Chapter 8
Valentina
Why are you really here, Valentina?
The answer to the question felt heavy as lead in the back of my throat.
In this moment, I was defying my father.
An act of betrayal. Nobody survived going against Don Romano.
While I my father wasn’t the type of don to order a hit against his own family, he had other ways of punishing traitors, even those he loved above all others.
Under pressure from the rest of the organization, he’d likely cast me out.
Exile me and leave me to fend for myself.
Without his protection, my enemies would come hunting for me.
I’d be dead in matter of weeks. Months, if I was lucky.
But marrying Enzo De Luca felt like its own kind of death.
I answered his question by holding up my left hand to emphasize the engagement ring on my finger. “This is why I’m here,” I finally managed to say. “We can’t go through with this.”
His dark eyebrows went up. “You’ve had less than a day to think about the ramifications of backing out. Nobody in our line of work lasts long making rash decisions.”
“What line of work would that be?” I tossed out angrily. “Are we going pretend that we’re merely business rivals at loggerheads over imports and exports? Or are we going to speak plainly and stop the denials? Are we going to actually talk about what we do? What you do and have done to my family?”
“If you came here to make more baseless accusations, you’ve wasted your time,” Enzo said, his voice as cold and sharp as the razor blade attached to my arm. “We had nothing to do with Tony Sullivan’s demise, and we had nothing to do with the attack on your father.”
The routine lies we told to the enemies we harmed the most. Everything was innuendo and double-meaning when we talked to anyone who belonged to the underworld. We never full on denied what we were when dealing with our own kind, but only a fool admitted to a crime in their enemy’s presence.
For all I knew, there was a recording device here in Enzo’s apartment. The perfect way to entrap me if I wasn’t careful. Playful taunts about wanting to kill Enzo was one thing; confessing to an actual crime on my part would get me decades in prison.
“You know I’ll never believe those lies,” I said, remembering the grief and anguish the De Lucas had caused me since Uncle Tony’s death.
And it wasn’t just the painful, crushing loss of Uncle Tony. I’d nearly lost my father to the De Lucas and their brutality.
Even now, I could remember the earth-fracturing sound of the bomb going off when the De Lucas had blown up my father’s car.
It had shattered the ground floor windows of his office building.
The force of the blast had shaken the entire block.
Terrified that Papa was hurt, I had ignored my own safety to ran outside and find out what was happening.
I had discovered my father’s car on fire.
For a solid minute I had believed that he was inside, engulfed in flames.
I remembered screaming and screaming until my throat ached, tasting of blood.
I remembered running toward the car to save him, my cousin Frankie grabbing hold of me to prevent me from getting any closer to the flaming metal.
The heat of the fire had been so intense that it had dried my tears.
Shocked and devastated, I had collapsed, almost passing out when I saw my father rushing down the ruined sidewalk toward me.
He’d missed the bombing because he had decided to take walk around the block with an associate.
If my father had decided to follow his usual routine and get into his car that morning, I would have lost him just like I’d lost Uncle Tony.
Now I was expected to marry the man who could very well have ordered that car bombing.
Enzo could have ended up being my father’s killer and now I was being forced into marriage with him.
To me, that was worse than death. Our banter from earlier might have been exhilarating in the moment, but I couldn’t stand the thought of a lifetime with this man.
Enzo shrugged then, revealing both his indifference to me and his utter contempt for my feelings. “Believe what you want. Why should I care?”
Anger flared. He truly believed that he didn’t have to answer to anyone.
The arrogance was so galling that I started to think through all the ways I could hurt him with the razor blade.
Maybe I’d have a hard time taking his life, but I could blind him if I really wanted to.
Blind him and teach him a lesson he would never forget.
Enraged as I was though, I wasn’t in a murderous mood this morning. Violence was more of a late-night activity anyway.
“We’re not going to get married,” I said, grabbing my handbag from the table. “That’s all there is to it.”
I was projecting a confidence that I had to admit was borderline arrogance. But this was my one play on such short notice. If I couldn’t persuade Enzo into seeing my point of view, I’d have to try and bully him into it.
Because I’d grudgingly agreed to my father’s plans and I couldn’t just break that promise.
I needed a damn good excuse to end this engagement and Enzo refusing to get married was the perfect excuse.
If both of us joined forces and refused to go ahead with the wedding, Papa couldn’t place the blame entirely on me.
I’d be able to spin it—instead of me breaking a promise, I’d be making a new bargain with the De Lucas.
Both of us refusing to go along with this marriage pact was the best chance for our families to save face.
“I also have a say in this. I don’t want to end the engagement,” he said bluntly, already dashing my hopes.
“You truly want to go through with this? After that disastrous meeting last night?” I demanded with narrowed eyes. “Why?”
“Loyalty,” he answered. “Why else?”
“I’m not being disloyal,” I said sharply. Everything I had ever done had been for my father. Even defying him was out of a sense of duty. What kind of daughter could marry a man who might have killed her own father? That couldn’t be the woman my father had raised me to be.
“Why do you want to end it then?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“For one thing, neither of us truly want this,” I responded. “You feel obligated to go through with it. A fact you’ve made abundantly clear, using your redheaded mistress earlier—”
“Cherry isn’t my mistress,” Enzo denied with a shake of his head. “For the record, I don’t have a mistress.”
“But you will,” I said. “You don’t seem like the faithful type.”
“I’ve never been married or been in long-term relationship, this is true, but I always fulfil my end of a deal,” he said.
“You couldn’t even wait twenty-four hours after our engagement before you were with some other woman,” I snapped.
“For fuck’s sake, I didn’t sleep with Cherry. We haven’t seen each other in weeks. She showed up uninvited.” He paused before giving me a self-satisfied smile. “Jealous, Valentina?”
A little.
“No,” I said quickly. “But being faithful probably won’t extend to the lead up to the wedding. You’ll be plowing half the girls in New York until we’re officially married. I’ll bet money on it.”
Again, he shook his head. More vigorously this time. “Wrong again. I want this marriage to work. For better or worse, you’re stuck with me. Nobody else is going to share my bed. No one but you, that is.”
I scoffed. “In your dreams, Enzo.”
“How about this? After we have the requisite number of kids, we’re both free to sleep with whoever we want.
Faithful until the kids arrive,” he said.
“We can shake on it if you want, but I keep my word, Valentina. Like my father before me, my word is law. If I swear an oath, fucking mean it. I have never broken my word.”
I trembled as he spoke, the magnitude of what he was saying tugging at the heart I thought I’d hardened.
There was no reason for Enzo to lie to me about this.
He could easily parade scores of women to anger me, to humiliate me, to try and make my life miserable.
And yet, he was making this pact with me because, for some reason, he thought it was important.
“Why make an oath like this?” I asked, my voice a whisper.
“This marriage has to work,” he said firmly.
“If it doesn’t, we’ll be wasting our time.
We’ll be wasting years. I’m not stupid enough to expect a perfect marriage with you of all people, but I do expect this to have some mutual benefit here.
We’ll hammer out our own expectations with a prenup, and everything else we leave to the vows. ”
Mutual benefit. How could I possibly benefit from marrying into the family that murdered Uncle Tony and almost took my father from me? I’d never feel safe or loved.
I felt the most painful sting in the backs of my eyes then.
Foolish as it seemed now, it had truly thought that I would be able to choose my husband.
I’d believed I could have it all at some point in the future.
Serve as my father’s right hand, while finding the man who would be worthy of me.
I believed I could have both love and power.
“How many kids do you want?” I asked, impulsively blurting out the question I always believed I would ask the man I loved. Not some stranger. Not some enemy who wanted me and my whole family dead.
He looked genuinely stunned by my question. “What?”
“Have you never thought about it?” I pressed.