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“The boss wants to have a family dinner tonight minus the newlyweds and Brooklyn since she’s staying with her grandmother until Matteo and Sienna return on Friday,” Giovanni informs me as I pull a cart out from the buggy return section of the grocery store. “Can you make enough for everyone?”
I start walking toward the produce section, pushing the cart as I go in search of ingredients. “I don’t know if it’s best for me to be in the same room as Domenico. I doubt he’d even want to eat something I’ve cooked.”
“You’re marrying him in five days, rainbow. If you can’t sit down at a table with the little dick, then you’re already in trouble.”
More like we’re marrying against our own free will, so I think we’re far past the “in trouble” stage of our nonexistent relationship.I keep that thought locked behind my lips, along with the fact that Domenico’s mickey is the opposite of little. The memory of his hardness pressed against my backside weeks ago is still as vivid as if it happened last night.
Instead of responding, I stop the cart and walk around it, giving my back to Giovanni as I grab carrots, celery, and an onion. After placing them in the buggy, I peek my eyes up to see Giovanni with his palms wrapped around the handle of the shopping cart. “Grab what you need. I’ll follow,” he says nonchalantly, so without objecting, I pivot on my heels, giving him my back once again. I make my way around the little store in no time, grabbing items I know I’ll need for the meal and a few other things I want to cook this week.
Once I place the block of Irish cheddar in the cart, I have everything I need. Being inside this small specialty shop for twenty minutes has dwindled my anxiety to almost nothing. I can breathe with ease, and my throat doesn’t feel like there’s a cotton ball lodged in my esophagus. For a second, I consider drawing my trek to the checkout counter out, but when I see Giovanni glance at the big watch on his wrist for the third time, I think better of it.
By the time the clerk rings up all the items, I’m pulling out the cash I brought with me, but before I hand the bills to the young man across from me, I see the credit card in Giovanni’s hand moving toward the card reader. “No!” I say in an almost shout, the clerk’s eyes going from me to Giovanni and then back to me again, alarm in his gaze. “I mean, I got it. I have enough money to pay.”
The clerk’s eyes once again slide to Giovanni’s and linger in a scrutinizing manner. Swallowing, I force myself to focus on Giovanni, waiting for him to say something. His jaw hardens, but after a heartbeat, his hand retreats and a forced nod grants me permission to pay for the groceries. As I hand the bills over, my anxiety creeps back in, and I know I’ve messed up without having to be told.
Giovanni doesn’t say anything as he grabs all the bags, not leaving any for me to carry as he walks out of the store, me following behind him. He doesn’t speak during the drive back to Tony’s either. The only noise is the turning of the tires as they speed against the wind and asphalt below the vehicle. By the time he parks in the driveway, my chest is heavy and my body stiff from the thirty-five-minute drive.
He presses the button on the dash, turning the SUV off. “Ciera,” he finally says, breaking his silence, his voice low, but there’s a lethal edge that doesn’t go amiss. “In the future, drawing unwanted attention will not be tolerated. I’m going to let your outburst slide this time, but it will not happen again. Are we clear?”
“I wasn’t trying to offend—”
“This has nothing to do with your reasoning. Don’t ever draw attention to me in public, Ciera. My job is to protect this family. If you put one of us at risk again, you will not survive long enough to apologize.” He pauses, but his deep blue eyes remain locked with mine as a cold chill runs down the length of my spine. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nod because words are shackled behind the fear of his unspoken threat. Here I thought he was the nice one, but I haven’t been struck with cold hard fear since I was on Ireland soil. I’ve never been able to drop my guard around anyone. I was a fool to think I might be able to now.
“Take the groceries to the main house. I need to have a word with the boss.”
CHAPTER 6
DOMENICO
“The least you can do is level with me,” I say as I sit in the chair opposite my father as he sits behind his desk in his office. I lean back and place my forearms against the armrests on each side. “Why are you hellbent on having me marry a Fitzgerald? What is it you’re after, and why can’t we get it without a piece of paper that means nothing?”
“Did you know Killian, Cormac’s son, is only seventeen?” His eyebrows lift before he continues. “Ciera’s nineteen. She’s his firstborn.” He pauses, letting that information sink in, and I already know where he’s taking our conversation. “She’s the rightful heir. She’s the oldest.”
I bark out a laugh. “That sick fuck doesn’t care about right versus wrong. Fitzgerald will never name her his second in command,” I tell him. Besides that, she’s too skittish and mouse-like for the job. A girl like her doesn’t belong anywhere near our world.My five-year-old niece has more of a backbone than she does, I think to myself.
“I’m not implying that he would. There is no doubt in my mind that that’s the last thing Cormac wants. When Killian was born, he shipped her to Dublin and then killed their mother. He thought he’d get rid of his daughter since he’d finally got the boy he wanted in the first place,” Dad informs me, and it makes sense, but there’s more my fatherisn’tsaying, so I keep prodding.
“Yet, here she is, back in New York, and you’re making a play for her to be what, exactly?”
He sighs, but it comes off more like he’s irritated that I’m not catching on to the obvious. “Sooner rather than later, Cormac will be dead. With him out of the picture, we can take over and dismantle their shit-show. You would move back to the city so that we could have a presence there. If Killian has to go too, then so be it, but I’d rather give the boy a second chance for us to show him what a real family is supposed to be like. Let him see how we have each other’s back no matter what so he can do the same for Ciera.”
“Now you want to welcome a second member of their botched lineage into our folder. Have you lost your fucking mind?” One Fitzgerald is bad enough. Two is unacceptable.
“No, Domenico,” he bites out in an acerbic tone. “You have already forgotten. This has been the plan for years.”
“But you haven’t told me why.” I’m calmer now than when I followed him into his office. His frustration seems to be a balm to my anger. It won’t last long. The need to damage something or someone lies just beneath my skin, aching to be released.
“Multiple reasons. Pick whichever one you like the most. Cormac isn’t a leader. He’s a thug. He thinks he holds power when in actuality, he’s just as much Liam O’Donovan’s puppet as the corrupt police commissioner, Owen Donovan, is. Cormac encourages his hoodlums to rape and kill women, to rob business owners. All that alone is reason enough to end his miserable life, but none of those are my primary reason.”
I’m not in disagreement. Fitzgerald’s demise should be slow and painful until his organs fail and nothing remains but a rotting corpse.
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Dad. Spit it out. What’s your real beef with him?”
“I discovered a recorded conversation in Raffaele’s safe. One voice was Cormac; the other Rico Romano.”
“Not exactly surprising that Rico, the rat, would be consorting with trash,” I comment when his chest expands as he takes a breath, his eyes darkening with so much hatred it’s palpable. The real question is, why would any type of recording be in my grandfather’s possession and not the boss’s?
