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“Whatever you’re doing, Tony, stop right this minute,” Marty says, realizing why I invited her.
She knows me well. She was my late wife’s best friend. The four of us spent so much time with each other in our younger years for her not to realize my motive.
“Ari tried to reason with you. She told you repeatedly that you were making a mistake, Marty,” I tell her.
“What’s going on?” Matteo asks, his shoulders squaring.
“Leave it, Tony,” Giovanni urges, even though I know deep down he wants Matteo to know.
“I’ve left this secret in the dark for far too long, G. The truth needs to be spoken, and you were never going to do it,” I affirm with my stare locked with Martina’s angry one. “Ask your mother, Matteo.”
“How dare you, Antonio,” she utters with so much fury coursing through her that I can see the veins in her neck stretched with tension. “You have no right when it comes to this. He is my son.”
“And he is Giovanni’s son too,” I implore, my anger slipping through at the secret she demanded we all keep, knowing full well I wanted Matteo and Sienna to grow up together, become friends, to grow a bond that no man or woman could break.
“Excuse me?” Matteo jerks away from his mother, staring at her for the first time with utter shock and disbelief before his blue eyes flick to me and then his biological father’s.
“I’ll leave the three of you alone to sort this out.” Before I step away from them, I give Martina a look that shows my disappointment, but also my resolve. “Matteo deserves an explanation. Give him the truth, Marty. The whole truth.”
And with those final words, I step past them to check on Ciera.
One secret is out. Now I can focus on hers.
CHAPTER 22
CIERA
When you’re a little girl, you dream of the day you’re to get married. You plan every detail out in your head over the years. I always imagined a knight would come to my rescue, saving me from whatever fate I feared my great-uncle had planned for me.
As I got older, it became clear that no one was coming to save me. I either had to resign myself to the circumstances I was born into or figure out a way to bring all the monsters around me to their knees and then cut off their heads.
Liam gifted me with a glimmer of hope when he allowed me the opportunity to learn from one of the best computer hackers in the world. I’m not naive. I’m fully aware he had his own agenda that’s yet to be revealed to me.
He did everything within his power to mold me into a good little submissive, but I’m a far better actress than I am controllable and malleable. That’s not to say I wasn’t affected by the years spent under his tutelage. I have mental and physical scars, but I’m not broken. I can hide my emotions for the most part, but even my brim fills from time to time.
When it comes to my interactions with Domenico, it’s like no reservoir or dam exists at all. His words either turn me on or light a fire under my butt that makes me want to jump back in his face the same way he gets in mine.
Last night at the bar was the first time he struck fear into me. I didn’t like it, and for some odd reason, for a split second, at least, I don’t think he enjoyed my reaction either. But there were so many people standing around us, and having just . . . with . . .
I’m not going there. That memory is locked up behind a steel door inside my head. If I think about it, I’ll get hot all over again. Krishna and I made him come in a public place. That doesn’t even bother me in the light of day like it should—shouldn’t it?
They both questioned me on the drive from that hole-in-the-wall bar to Krishna’s apartment in Brooklyn. I told them the same thing I said to Sienna and Sasha but left out my suspicions. I wanted to tell them, but I’ve already dropped my guard around their family enough.
We rode with Krishna after leaving the bar, but before we made it to his place, Domenico shocked me by telling him to swing by the pharmacy. At first, I figured he was filling the birth control prescription the doctor had written earlier in the week, but that wasn’t the reason for the detour.
Krishna parked, then Domenico handed me several twenty-dollar bills and told me to get whatever I needed for my period and anything else I needed. I did need items since we weren’t going back to Tony’s house, but I wasn’t sure how he knew I was on my cycle. They even let me go into the store alone like I wasn’t a captive; then, maybe I’m nothiscaptive.
He did tell me he wasn’t into caged pets. He also wasn’t the one that took me from my father’s house either. Can someone be a captive if they were freely given over in the first place? My father gave me to Salvatore Santo to pay off a gambling debt. Tony was only taking back one of the items Sal owned, and since everything he formerly owned now belonged to Tony, so did I.
At least, that’s how I took it when it was explained to me six days ago, which has led me to the here and now—my wedding day.
Lifting the champagne glass to my lips with my right hand, my eyes dart to the ring on my left hand. It’s a diamond band, but it’s not without flair. There is a large pear-shaped diamond in the center surrounded by smaller diamonds. If the festivities didn’t resemble an Irish wake, I’d think the ring was as beautiful as my black lace wedding gown. I’m unsure which one itches more, the dress or the wedding band.
Domenico slid it in place forty minutes ago as if he was signing his name to a contract, sealing a deal, and well, isn’t that precisely what he was doing?
When Tony announced me as Domenico’s bride the night of his daughter’s wedding reception, he balked at the idea, declaring he wasn’t marrying a Fitzgerald. I can’t blame him for the disgust shown in his dark eyes at the thought of being married to me. I’d change my DNA if it were possible not to be related to the family I was born into.
With the Caputos, I could easily slip into a fantasy, to the point that even I believe this is real, pretending they want me for me and not because my family wronged theirs.
