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Nico’s expression doesn’t change but I feel the muscles in his arms tensing. “I’ll make him pay for that.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Kill my brother.”
“You’re sure there’s no other option?”
“If there was, I wouldn’t take it. No one hurts you and gets to live. I let him live, he’ll kill you, Cara, and Santina. He’ll know she’s here by now. I have to kill him to save you all.”
I should be afraid. He’s talking about cold blooded murder. It’s a sin. A crime. Not something that should ever be condoned.
All I feel about it is that it’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me. How screwed up does that make me?
Do you know what, for once I don’t even care. I just care about the fact that I’m safe and I know Nico is going to protect me.
Not just me. Cara and Santina are under his protection as well. Makes me love him all the more to know that behind those cold shark eyes there is an ocean of compassion for others. It just remains hidden from view most of the time.
I take a shower, washing off the worst of the ash and stink from the basement. When I come out, dinner has been prepared. I don’t think I’m hungry until I sit down and then I realize I’m ravenous.
Around the table, the conversation flows. Santina is talking to Cara about college, asking the kind of questions that suggest maybe she’ll consider going someday.
If she can get away from Giovanni. He’s the shit in the hamper. The elephant in the room. He needs dealing with no one wants to discuss that right now.
Nico is busy talking to Matteo about the wedding. Apparently, it’s going to take place in two hours time. I won’t be dressed nicely. I won’t have flowers but I will have two bridesmaids. Cara and Santina. Nico will have a best man. Matteo. We’ve already got the rings. What more could a woman want from a wedding ceremony?
Thirty-Six
Nico
* * *
This meeting will decide my entire future. I’m standing outside the boardroom looking down at the ring on my finger. A plain gold band. Such a small item and yet that and the object in my jacket pocket represent everything in the world to me. I’m a married man. My wife is pregnant.
Yesterday, the wedding. Today, becoming the Don.
I look up at the ceiling. I hope I’ve made my father proud.
Inside the next room, I can hear Giovanni talking to the commission. He’s no idea I’m here. He’s yakking away and they’re listening in respectful silence.
Let him talk. It’ll get him nowhere, not with what I have to show them.
He’s trying to sound confident, full of bluster and bravado. Selling himself like this can’t hide the fact that he’s losing. He might be married but Santina isn’t pregnant. The commission have seen the will. The official stamp of the five families is on it.
He can try and sway their opinion all he likes. The truth is simple. They will not let him become Don.
He ends his interminable speech by telling them that not only am I not married, my wife to be has gone missing. His wife too. Suspects I kidnapped her. They should let him put a hit out on me.
That makes me smile. He thinks Rory’s still in the basement. No doubt, he thinks he’s won. That’s why he’ll lose. Misplaced confidence.
I feel the gold band on my finger, remembering everything that happened last night. The minister hired by Matteo. The three lawyers we brought in to check the paperwork before and after.
Rory in a dress borrowed from Cara. Her standing beside me, slipping the ring onto my finger. The smile on her face when we kissed. The way she looked at me. The fact that I love her.
“It’s interesting,” one of the commissioners says when Giovanni finally shuts up. “You’re certain that Aurora Moretti is nowhere to be found? Santina as well.”
“Absolutely. They’ve vanished off the face of the earth.”
“Only I hear someone knows where they are.”
