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I sink down into the chair and drop my head into my hands.
“Surely, you weren’t thinking of marrying her?”
“No, Papa. I wasn’t going to marry her. But Johnny?”
“It was the don’s order.”
I look into my father’s evil eyes and know he’s lying. Perhaps the don did order Johnny to marry her, but it would have come only at my father’s request.
And the one thing that we don’t do is disobey the don. Not if we value our lives or our position in the family.
“So...Grazie? Does she know?”
My father smiles. “She and her parents are expecting us tonight for dinner. I have already picked out the ring for you. Giuseppe was so excited to hear you wanted to marry his daughter.”
I’ll just bet he fucking was.
And just like that, I feel the cell doors clanging closed on my freedom and my heart forever.
––––––––
I’M SITTING OUT ATthe back of my house on the loggia smoking a cigar when I hear angry, rushed footsteps behind me. I already know that he’s coming. No one catches me off-guard in my home.
I slowly spin around to face my accuser.
“You stole my daughter’s life!” Giuseppe Moretti accuses, jabbing a thick finger in the air toward me.
My men pull his arms back to keep him from lunging in my direction. He’s come to my home every day since his daughter died and this is the first time I’ve seen him. The other days I couldn’t be bothered to deal with him.
His concern for his daughter and his supposed upright pillar of society façade is bullshit that I don’t have time for. He’s so deep in the mob’s pockets that he can’t find his fucking way out. He’s photographed with the Prime Minister and dines with the mayor regularly. Then he sneaks around back corners to seal political deals with my father, uncles, and other men like them that go against everything that the former group represents.
“Let him go,” I instruct my men as I stand from my chair.
When they release his arms, Giuseppe straightens his jacket.
He’s a short, rotund man with a head full of thick, wiry hair, wild bushy eyebrows, and a mustache. It’s good that Graziella took her looks from her deceased mother.
I take a few steps to him, and Giuseppe straightens his jacket once more, leans his head back and glares up at me.
“I am not scared of your kind, Marco.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be.”
“You killed my daughter with your dirty ways. Your father and your father’s kind were real businessmen who honored family and their reputation above all. This new generation, you respect nothing. You have no respect for your marriage vows and hold nothing sacred. You’re nothing more than a bunch of thugs who don’t know your dick from your head!”
“Is there something that you would like to say, Giuseppe?”
“The police are investigating my daughter’s murder. I have no reason to not cooperate with them, Marco. And God help me if I don’t personally bring you down myself if there is any indication that you had something to do with it!”
As I step closer to him, my jaws clench and my fists ball in my pockets.
“If I thought that you gave a fuck about Graziella, then I might look the other way at the threat you just fucking issued in my home. Against me. Since I know that you don’t give a fuck about her as nothing more than a negotiation tool, I’ll give you ten seconds to get out of my fucking house. If you don’t, I swear I’ll carve your fucking heart out of your chest right now and sit over you and drink the blood as it oozes from your heart. Then I’ll piss on your corpse before I burn it,” I reply with an upturn to my lips.
He continues to glare at me.
“Three...two...”
Giuseppe turns and damn near runs back into my house. I close my eyes and tamp down the anger that burns within me. Between him and the police, I swear they’ll give me a fucking heart attack.
