44. Sapphire Princess
Sapphire Princess
Iwoke up to find Santino sitting in the chair in the corner of the bedroom, dressed immaculately in fresh clothes, and his hair still looked slightly damp from the shower. I rolled onto my side to face him with a soft smile.
“Why are you all the way over there watching me sleep? Come here.”
His dark eyes flicked over my face, his mouth hidden behind his hand as his fingers pressed against his lips.
He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all. I glanced at his side of the bed and realised it was still perfectly made.
I frowned, propping myself on my elbow as soon as I noticed I didn’t have my usual playful husband greeting me but a very troubled one.
“What’s wrong?” I asked quickly, remembering that I had fallen asleep before he returned from torturing Callum last night. “Did Callum talk?”
“No,” Sani replied, inhaling and bobbing his head against his hand in a slight motion. He could never stay still when he was agitated. “We tortured him all night. He won’t talk.”
“Oh,” I said, sitting up slowly and letting the duvet slide down to my waist. Sani’s eyes tracked over my tits in the silk camisole I was wearing, but they didn’t even blaze with desire like they usually did whenever he looked at me. Something was seriously wrong. “But something did happen?”
He dropped his hand against the arm of the chair, and his eyes locked onto mine. Suddenly, he stood up, strode towards the bed, and dropped to his knees beside me. He took my face in his hands, his dark gaze searching my soul and leaving me breathless at the intensity swirling within them.
“I love you so fucking much,” he growled, his grip tightening on my face.
My lips parted, and my stomach flipped because I’d never seen him like this before.
“I need you to know that. I need you to know that what I’m about to tell you won’t change anything between us.
You’re mine, and no one can take you from me. ”
I wrapped my hand around his wrist, my heart pounding. “Sani, what’s going on?”
He swallowed hard. He let his hands slip down my neck in a soothing caress and rest on my shoulders as he held my gaze. “Callum didn’t talk, but one of his men did. Although I’m not sure they were even his men. The soldier was Irish.”
My eyebrows drew together. “Irish?”
“Si. They were planning to take you to Ireland. To a relative.”
“What?” I scoffed. “I don’t have any Irish relatives.”
“That you know of,” he said softly. He licked his lips to stall his next sentence.
“You have an uncle. Sean McKenna. I believe he was the man your mamma was running from. Your mother was Aisling McKenna, born an Irish Mafia princess to the largest and most powerful Irish mob. Aisling McKenna went missing when she was seventeen. A few weeks after her parents were brutally murdered by her brother, Sean.”
I stared at him, my head shaking as my body moved of its own accord. I threw the cover off me and got to my feet, pushing past him to pace the bedroom.
“How… how is that…? What? I don’t understand…” Words were spilling from my mouth, but I had no idea what I was trying to say. My mum wasn’t an Irish Mafia princess. She wasn’t even Irish. There was no way.
“The earliest Nero could find anything on her was when she was nineteen and arrived in France with a new identity. She must have been lying low for two years, just trying to survive.”
He moved to the bed, perched on the side and watched me carefully, giving me space to process.
“This is… crazy! Insane. It can’t be true!”
His gaze shifted to my locket. “There are rumours that the McKennas first made their wealth and power as dockworkers and sailors back in the early 1900s, smuggling uncut, raw gemstones from the British Colonies.”
I grabbed the sapphire in my palm and squeezed as the denial turned into horror.
“Callum is working with your uncle, Aria. We believe Callum’s a bastard Leone who had his own vendetta against my family and must have teamed up with the McKennas.
The Leones and McKennas used to be allies.
They had a business arrangement, but when the Leones were killed and dismantled, the contract became invalid.
My family refused to associate with the McKennas, as they had allied with enemies of ours.
A few years ago, after they heard we’d entered into a new pact with the New York Mafia to grant them access to our Roman port, the Irish came back to us, wanting the same deal.
We declined. They must have taken that personally.
This explains how Callum has been funded without any trace of illegal money laundering or fraud.
Sean must have set him up with a new identity and a plausible backstory. ”
I stopped pacing and asked, “Do you think Sean killed my mum? Her own brother?”
Sani nodded. “He’s not a good man, Aria. He killed his parents just to take control of the family. He most likely didn’t kill her himself, but the order would have come from him.”
“But why?” I choked, fresh tears brimming in my eyes.
“I can only imagine what kind of future your mamma knew she had if she had stayed in Ireland under his control. She would have been sold into a marriage alliance at some point. She ran. By the time Sean probably found her, she would have been too old to be of any use to him. But you…”
A shudder trickled down my spine. Of course. “But why wouldn’t he take me the night of the fire? Why wait for years and take me now?”
Sani stood up and wrapped his arms around me.
“Men like Sean McKenna see people as assets. Things they can use to gain an advantage or power. Whatever reason he had for killing your mamma and letting you go would have been for his own gain. My guess… he figured out who your papi was and saw it as a way into Italy undetected. He wanted you to go to Rome. He sent Callum to stay close to you and manipulate Piero into targeting me. We lost our port. Our deals with other mafia families have fallen apart or are extremely strained. Our reputation has been tarnished. And I nearly ended up in prison, losing our control of the capital. Who would benefit from all of that? McKenna.”
“And now he’s after me? Because he thinks he owns me? A man I’ve never even met!”
Sani grabbed my face. “He doesn’t. You’ve never been a McKenna, Aria. You were a Caruso, and now you’re a Buccini. I will always protect you. My family will always protect you. He’ll never get to you. Okay?”
I nodded slowly as he wiped the tears from my eyes. But we both knew it wouldn’t be that simple. If Sean McKenna had gone to all this trouble already, he wasn’t about to give up.
The numbness had overshadowed the shock and fear.
An Irish Mafia princess by blood.
I’d never even set foot in Ireland. My mum didn’t even have an Irish accent. Or perhaps she’d just learned how to hide it.
I blinked, letting my vision sharpen back into our living room where the urgent family meeting was taking place.
They were all there. Alessio had flown in with Elenora and their teenage twins.
Giovanni, Olivia, Liliana, and Raffaele were sitting on the neighbouring sofa.
Even Cecilia was present, sitting next to Soraya at the dining table.
Max was bedridden, recovering from being shot, but his and Camilla’s faces filled a screen propped up on the coffee table.
Apparently, my identity wasn’t the only problem.
The greater issue was that Santino had married me and broken the oldest tradition among mafia families.
Marriage alliances are the most powerful and sacred bonds.
Marrying a mafia princess into a rival family without her family’s consent or knowledge was the most barbaric and disrespectful act.
Alessio stood at the front of us all with his arms folded. “McKenna will be expecting Callum and Arianna in Ireland any day now. Which means we don’t have much time to rectify this.”
“Rectify?” Sani snapped, standing up from beside me. “There is nothing to rectify! Aria is my wife, and she is staying my wife.”
“Calm down, Santino. I’m not suggesting we hand her over to him,” Alessio said.
“Good. Because it’s not happening. She isn’t going anywhere near that bastard.”
“We agree, but that doesn’t change the fact that by blood, Arianna is a McKenna. The fact that she now bears the last name Buccini means we have provoked a war we have been trying to avoid for years.”
I grabbed Sani’s hand, forcing him to sit back down beside me because I needed to feel the warmth of his body next to mine. He felt like the only real thing in my life at that moment, and all I wanted was to dig my nails into his skin, hold on to him, and never let go.
“No war,” Cecilia mumbled. I glanced at her as the entire room fell silent. She lifted her head, and I could see the concern in her brown eyes as she looked at her family. “There must be no war with the Irish.”
“It’s okay, Mamma,” Gio soothed, placing his hand on her shoulder.
“She shouldn’t be here. This is only going to upset her. Whose idea was it to fly her to Rome for this?” Sani growled.
“Do not speak to me as if I am not here, Santino,” Cecilia’s voice had sharpened.
The look on her face was fierce and piercing as she locked eyes with her son, and for the first time, I glimpsed the woman who raised them.
A true mafia wife. “I may be old and fading, but I am still your mother, and I remain at the head of this family. You make a mess, I help clean it up.”
Sani exhaled, then backed down, muttering an apology and taking my hand.
“I’m with Mamma. Avoid war at all costs. So, what are our options?” Elenora asked.
Alessio ran his ringed hand through his short brown hair. “Honestly, there aren’t many. And even fewer that will work. Whatever way you look at it, we will need to yield to McKenna’s demands to avoid a full-blown war.”
“I say we just go to fucking war then. We are the Del Brenta! We have over twenty Italian families under our command. We have allies in New York and France. The Irish want a war, I say we bring one to them,” Raffaele shouted with all the passion of a young man who had never truly seen battle in his life.
Siro, Alessio’s son, pounded his fist in agreement.
“It’s not as simple as that,” Alessio argued.
“The Irish have strong links with the Russians and the Boston Mafia. If they decide to back McKenna in this, we’re talking about a war that will cost hundreds of lives, millions of euros, and last for years, potentially decades.
You boys will bear the brunt of it. Yes, we have allies, but that doesn’t mean they will want to step into an international war to protect their marriage. ”
I stared at the sapphire locket in my hand, shifting it from side to side and watching how it caught the sunlight and shimmered with various hues.
The way my stomach tightened and bile rose in my throat with every word they spoke made me want to dive into the gemstone and drown beneath the blue.
This was all because of me. Thousands of lives.
Millions of euros. Years of war. Over me.
“Realistically, what can we offer McKenna to appease him?” Giovanni asked Fabi, a man I had never met before today but who was apparently Alessio’s right-hand man and consigliere.
He sighed at his laptop screen. “Access to the Naples shipping port. A few new contracts that haven’t been finalised yet.
” He puffed out a breath. “But if McKenna is behind what happened in Rome, he’s already stolen three international contracts from us when the port shut down.
I don’t think this will be enough. He’ll want something permanent. ”
“What about offering the same deal we gave the New York Mafia? We made Frankie Galiz’s son a Capo here in Italy. What if we took in one of McKenna’s bastards?” Max suggested from the screen.
Alessio shook his head. “McKenna has no children.” I looked up when I felt those crystal blue eyes on me. “That’s why he wants Aria. She’s his only remaining blood relative.”
“You mean his only remaining asset?” Sani growled.
“Exactly. And if he wanted her this badly, he already has arrangements in place for her. I’ve heard rumours about Sean wanting an alliance with the Bratva heir.”
I closed my eyes as Sani began making it very clear for the millionth time that my uncle could shove his plans up his ass.
“So you are saying there is nothing McKenna will want in place of Aria?” Olivia asked.
Alessio and Giovanni exchanged a look of understanding before Alessio said, “My guess is that Aria was going to be used in a marriage alliance to secure McKenna’s relationship with the Russians. If he doesn’t give them what he’s promised, he’ll make an enemy of them too.”
“So? What does that mean?” Elenora asked.
“It means that once the Russians hear about Aria and Sani’s marriage, they will have the means to retaliate against us. McKenna will choose a side. And he has no loyalty to us, nor does he truly care about Aria. He’ll side with them.”
“Oh, cazzo,” Elenora grumbled, dropping her head into her hands.
I glanced at Sani’s taut jaw and narrowed eyes, then at all his family’s worried faces, fighting back the gut-wrenching emotions in my chest.
“It’s not too late,” I whispered, my voice trembling as I fought back tears. They all looked at me, but I avoided Sani’s eyes. “There won’t be a war if I go to Ireland. I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of me.”
“Aria, no. That’s not even—” Olivia began speaking, but before she finished, Sani grabbed me, hoisted me over his shoulder, making me squeal as he stormed out of the room.
“Won’t be long,” he shouted back to his family. “Just need to remind my wife of something she seems to have forgotten.”