His eyes darted to Francesca behind me and then back to me.
Shit.
His eyes moved away again, flicking to where my Range Rover was parked around the side of the house, an impossible spot to access if the house had been surrounded by the enemy. When his stare shifted back to me, it possessed the flames of the underworld. “How did you get here so quickly, Wolfe?”
If I hadn’t been here, Francesca would be kidnapped or dead. But that didn’t seem to register.
“How did you get here so quickly?” he repeated, a vein popping in his forehead that I’d never noticed before.
I held his stare without remorse or fear because I felt neither of those things. This was not how I wanted the don to find out I was sleeping with his daughter. Caught in the act, my pants around my ankles, with my dick wet. I wanted to tell him to his face like the honorable man that I was. But circumstance and Francesca’s protests had led us here—to our doom. “You already know.”
I heard footsteps behind me, heard people enter the house. Francesca’s inaudible words trailed into the distance as she took Leo inside to show him the damage the shootout had caused. In the morning light, the full extent of the violence would berevealed, with the bullet holes in all the surfaces and the blood on the walls and the floor.
Don Mancini didn’t take his eyes off me.
Salvatore had driven him here, and he silently excused himself from this conversation by walking to the house to join Francesca and Leo inside.
The don didn’t scowl or clench his jaw or show any particular outward reaction, but his eyes were more venomous than the strike of a king cobra. It looked like he wanted me in a grave he dug with his own shovel. “You were a stray dog that needed a home, and the second I invited you inside, you shit all over my floor.”
“This is not how I wanted you to find out?—”
“The manner of discovery doesn’t change the extent of the crime. I trusted you, initiated you into this family, and all the while, you’ve been sneaking around and screwing my daughter?—”
“I’m not screwing her?—”
“Interrupt me again, and I’ll shoot you between the fucking eyes, boy.” He took quick steps toward me and pointed his finger right between his eyes. He tapped the spot then pointed at me, his nostrils flared like a wild cat’s. “You shake my hand, and then the second I turn around, you stab me in the back.”
I continued to stand there, blood dripping down my arm to my hand before the drops hit the dirt. “That’s not my interpretation.”
“That tree bears the mark of my forefathers and my brothers…and now it bears the crest of a traitor. A disrespectful son-of-a-whore who tracks mud all over my house from his filthy boots.You’re a snake in my garden, Judas at my supper, a hyena in my pride?—”
“I love her.”
The rage remained in his eyes, but he was clearly stunned into silence.
“I love her. I would die for her. I’d ask her to be my wife if I thought she would say yes.”
His eyes remained volcanic as he looked at me.
“And with all due respect, I don’t give a damn if you’ve got a problem with that.”
His angry eyes narrowed as his shoulders stiffened.
“I don’t want to kill you, Don. But try to come between us, and I fucking will.”
He inhaled a slow breath, pissed off and obviously in disbelief.
“She’s a grown-ass woman who can make her own decisions—and I earned her.” I slammed my fist into my chest. “I kept you alive when Lombardi played you. I killed all those assholes who attacked Francesca and hung the survivors from that historic oak. When that shithead disrespected her at the wedding, I defended her because she’s my woman and like hell will I let anyone talk to her that way. And if I hadn’t been here tonight, she would have been kidnapped or shot. Every single one of you would be dead if it weren’t for me—and don’t you fucking forget it.”
He silently seethed as he listened to me, his eyes like two angry bullets.
“This is not how I wanted you to find out. I intended to tell you before, but circumstances didn’t permit it. Not to ask your permission, because it’s not fucking 1905, but to inform you that I’m the man in her life. I love her and nothing—and I mean not a goddamn thing—will ever come between us. Come for me, and see what happens.” Threatening my future father-in-law was a bad move, but it was what I felt in that moment, and I always spoke my mind. I wouldn’t tolerate any bullshit, and I wanted it to be crystal-fucking-clear that he would never be able to get rid of me. Francesca would never turn her back on me. We didn’t have a single weak spot he could exploit. She and I would stand the test of time like the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Greek Theatre in Taormina.
A heavy wave of silence washed over us both as the staredown continued. He remained calm even in the direst situations, but the lava had turned molten behind his eyes. His stare flicked past me momentarily, like someone had come out of the house.
I held his gaze and waited for a response.
Footsteps sounded behind us, growing louder until they came to a stop somewhere behind me.
