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I guess it was a stupid question. “I have a question first,” I dare.
He cocks his head to the side. “You’re a strange one, you know that?”
I ignore his taunt. “Who’s Lucia DeMarco?”7Sergio“Ah.” I watch her. I’m curious about her. She’s torn, wanting to tell me to go to hell, but at the same time, drawn to me. “What did you do, Google the Benedetti family’s sordid history?”
“I don’t have to Google. Everyone knows.”
“You didn’t know until today.” I step toward her, lift her hair off her shoulder, push it behind her ear before cupping her chin to tilt it up. Her mouth opens, and her eyes grow wider. “And who’s everyone?”
She pulls back, turning her face the second she realizes she shouldn’t have said that. “I didn’t tell anyone about…the warehouse. I just said I’d run into you.” She clears her throat, doesn’t quite look at me as she answers and steps backward to put space between us. “I guess I want to know how you can own another human being.” She folds her arms across her chest. Tries to look confident.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know about Lucia. I know she was only sixteen when you locked her up.”
“That so?” I ask. I look her over, walk a slow circle around her. I don’t speak until I’m facing her again. “You know, you should really tell me right now to go to hell. To get out and never come here again,” I say, I’m not one to mince words. Not one to play stupid games. Time is too valuable for that so I’m going to get this shit on the table. “Because you know I lied earlier. About the strings.” I’m standing so close to her that she’s trapped with me on one side, the wall on the other. She’s not wearing any makeup and yet she’s fucking beautiful. I wonder if she even knows how beautiful. I lean my face close to hers. “With men like me, there are always strings, Natalie.”
She runs a hand through her hair, looks anywhere but at me.
“But you don’t want to, do you?” I ask. “For some reason, you want me to be here,” I say. “You liked that it was me when you opened the door.”
“No.”
“Huh.” I scrape my lower lip with my teeth. Her gaze falls to my mouth momentarily. “So instead of asking me to leave, you want to know about Lucia DeMarco? You sure about that?”
She gives me one short nod.
“Okay.” I step away, take off my coat and drape it over the back of a chair before sitting down. “Make me that cup of coffee.”
She sighs. The table’s too big for this space and she has to maneuver around it. I watch her fill the stove-top espresso machine with water and scoop out two heaping spoons of coffee. She stands with her back to me while the coffee brews. I wonder if she feels awkward but I don’t mind the quiet. I like being here in this house. I like being with her.
When the coffee steams, she switches off the burner, pours two tiny cups of espresso out and sets one in front of me. She then pulls out a chair and sits.
“Thank you,” I say, taking a sip. It’s good. “Lucia DeMarco is my father’s personal vendetta. For the record, I don’t like what he’s doing with her, but in order to punish the DeMarco family for their betrayal, he demanded something precious. The most precious things DeMarco has are his daughters, so…” I pause. “He took one.”
“He just took one?”
I nod.
“People aren’t things.”
I shrug a shoulder.
“He took her for you?” she asks and I know this is what’s got her wound up and I like it.
“Does that bother you?”
“What? No.”
“You sure?” She opens her mouth, but I continue. “On her twenty-first birthday, she’ll belong to my family.”
“That’s not legal. It can’t be.”
I give her a minute to think about that statement.
“But—”
“Shut up, Natalie. Just listen.” Amazingly, she shuts up. “You want me to tell you Lucia DeMarco has nothing to do with me?”
She watches me, answers my question with her own. “What must she be going through? What’s this like for her?”
“That isn’t a question I can answer or even care to consider. There are consequences to actions. A price to be paid. That’s all. And you shouldn’t romanticize it.”
“I’m not romanticizing it but she is locked away in a tower, isn’t she?”
“She’s at an excellent girl’s school getting an excellent education. And I think that’s enough on the DeMarco topic.”
She stands abruptly, takes her cup to the sink. “What happened to your hand?” she asks with her back to me.
I look at it, notice the bruise forming there. “Nothing.”
“Business?”
I have to admit, she’s observant. When I’d had to leave so abruptly last time it was because of news about that idiot Joe Vitelli. Roman had thought I’d been too lenient. I’ve always known my uncle has a taste for blood. But this time, he’d been right. My talk with the brothers didn’t quite set the younger one straight. Because Joe had a meeting I’m pretty sure his brother wasn’t aware of with a family who is a very clear enemy of ours.
