“A convenient story.”
“It’s the truth.”
“We’ll see.” He steps away from me, giving me the chance to breathe. “I don’t want to treat you harshly, Emma. You seem sweet. But no one is this sweet. This innocent. They can’t be. So tell me what you know of your father. Tell me any weaknesses he may have.”
“I don’t know since I don’t know him.”
Leo huffs as a cold, dark sneer crosses his face. A sneer meant for me. “You are his weakness. You have to be. As his daughter, he will want to protect you. So you will stay here until your father crawls back into the hole he came out of. Or me and my boss kill him. Either way, you are staying here, Emma. As my wife. My prisoner. No one can take you away from me. I have the ultimate control. I am sorry it’s coming at your expense. But I just don’t know if I can believe anything you say.” He steps out of the cage and shuts the door, locking it. Locking me inside.
I sob harder because there’s nothing else I can do.
Leo looks pained for just a second before his expression turns stoic. “I’ll be back later. Maybe then you’ll want to talk.”
I watch in dismay as Leo leaves the basement, leaving me all alone in this cage. Leaving me to my misery.
Leo
The memory of Emma sobbing her heart out is seared into my brain. Am I doing the right thing? I know for a fact that she’s Alessandro’s daughter. That makes her guilty by association. But is she truly guilty? Is she telling me the truth? I have to find out.
Either she’s a part of her father’s scheme and then I’ll have to kill her like her dad or she’s telling the truth and completely innocent. Which if that is the case, I kidnapped a completely innocent girl and married her and then I’ll have no idea what to do with her.
A loud knock on the front door makes me tense. I know who it is before opening it.
Gabriel rushes inside the second I open the door a crack. “Leo. What the fuck?”
“Rocco told you?”
“Of course he told me. You married Emma Greco? What the fuck? She’s the daughter of our enemy. You have made me look like a fucking fool.”
“No. Marrying Emma was a smart decision. If Alessandro tries to take her back, we have leverage to stop him. We can use this against him. Make him weak. And then we strike, killing him, and be done with the threats against us.”
“There will always be threats against us. We’re the fucking mafia.”
I sigh. “I know. But our current threat is Alessandro and we have the best bargaining chip we could use. Emma is right here, bound to me. Let’s use her. We can hurt Alessandro. You know this is a good idea. His own brother murdered your entire family and Alessandro himself stood back and laughed. He didn’t stop his brother. Don’t you want revenge?”
“Of course I do!” Gabriel shouts, showing real emotion instead of his typical stoic bullshit.
“Good. Because I do too. I thought Giovanni got the easy way out. You killed him with a gunshot to the head. But with Alessandro, we can torture him by using Emma. Just knowing we have his daughter will drive him crazy. It has to.”
“What about her mother? You have Emma but not her mom.”
I hesitate. “I couldn’t find her mother. I don’t know where she is.”
Gabriel goes quiet before running his hand down his face. “All right. Keep Emma. I may be angry with you for going under my nose with this but it’s a good idea. Just don’t let my wife find out. Aurora cannot know I agreed to let you keep a kidnapped girl here. I’m trying to move away from this darkness.”
“You’re the head of the mafia, boss. You can’t just move away from it.”
“I know,” he says with a heavy sigh. “It would have been better if you had both Emma and her mother. Valentina. I remember her when I was young. She was there that night. When Giovanni killed my family. She was with Alessandro. And then they both disappeared out of the mafia and I never knew what happened then.”
“They had Emma.”
Gabriel nods. “Yes. It appears so. Keep Emma here. If you lose her, it will only make things worse.”
“It’s why I married her. None of our men will try anything with her and I’m hoping it will piss Alessandro off more knowing I married his daughter. That he lost her.”
“Are you going to hurt the girl?”
“I don’t want to,” I admit. “But I will if I have to.”
