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My father looked at me coolly. He’d met me simply with gratitude that I was okay, but I could tell now that he was angry. I was sure he’d been worried sick, and he wasn’t going to let me off the hook so easily. “What is this man to you,carissima?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. “He’s…he’s a friend,” I managed, my voice soft.
“A friend? Since when are you friends with Rocco Moretti’s type?”
Anger flared in me. My father had always been a bit snobby when it came to those who had full Sicilian blood and those who didn’t. “He’s Matteo’s father,” I blurted out, not knowing that I was going to tell him until I did.
My father stared, his eyes widening. “He’s what?”
“He was my boyfriend when I was a teenager,” I admitted. “For years we chased each other around, snuck out.”
“You never had any boyfriends when you were young,” my father insisted.
I scoffed. “None that you knew about.”
Papa sat down hard in his desk chair, staring at me with disbelief. “So Ricardo Gallo, for some reason, is after you and Rocco. Does that mean Matteo is involved?”
“No one knows about Matteo,” I said. “I made sure of it.”
“People know we have a child here,” Papa said. “They know you spend a lot of time with that child. I know we’ve passed him off as a cousin, but—”
“It’s not about Matteo,” I insisted. I knew Ricardo’s plans had more to do with my father than meorRocco, and I needed to explain that. “Ricardo’s afteryou, Papa.”
“What else is new?” he chuckled.
I frowned. “You have to take this seriously, Papa,” I told him, my voice calm and steady. I felt like I had about a million thoughts and emotions in my head I was holding back, but I needed to focus. I needed to figure this out. And making my father understand the gravity of this was the only way to do that. “We need to figure out what his plan is,” I said. “Maybe I could be bait or something.”
“We’re not doing that,” Papa dismissed, and I groaned inwardly. He was going to be so overprotective, but we needed to figure it out. He surprised me with the next words out of his mouth, though. “What if we invited him here?”
“To the mansion?” I asked incredulously.
“Bring him right into the lion’s den,” my father said smoothly, lighting a cigar. “If he wants to off me so badly, he’ll come alone. I know Enzo didn’t authorize this.”
“We can’t be sure of that,” I warned.
“Then my men will meet his men at the door. You can see we’re fully staffed with guards,” he said, and I knew there were wiseguys in every guestroom, some as sentries outside. I’d seen it coming in. Alberto had nodded to me at the door, but I’d been so focused on getting to Matteo that I’d barely noticed.
“I don’t know about this,” I said.
“Do you trust Rocco Moretti?” Papa asked, and it seemed so sudden that I was taken aback.
“Yes, I trust him,” I said easily. For all that Rocco and I had been through, I trusted him to protect me. It was the one thing he’d always managed to do. He just couldn’t protect me from him leaving.
My father looked at me intensely. “Do you love him?”
I choked out a breath. “Don’t ask me that.”
Papa hummed in the back of his throat. “Then he’ll stay here. He needs to get to know his son, anyway.”
“Papa—” I started.
“Allegra,” he said in a warning tone, the one he used when I was rebelling and he needed to use a firm hand. “A boy needs a father in his life, to grow up strong and to learn.”
“I know that, but he has you—”
“I love being Matteo’s grandfather,” he said. “But he needs his own father, and I think you know that,carissima.”
His tone had gone gentler and I relaxed slightly, sighing. “Maybe,” I said.
