Chapter 1 #2
“Only an ungrateful man would complain about you making accommodations,” Valentina’s father answered.
“What’s going on, Mr. Romano?”
The older man paused to take several gulps of water, then set the half empty glass on the coffee table. “Do you trust the people around you, Enzo?”
My eyebrow went up again. “You mean my family?”
Don Romano gave a non-committal shrug. “Family, associates, and the like.”
“Yes,” I said truthfully. There were times when my father and I didn’t see eye to eye, but we trusted each other with our lives. I had no reason to doubt him, my brother, my uncle, or anyone else in the family. It was Valentina’s family we didn’t trust.
“I envy that,” he said, sounding weary. As if the entire world rested on the old man’s shoulders.
For whatever reason, Valentina’s father looked exhausted.
And yet I knew better than to be deceived.
While I hadn’t had many interactions with him, I’d done my homework.
All the background research I had on him indicated that it was unwise to be fooled by his mild manner.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Valentina’s father exhaled heavily. “It means that trust is very hard to come by."
“That’s no surprise in our business,” I said.
“Indeed.” Mr. Romano looked at me directly then, his eyes turning flinty as if he’d just come to a difficult decision. “I want to know that I can trust you with my only child.”
“You’re letting her marry me,” I said, thrown off guard by his statement.
“That I am, and I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me for it. But she’s the most precious thing in the world to me. I’d risk anything, even her wrath, if it meant that she’d be safe.” That last sentence he said so fiercely, it sounded like it was coming from the depth of his soul.
While I hated the old man, his love for his daughter left me at a loss for words. I respected it and feared it at the same time. Don Romano would do anything for Valentina. That made him dangerous. As dangerous as me. “Mr. Romano...”
“I don’t have the luxury of trusting everyone on my side of the line,” he continued. “Not anymore.”
“What are you saying?” I pressed, tension mounting in my shoulders.
“There’s a mole,” he told me. “Someone is selling us out. Gathering intel and then sharing it.”
Unease coursed through me. This man was sharing things that dons only shared with their trusted inner circle.
At first, he’d acted like I could try to record our conversation.
Now, he was putting enough trust in me to share what had to have been a closely guarded secret.
Clearly, he was doing this not because he truly trusted me, but because he’d run out of options. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because she won’t, and if she’s ever in trouble, she’ll more than likely keep it to herself, thinking she can handle it on her own.
Marriage won’t make her more likely to confide in you or anyone else for that matter,” Don answered.
“It’s hard to protect someone when they keep you in the dark.
While Valentina will talk about whatever’s threatening our family, she keeps her own troubles to herself.
Mostly out of pride. She’s spent years hoping to take over from me, and in her mind, she can’t show weakness.
But you don’t have time to figure that out.
You need to be aware so that you’ll be able to shield her. Even from herself.”
“You want to make sure that she’s in good hands,” I said.
“Yes. And since this trouble with the mole involves our family and not yours, she’ll likely keep it secret from you,” he said.
“Not only out of pride, but out of respect for me. Loyalty becomes increasingly difficult to navigate when caught between two families. Two opposite sides. We aren’t one family yet. ”
“Not until the wedding,” I said. Not until the wedding, and even then, making the two enemies into one family was going to take work beyond saying some vows.
Clearly, seducing Valentina was going to need more than playing on her desires.
Which was why I had invited her in the first place.
To see how far I’d managed to get. Don Romano’s presence was putting that in jeopardy, but he was giving me information about her.
Information I could use to really get into her head and eventually make her truly trust me so much that she’d stop keeping secrets from me.
“The wedding is a big step,” he continued. “For all of us.”
“You arranged it to keep your daughter safe,” I said. “What father wouldn’t?”
“After me, only the De Lucas are powerful enough to protect her,” he said with a nod of confirmation. “I need that assurance. As a father, I need to know that this is more than a convenient alliance. I need to know that you’ll treat her like a real wife. Like a wife you chose for yourself.”
“I can’t promise to be in love with her,” I said slowly. “Can’t promise to even like her. But if there’s a mole, I—”
I didn’t get the chance to finish the sentence. A commotion from across the living room made me stop. One of the curtains in front of the balcony doors suddenly started blowing, which shouldn’t have been possible because the glass doors were shut.
Next thing I knew, a masked man burst into the living room from behind the curtain and stretched out his arm, pointing it directly at Don Romano’s chest. Extending from his arm was a semi-automatic pistol. It took me a moment too long to grasp what I was looking at.