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“I fucking knew it!” Max shouted as he paced the private living room floor, hand on his hip and other hand running through his long hair. His face was looking better after just a few hours. He had a few butterfly stitches on his right cheek and lip and bruising around his eye. The marks on his neck were no longer flaming red but it was still obvious he had been in a pretty fierce fight.
Cami was sitting next to me on the sofa, a small bandage on her forehead. She seemed surprisingly okay for someone who had just been sexually assaulted and nearly raped. She seemed more concerned for Max than herself.
“I just said to Liv this morning that I had a feeling that was what the Leones wanted to say. And there is evidence?” Max asked, looking over at Gio who was slouched in an armchair with a whiskey in hand.
“Loads of it. I have it all. The Leones did a thorough job of getting every incriminating detail so there was no way Sal could worm his way out of this one. There are voice recordings of their meetings, phone calls, and emails. The lot. Toni was the one it was mainly going through. The middleman so to speak. But Sal agreed to it all. It was all for his benefit. Get rid of the Leones. Get rid of Vinny so he could get to mamma and me.” Gio rubbed his jaw as he said the last sentence, emotion flicking through his eyes. I knew there was a part of him that felt guilty. That he somehow felt like Vinny’s death was his fault. That it was because of Sal’s obsession with him and Cecilia that Vinny was killed. Elle, Sani and Raya lost their papi.
“Cecilia! We have to tell her,” I said quickly, realising that she was living with her husband’s murder.
Giovanni sighed deeply, the world suddenly seeming too heavy for his shoulders. “I will but not until it is safe to. This will kill her. She will blame herself.”
We all sat in silence for a few moments as the truth of those words sunk in. He was right. This will tear her apart, but she had a right to know. She deserved to know who was responsible.
“So, what is the plan? I can’t wait to kill the second of Satan’s spawn,” Max grinned with malice. “Liv already put one down so let’s get on with the second.”
“I am going to take all the evidence to the commission first thing in the morning. They will obviously accept that Salvatore is guilty of murdering his own underboss and also trying to frame another mafia family for it. I will ask for permission to allow the Leones retaliation rights. I cannot be seen as the one who will kill Salvatore as it will cause problems within our family. I need soldiers and capos to believe that the Leones killed him and then the truth can come out about what he did to Vinny through the commission, keeping my hands clean in the whole thing.”
Max nodded. “That is a good plan. You will have everyone’s respect and loyalty as Boss immediately and when it comes out that Sal killed Vinny, no one will see the need to retaliate against the Leones. Vinny was loved by everyone. But don’t you want to be the one to kill Sal? Instead of handing him over to the Leones?”
A slow, dark smile stretched across Gio’s face as he looked up at Max. “I will be. I have already sorted it with the Leones. On the way to the wedding, we will be ambushed by Leone men. They will take both Sal and I hostage. Max, you will then inform mamma what has happened and bring her to the Leones. Tell her everything. She will want to watch him die. At that very last minute, I will be released in front of Sal and the depth of my betrayal will become clear. I will kill him myself.”
Max whistled and chuckled loudly. “Savage! Killed by his own son on his enemy’s territory. There is no bigger fuck you then that!”
“I am not his son,” Gio growled. Max raised his hands up in apology and I sighed. I really hope now more than ever that the DNA test came back negative. That Sal really was not his son because I could see in Gio’s eyes that he was going to kill Sal no matter what that envelope said. But I would hate for him to have to live with the fact he killed his own father.
“What about Toni?” Cami asked quietly next to me. My heart tugged at his name and the reminder of what I had done but it was far less crippling now.
Gio and Max spared a glance at each other as they thought deeply. I knew I had added to this mess. It was just another thing they had to try and manage without Sal becoming suspicious.
“We act oblivious. Toni is missing. We know nothing,” Gio replied.
“Problem is… he was last seen here. By the men he sent on break. It will get back to Sal that he was here today. What if we made Sal believe the Leone’s had him? Had captured him on his way back?”
“It could work but it is a risk. He could call off the wedding to try and find Toni,” Cami added.
Gio shook his head. “He won’t. He has waited thirty years to marry mamma. He won’t let anything stop him. Even though the Leones are supporting this, I still don’t trust them. They could play Sal and I off against each other if I give them too much information about Toni. I would rather play dumb. He is missing. We know nothing.”
We all nodded in agreement. Once we went through some more of the fine details of the wedding day, I felt completely exhausted. Cecilia would come here to get ready with us girls while Gio and Max would go to Sal’s house to get ready with his uncle. We would tell her everything and that the wedding would not be going ahead. We would wait for Max so we knew that the plan had worked and Gio and Sal were at Leone's territory and then Cecilia and Max would go along if she wanted to confront Sal before Gio killed him. It was a confident plan but there were still so many risky factors at play. We were trusting the Leones once again to keep their word. We were hoping Sal still went ahead with the wedding without Toni. And we were praying that Cecilia would be onboard. My heart broke for her as I thought about the pain she was about to endure.
∞∞∞
Cecilia
I stared blankly at the floor to ceiling mirror as two women pinned and tucked the silk fabric of my ivory suit for my wedding day. My wedding day. It was almost laughable. I refused to wear a wedding dress.
The sharp sting of a needle caught my thigh as one of the young designers pushed through the fabric and I hissed at her. Her eyes widened and she started to apologise profusely but I had already lost my patience.
“I’ve had enough. Get me out of this,” I snarled and they stood up from their positions and carefully took the suit jacket off my body. It’s been two days since I haven’t been on my medication, and I was starting to feel the effects. My patience was at an all-time low and I felt my moods shifting like the breeze.
After changing back into my designer tracksuit, I returned to my position on the sofa of the theatre room in Sal’s house and pressed play to the mind-numbing movie. This is where I had hidden myself away for the last two days. Watching films, eating crap and drinking wine. What else was there to do? I couldn’t bring myself to see my children. To have to force the happiness on my face to avoid them worrying. I didn’t have the energy for it. I didn’t have the energy for anything.
It must have been evening by the time Sal walked into the room with a pissed expression seeing the state of me and the contents of bottles of wine and empty food packets. The staff had informed me dinner was ready and Sal was waiting for me in the dining room, but I ignored them. Just like I was ignoring his judgmental glare now.
“Cecilia. Enough. Look at the state of you. Get up and come and eat dinner now.”
“I’m not hungry,” I replied coldly, causing his jaw to tick and fists to clench at the sides of his tailored trousers.
“I have been patient. I have given you space to get used to this change but my patience is wearing thin now woman. All I asked is that you have dinner with me every night. One thing.”
