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Icouldn’t sleep. I dozed for a couple of hours, but as soon as my phone showed five a.m. I gave up. I was tempted to go downstairs, but I knew Terry would be prowling. Alvize had returned a little after two, and I’d shamelessly listened to their hurried whispers as Terry made it clear he was on duty until Dario and Lucio returned, but I knew I couldn’t wait that long. Nonna would be up and dressed by seven to put the bread she’d made last night into the oven.
I knew Dario still hadn’t returned and wondered why, not that it didn’t give me a reprieve, and I guessed he was in his apartment. At least I knew he wasn’t with Terry, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t picked someone else to warm his bed.
I had a brother. I didn’t even know his name.
I went over the instructions from Sofia for the hundredth time and knew that as soon as she had a ring on her finger, my brother and I would be dead. She couldn’t risk either of us being found at some point, but she also knew that whatever I suspected, I was backed into a corner.
The thought of what that child was going through seemed to churn me up inside. I was sick of being backed into a corner, and just because Dario was prettier than Rocco didn’t make him less of a bully. I was done being pushed around. I stood just as I noticed my phone light up with a notification. Dragging it over, I wasn’t sure why I was disappointed it wasn’t from my new husband, but from an unknown number.
Why should I expect Dario to do me the courtesy of telling me when he was likely to come home?
I read the message and my stomach threatened to rebel.
“Make sure you are on the beach by six a.m. Plans have changed. Look for the boat.” It was accompanied by a picture. In this one, my brother looked terrified. In classic kidnap style, he was holding a copy of yesterday’s USA Today. But how could I get out? Terry was here. Alvize was here. At least six guards patrolled outside, including the beach.
I got dressed on autopilot in a pair of shorts and a tee shirt, eschewing even taking a small bag with a change of clothes. If I had to swim for it, they would get wet. I looked at the time on my phone. 5.50 a.m. I had ten minutes, and that was assuming the boat got me quickly enough. The chances of the guards—any of them—letting me just go for a casual dip in the ocean was ridiculous.
Unless I took them by surprise.
I didn’t know what to do with my phone. I had no doubt it could be tracked. I knew someone like Gia would be able to access my messages and I couldn’t afford that. I would dump it in the sea. I had to. I’d also removed my ring.
It wasn’t mine and Nonna deserved it back in one piece.
I put my hand on the doorknob, wondering how the hell I was even going to get downstairs without being seen. Then, miracle of miracles, Emily let out a piercing wail to announce she’d woken up again. I heard running feet past my door and knewthat was Terry. Without questioning it, and before Alvize woke from the same noise, I sprinted downstairs and out onto the beach.
The two guards were at the opposite end of the beach and just turning to walk back. At the same time as they saw me, I saw a small boat in the distance and heard it rev its engines as I sprinted to the shore. The guards immediately saw something was wrong and while they fired on the boat, the second I hit the water, they had to stop in case they hit me. I’d taken them by surprise, so even when one jumped in after me, they had no chance. The small inflatable stopped in front of me, and rough hands pulled me in, and they were soon speeding away. I didn’t bother looking back. The beach was just full of what might have beens.
Dario
Lucio insisted on checking the suite and it was clear Marcello didn’t give a damn. It was also clear Marcello now intended on drinking, as he helped himself from the bar. I accepted a glass and sat down. Both Lucio and Marcello’s man had agreed to wait outside, because one refused to let the other be present without him.
In the end, I didn’t think I had anything to fear from Marcello.
“So tell me,” I said after our guards had left and it was just us. “Why are you here?”
“Because it was the only way I could talk to you.” He took a sip of his limited Grey Goose VX.
“Look, Marcello, I’ve had a long night, and as you so eloquently said, I should be at home with my husband. I’m not going to drag it out of you, so either say what you have to or I’m going.”
He arched an eyebrow, and a little humor lit his eyes. “Officially, I’m my uncle’s heir, even though I’m not treated as such.”
I didn’t comment. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know.
“But I have reason to believe my uncle has taken a hit out on me.”
“That makes no sense,” I said. “He could simply remove you. He doesn’t need a reason.” Gabriel Amato was the Don. He could do what he liked.
“He could, yes. But my family is as mired in estate legalities and legacies as much as you have just been. Legally, as long as there is a surviving Amato male heir, the business will always pass to them. My father was the eldest brother, and the line has passed to direct heirs for six generations. My uncle has had two wives. Isabella died in childbirth along with his son, and Maria so far has had six girls. He doesn’t have a direct heir, but he has a cousin that he has been in a long-time blood feud with.”
Fury sped my heart so much, I had to concentrate really fucking hard not to let it show. This was it. Alessandro was Amato’s nephew, and he probably intended Alessandro’s heir to be groomed to take over in Chicago, all the while Alessandro fucking well stepped over my dead body to take what was mine. He was a dead man walking.
“Angelo Castilla,” I managed to get out in response. Marcello didn’t look surprised that I knew his cousin's name, but of course I did. The Amatos and the Castillas had feuded for overa hundred and fifty years. Castillas’ great-grandfather had an affair with Amato’s great-grandmother and Pietro Amato had gunned down his wife in front of Eduardo Castillo, then left Eduardo alive to suffer.
The fact remained that there could be no comeback fromla famigliaover the killing of an adulterous wife, but it was spelled out to Eduardo that if anything happened to Pietro Amato that all five of Eduardo’s children he shared with the wife he had betrayed would be dead.
The feud had continued down every subsequent generation. Angelo was the eldest, but he had four younger brothers. Gabriel couldn’t kill all five and get away with it, and the man was nearly sixty. His days of begetting a son were running out.
"There are also codicils written into the marriage contract of the second wife whose father is a shipping magnate worth approximately ten billion and counting, which means he cannot simply have an affair."
