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But even as I said the words, something inside was niggling away at me.
“I should feel relief that we know who the leak is,” I said to Marco. “But something inside me makes me feel that this isn’t right.”
“What isn’t right?”
“That Anni is the leak.”
Marco stared at me. “But you’ve already told me that she is and that you’re completely convinced of it.”
“That’s just it. The facts point that way, but something inside me keeps niggling away. This isn’t how I do things normally—I never doubt my decisions and actions. But something deep inside of me tells me that there was no way that the Anni I’ve come to know would have shopped me to the Feds.”
Marco looked at me sharply. “What makes you think that?”
“This is a woman who has tried her hardest since she’s come into my family’s lives to make things better: to make the children’s grief better, their sleep better, their meals better, their anxiety better, and their confidence better. She’s mademebetter. I’ve always told myself that she was too young, but I now know that isn’t true. She’s got a wise head on her shoulders. She’s handled becoming a wife and mom with a level of maturity that has, quite frankly, surprised me. She’s a strong woman and I don’t believe that she would let herself be so easily manipulated by her family. I believe in her loyalty to me, to my family, and to the Fratellanza.”
Confronting Anni about being the leak should have made me feel better. If she had allowed herself to be manipulated by her family and if she had leaked to the Feds, then that would have proved what I’d thought all along—that she was too young and too immature to be a Mafia wife to me.
But I didn’t feel any relief or triumph.
Instead, all I felt was that I’d made a terrible mistake in accusing her. And it was all my fault: it had been my choice to accuse her and my choice not to believe her.
Now that my initial anger had passed, I had done nothing but turn things over and over in my mind. Doing an about-face now by telling Marco that I had changed my mind and that she couldn’t be the leak, especially when I had no proof about who actually was the leak, was making me look like a weak and indecisive Underboss. Just like telling everyone about Rita’s suicide would have made me look like a weak Underboss to my men after she had died.
But this time I wasn’t going to let my pride stand in my way.
No, I was going to fight for what I believed in—and what I believed in was Anni and the family she had created with me, Clara, and Clemente. She was the other half of me, the woman who made me feel whole again.
After what had happened with Rita, I’d always sworn that I’d never trust another woman again or let a woman inside my heart. I’d agreed to marry Anni for the sake of our alliance with the Imperiosi, but I’d never agreed to give her my heart—I’d been determined to protect that at all costs and not open myself up to heartache and loss again.
But that is exactly what I was left with now—heartache over losing the woman who’d brought so much light and love into my life and into my family. Because after I’d accused her the way I had, she would want nothing further to do with me.
I knew I couldn’t lose Anni—not now, not after I’d fallen for this woman.
“She’s fucking smart, Marco. She’s much more intelligent than I originally gave her credit for. She understands business issues—actually takes an interest in them. I told you how she figured out the bakeries’ problem after our highly-paid accountants failed to do so. I thought before that she’d been manipulated by her family into revealing information about our operations. But now I realize that she’s far too smart, and far too loyal, to let herself be manipulated in such an obvious way.”
Marco regarded me carefully. “If you really believe in her, then you know what you have to do.” I could see in his eyes that he agreed with me about Anni.
“Yeah, I know. I have to find out who the leak really was.”
CHAPTER 47
LORENZO
After arriving back from Marco’s, I had spent the evening holed up in my study, trying to figure out who the leak might be.
Anni was spending the night in the guest room again, adding to my bad mood. I couldn’t believe that she’d moved into the guest room over the argument we’d had after Cat-Con. She wasmywife, and I expected her to sleep inmybed next to me. She had disobeyed me both by attending Cat-Con and by going out without a bodyguard. My rules for her were in place for her safety.
I was rewatching the footage of the FBI raid to see if there were any clues I had missed, but finding no new information, I closed the video on my laptop and sighed in irritation.
I clicked on the folder for the security cameras around my mansion and the grounds.
Although I’d turned the main security cameras off when I’d taken Anni to the tennis court, I’d kept on the cameras that only I had access to. And clicking on the file from the day of the tennis match, I viewed the footage.
I watched as I spanked her, strapped her, fingered her, and then fucked her, zooming into her face and closely watching her emotions.
Fuck, she’d been just as turned on as I had been. Although my kitten liked breaking the rules sometimes, she also liked being forced to submit to me.
Getting to the part when I finally penetrated her with my dick, I watched while she tightly gripped the seat in front of her.
