Chapter 50 Carlo
Carlo
She received a call from an unknown number before she left with you. Ignore your cock and open your goddamn eyes.
I scowl at Faro’s text and reply –
Mind your fucking business.
Slipping my phone back into my pocket, I step back into the shadows where I can watch Francesca approach the cage without being seen.
Donnelly has started to stir. She glances toward me uncertainly.
“Not too close.” She nods. With him in the cage, I can allow her the semblance of privacy, but I won’t give a desperate man any opportunities.
Pensively, she watches as he slowly sits up. He’s oblivious to her presence at first, rubbing the bloody knot on his head and studying his cage. When he finally sees her, he pales as if he’s seen a ghost. “Francesca?”
Her voice is shaky when she replies. “Yes, it’s me, Da.”
“Is this part of the plan?” her father asks.
“What plan?”
“They told me you were going to cooperate with the Feds to help me out.” I bite back a smile at his na?ve hope. The hit to the head must have been harder than Faro admitted.
“What makes you think I’d do that?”
“Because I’m your father, and you were always an obedient girl.”
“Obedient?” she repeats, curiously. I gulp back a curse – the fucking audacity of Donnelly.
“You didn’t seem to think I was very obedient growing up.
You slapped me so often I learned to flinch every time a man raised his hand.
When other people were around, you threatened me or said mean things.
Even when I tried so hard to be good, it was never good enough. ”
He shakes his head, a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “I had a lot on my plate, Francesca. I didn’t mean it. This Irish temper of mine gets me into trouble sometimes.”
“You always blamed our mother’s Italian temper when Ronan or I acted out.”
“I should’ve been more patient with you.”
“Yes, you should’ve,” she agrees.
Francesca steps closer, placing her hands on the bars of the cage.
It takes every ounce of control not to lunge forward and put myself between them, but Donnelly is still sitting on the concrete floor in his ugly bathrobe.
He poses no threat to her at the moment.
The second he even thinks about hurting her though I’ll end him.
“You sold out Beppe.”
“Francesca, he was an old man. I didn’t really think they’d bother with him.”
“You told them every detail of things he’d been a part of before you ran. He died in prison.”
“You and your mother doted on him too much. He was going blind anyway,” Donnelly says, dismissively.
“We doted on him because he was always sweet to us. And just because he was going blind doesn’t mean there was nothing left for him to see or do.”
“You’re angry. I understand. He wasn’t your father though. I am.”
“Yes, you were. Why did you leave the way you did? I told them I needed to know that before I decided what to do.” I smirk at my clever girl saying ‘were’ instead of ‘are’ and ‘them’ when it’s only me.
“I had no choice. They didn’t give me enough time to-”
“Please, don’t insult my intelligence, Da. Everyone knows the Feds would’ve taken your wife and daughter in, too.”
“It was your mother’s fault, Francesca. She was born a De Luca, never had to lift a finger for anything. She wouldn’t have left the only life she ever knew when she could always run to her brothers.”
Thinking of the broken woman I saw the day he ran, remembering the shell of that woman I met at Enzo’s when I foolishly asked Francesca to be my mistress, a raging sense of injustice pumps through my veins at his blatant lies.
Beatrice may not be a perfect person, but I’m in no position to judge.
She loves her daughter, and her daughter loves her.
He cast them both off like old shoes he didn’t want anymore.
Despite the glimmer of fury dancing in her pretty eyes, Francesca continues playing her part admirably. “And Ronan? What about him, Da? You must’ve known his life would be in danger, but you never even tried to warn him.”
“I’d already lost my son the day he chose his mother’s blood over mine. He took their fucking tattoo against my wishes. There was nothing I could do for him, don’t you see?”
Spoken like a true narcissist. Nothing is his fault and he chose himself, again and again.
“Do you know how they made contact with me?” Francesca asks her father. “Did they tell you how they recruited me?”
“Yes, at that music school you’re going to. Those silly songs you sang in our garden and your daydreams came in useful, didn’t they?”
“My silly songs and daydreams,” she whispers, half-amused and half-heartbroken as she shakes her head. I want to crush him like an insect for those words.
“Francesca, I’ll make up for my past mistakes, but I’m not sure how much time we have. There’s a key hanging on the wall over there. It might fit this lock,” her father urges. He must be regaining some of his wits. Not that it will save him.
Francesca walks toward the key and reaches for it. For a moment, my stomach tightens, wondering if she’s actually been moved by anything he’s said. When she turns to face her father again, I know better.
“Do you have any idea what it was like for me and Mom? What we went through because you left? How we mourned Ronan because of you? Do you care? No, don’t answer that.
I know you don’t. I’m not working with anyone to help you, Da.
My husband brought me to see you… and I think I like you right where you are in that cage. ”
Taking that as my cue, I step out of the shadows. I can see the relief and the conflict in her expression when our eyes meet.
“You, traitorous little cunt,” her father says, incredulously.
I shoot him a deadly glare as I wrap her in my arms. “Are you okay?” I murmur in her ear.
She buries her face into my neck, clinging to me like I’m her salvation instead of the man who has her father in a cage.
Donnelly is on his feet, grasping the bars frantically and coming to the rapid conclusion that he’s doomed.
She tilts her face back, staring up at me with those beautiful blue eyes I can’t resist. “Can it be done quickly?”
"Quickly?"
For so long, I’ve dreamt of torturing him, of drawing it out for hours, maybe even days. My men will want a spectacle; proof that loyalty is rewarded while treason is punished harshly. At the very least, Faro deserves to be present for this.
But as my fingers map the curve of her spine under her sweater and I inhale her sweet lavender fragrance, I know my unfulfilled dreams of revenge, my men’s dashed expectations and even Faro’s disappointment are things I’ll learn to live with. “For you, it can.”
Donnelly has barely opened his mouth again when I pull my gun and shoot him right in the face. The silk bathrobe and concrete are covered with blood from where the back of his head once was.
Francesca gasps and staggers backwards. Outside, there are noises – shouts of confusion. I hear Renato shout my name, yet my eyes remain locked on my wife. Soon enough, they’ll know I denied them what they expected, that I betrayed them for her. I won't regret it.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she says, staring at me in complete shock.
Part of me can’t believe it either, but the part that burned for revenge has been replaced by something deeper and more meaningful. “I want to make you happy, mia moglie.”
She continues to stare at me like I’m insane. Maybe I am.
“Life with me will always hold you back from your dreams to some extent. Protecting you is too important to me for it to be otherwise, and our lives are bound by harsh rules. But what would make you happy? You just watched me commit murder. You’d make your friend at the Bureau very happy if you told her about that. ”
“She’s not my friend, and I don’t care about making them happy.”
“What about your brother?”
“He… Carlo, I should’ve told you something earlier. Ronan called me tonight. He wants me to leave with him tomorrow.”
Ah, is that it? She wants to be with her brother. I don’t get the chance to ask as the sounds of shouting and confusion continue outside.
Then I hear gunfire.
Something isn’t right. I need to get her to safety. The door screeches open, and Renato races inside with armed men chasing him. I raise my gun to protect my brother just as Francesca screams at me to get down. A gun fires from somewhere behind me, and I fall.