ve spread her out across my bed. But something about her little gasps and wild eyes had me stepping outside myself. I was reckless and passionate and desperate—and felt more alive than I have since claiming my place as capo.
I deserve the censure in my sottocapo’s expression.
I know I do. To feel anything even remotely warm toward Vivi could prove fatal, if not for me, for Aurora.
But that doesn’t stop my blood from racing as I watch her eyelashes flutter, and her dreamy blue eyes find mine, a sleep-addled smile curling up lips that I can confirm taste as addictive as they look.
“Morning.” Her greeting is low, raspy, and sends several more ounces of blood straight to my dick.
“Morning, passerotta mia. How did you sleep?”
“Good, when I was in my bed. Even better here, next to you.” She rubs one hand across my knee, and my blood simmers.
“Are you flirting with me?”
Her smile goes lopsided. “Maybe? I don’t know. Am I? I don’t even really know what flirting is or how to do it.”
Ah, my innocent wife. I pull her into my side, drop a soft kiss on her head. “You do know, Vivi. You just did it. Very successfully.”
“How can you tell?”
“Two ways. Uno.” I point to the entirely un-Giovanni-like grin splitting my face. “E due.” I point to the bulge in my pants that’s becoming increasingly untamable when she’s around. One hand job from my virgin bride and I’m hornier than a choir boy at his first strip club.
Vivi blushes. Vampa curses. A beat later, the partition between the driver and passenger portion of the car rises.
He’s right. This isn’t the time or the place. “Mi scusi, passerotta. I whisked you from bed while it was still dark out, subjected you to both a helicopter ride and road trip before dawn, and am trying to flirt with you, all before I’ve fed you breakfast. Forgive me.”
I lift her palm to my lips. Kiss her there. There’s a fission of electricity before Vivi relaxes, sinking back into her luxe leather seat. “Hmmm. If you have an espresso and pastry hidden in this SUV, I’ll seriously consider forgiving you.”
“Va bene.” I retrieve a state-of-the-art picnic basket from the wheel well and place it between us on the seat.
As much a convenience for her as a reminder to keep my fucking hands to myself.
I undo the clasp at the top of the basket and open the double flaps to reveal a series of containers secured in individual slots.
Vivi does a cute little dance in her seat as I list off her options, which include a variety of croissants, a breakfast sandwich that she’s had the kitchen custom make several times, a tidy stack of pancakes with berries, a fresh yogurt parfait, something that looks like overnight oats that Chef insists she likes, and a double espresso, hot milk on the side.
She pops a berry into her mouth, smiling. “It’s beautiful. And a lot of food.” Vivi doctors the espresso to her specifications and takes a tentative sip before looking between me and the traveling buffet. “How long are we going to be gone, exactly? Where are you taking me?”
All the childish excitement I felt while pampering her dives off a cliff.
I spin my sister’s gold ring around my little finger, clear my throat.
“I need to discuss something important with you, and it needs to be done away from the island. If all goes well, we’ll be back at the villa by this afternoon. ”
“And if it doesn’t go well?”
I force a failed smile onto my face. “It will, Vivi. It has to.”
We reach the village of Sant’Angelo by mid-morning. Vivi fell back asleep after eating, still not one hundred percent after the arsenic attack. A violent combination of fear and anger assaults me every time I think about how close I was to losing her.
And yet, the plan was never to keep her…
I shove the thought down deep. Yeah, well—plans can change.
Vampa pulls the Mercedes to the curb. Drops the partition. The sun has come out in full force; I can’t read his eyes behind his dark sunglasses. “Any word from the Russian?”
“Sì,” I answer. “He’s here. Ready when we are.”
“Prego. Let’s get this over with. Pazzi will be awake any day, and Aurora is the one who matters, Gio.”
“Sì, sì.” Always.
So why does my chest feel too tight, my nerves exposed as I gently wake Viviana? She matters, too. More than I’m able to express.
She rubs her eyes, groggy. “Time to get up?”
“Yes. Time to get up.” I help her out of the car.
Her dress today is a light blue. All of the black, shapeless clothing is gone.
The outfit that Vivi is wearing complements her skin tone, the color of her hair, and is cut to accent the lush curves of her body.
With her hair rolling down in loose curls and a pair of white sandals on her feet, she looks ready for a holiday in the Mediterranean.
Tragically, today is going to be anything but relaxing.
Vampa takes a position behind us. Arm in arm, Vivi and I walk along the side street, heading in the direction of the village square. Vivi is glancing around, quiet but curious. There’s no indication she recognizes where she is.
That changes the instant we hit the next corner and turn onto the main road that runs through Sant’Angelo. She stiffens, fingers fluttering against my forearm. “Gio, what are we doing here?”
Keeping my tone neutral, I begin the explanation I’ve prepared and pray to God it gets us the answers I need. “I’ve been thinking about something your father said to me right before he walked you up the aisle.”
“My father?”
“Sì. He said that two years ago you had a bad accident. That you haven’t been the same since.”
“An accident,” she repeats.
“Sì. A severe concussion. Your father then went on to say that Valori had agreed to overlook the...how did he describe it? The irritating tendencies you’ve developed since.”
“Tendencies? What kind of tendencies?”
“To be combative. Aggressive. That the nuns had been working on your temperament for years, but he couldn’t make any promises after the accident. That I might find you…difficult.”
“Wow.” She sags. “He really went in for the hard pitch, didn’t he?”
I drop my mask long enough for her to see my true thoughts about her father. Despicable, disposable man.
I was proud of myself for not killing him that day in Chicago, but the more Vivi shares about her parents, the more I think I should’ve done the world a favor and gotten rid of him there and then.
“He didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.
He was just trying to cover his ass. I was handing him an unbelievable sum of money in exchange for your hand in marriage.
He was pretending to do me a favor. Warning me in advance.
But, really, he was just covering his ass, making sure I understood that there were no returns, no refunds.
Like you were a fucking household appliance.
He wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to get you home, change my mind, and then hand you back and demand he return my money. ”
Vivi’s gaze goes hazy, drifting unseeing down the street. “That’s really awful. But sounds entirely like him.”
I curl a finger beneath her chin, tip her face up to mine. “He’s the fucking worst. And clearly didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“So his winning sales pitch didn’t put you off?” Her sarcasm is weak.
I stiffen, doing my best to navigate the verbal minefield we’ve walked into. “I was already committed. Nothing he said could’ve changed my mind.”
“Yeah…” Vivi lifts her chin, breaks contact. “About that. Are you ever going to tell me why that is? Why you were so determined to marry me in the first place?” A shadow crosses her face. A ghost that haunts our growing relationship. “Why you threatened my sister’s life to make sure it happened?”
I nod, treading carefully. “There’s a lot I need to explain to you, Vivi.
A lot you need to know about me, my family.
” I step back and gesture to the man across the street who has been waiting for my signal.
“But before I can give you the explanations you want—you deserve—I need to know what happened that day.”
“That day?” She parrots in a hollow voice.
“Sì, passerotta mia. The day of your accident.”