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Dante waved a hand. “That is not your concern.”
“Dante... I don’t want you to do anything illegal.”
He chuckled, low and dark. “That ship has sailed, I’m afraid. Or do you not know how I met your father?”
Her shoulders narrowed. “I thought that was just... A story.”
“It is a story that has been greatly watered down.”
He saw himself then, a boy of fourteen, holding a handgun extended toward an older man, pressing it to his forehead.
His hands were shaking. He was sweating.
One of his mother’s boyfriends had told him that if you were going to do this kind of thing, you couldn’t flinch. You couldn’t shake. And you certainly couldn’t sweat.
Above all else you had to be willing to pull the trigger.
And as Dante looked into the calm, kind face of the man that he was about to rob, he knew that he could not pull the trigger.
“Lower the gun, son,” the man said in soft, clumsy Italian.
It was the kindness that immobilized Dante, for he had never known anyone to look at him with anything other than resentment, disgust or pity.
Until Robert King.
“You really held my father up at gunpoint?”
“I did,” he said. “Believe me, I have no concern for what might happen to a mafioso. Men like him... Well, they bring ruin everywhere they go. They most particularly have brought ruin to my country, my streets. To women like my mother. They are part of a system that operates on fear and oppression. He is doing it to you in this personal capacity, but I guarantee you he has done it to many in a broader sense. I will not have it. I will not.” He reached out and touched her face, and he suddenly meant those words more than he had ever meant anything in his life. “Nothing bad will happen to you or to Isabella. I swear it.”
He took her hand, and led her out of the vestibule, and they nearly ran into Elizabeth, who was cradling Isabella, and Robert.
“There has been a change of plans,” Dante said. “It seems that Isabella has picked up a stalker from her time overseas. She is being threatened.”
“By who?” Robert asked.
“A man called Carlo Falcone. He’s from a crime family in Rome. Whatever he says, don’t listen to him. He’s insane, and he will use anything he can to try to manipulate you and the situation. We must notify the police that he intends to show up at the reception.”
Robert’s lip curled up into a sneer. “I’m more than able to handle him by myself.”
“Can you handle the retribution that will come if you dispatch him? It isn’t the law I worry about, but the rest of the family.”
That seemed to calm some of Robert’s readiness for a shootout. “I don’t want anyone in my family targeted by this man.”
“No. So we’re going to call for police presence at the reception, but I also want you to make sure that it gets out that Minerva and I have left. That we are not there. Have Violet post it to one of her social media accounts. I believe that he’s tracking our movements this way. And also, if she would be so kind as to indicate we’ve gone on a honeymoon in Italy, that would be brilliant.”
“But you won’t be,” Robert said.
“No. He will not be able to find us where we are going. I will be able to keep her and Isabella safe. You can trust me.”
“I do,” Robert said. “And that is not a statement I made lightly, Dante, and it is not a statement I would make to most men.”
“You saved my life,” Dante said. “With all that I am I will protect hers.”
Robert nodded, and he took Minerva’s hand, then he used one arm to scoop Isabella from Elizabeth’s arms. He had never held the child before. He was surprised by the way that she felt. Warm, and like a feather.
A small little thing he could have cradled in the crook of his forearm.
“I will keep them both safe.”
