Morning was heralded by kids running down the hallways banging on doors and shouting for everyone to get up. The cacophony resembled a frat house filled with unruly college boys. Faith glanced at the wall clock to find it was seven-thirty. A tiny strip of sunlight slipped between the heavy curtains at the far end of the room. The cat was already lying in the beam.
Squish twisted her head and yawned at Faith, then went back to sleep.
Leo rolled over and pressed a pillow over his head. “Goddamn kids. And my mother wants me to have a house full of them. If she likes them so much, they can live with her.”
Faith sat up against the headboard and stared at the glittering diamond on her hand. Even in low light, it was dazzling. “This isn’t going to work.” “What isn’t?” His voice was muffled underneath the pillow.
“This. All of it. We can’t maintain this lie forever. Half your family wants me dead so I’m not a threat. The other half wants me to have babies. This is a mess. I wish Angelo had shot me and been done with it.”
But it wasn’t just that. It was the carrots that were being dangled in front of her that weren’t real. An attractive, successful fiance. A beautiful home. Family. Even as screwed up as Christmas Eve had been, a real family holiday with everything she’d dreamed of. The food, the laughter, the warmth. All the things she’d always wished she could have, presented to her with all the reality of fool’s gold. “Just give me back to Angelo and let him finish it.”
Leo got out of bed without a word and threw on his robe. On his way out the door, he said, “Don’t leave this room.”
Ten minutes later, he returned with a grumpy, yet fully dressed, Angelo. Leo locked the door and came to stand next to the bed. Faith’s eyes widened at the sight of the gun with the silencer in Angelo’s hand. Despite his tiredness, his eyes lit with a malevolent gleam.
Leo’s voice cut through her mental hysteria as he looked at the gun.
“Assassin’s special? Nice.”
“I still carry it from the old days before I got promoted,” Angelo said.
“Faith has decided she doesn’t want to live anymore. She’s right, this lie won’t work. So go ahead, Ange. Clean up your mess.” He crossed his arms and took a step out of his brother’s way.
“I should have killed the bitch to begin with. See, baby? This is the price of not giving my brother what he wants.”
“We don’t need the commentary,” Leo said. “Do it and get out.”
“W-what?” Faith pinched herself, sure she had to be having a nightmare. This couldn’t be real. It wasn’t until this moment that she realized she’d actually trusted Leo a little.
Angelo raised the gun. Leo didn’t stop him. Her instincts engaged, bypassing the denial still going strong in the forefront of her mind. She rolled out of the bed. But both Leo and Angelo were in the way of the door and she wouldn’t be able to unlock it and open it in time. She backed away, her hands held out in front of her.
“No. Leo, please. Please.” The panic started to bubble up.
The brothers moved almost as one unit toward her. If not for Leo’s scar, Faith wouldn’t know which was which right now. Leo stood the closest, with Angelo a few feet behind and to the side of him. The gun raised again, aimed to kill-not wound.
Having nowhere to go, she dropped to her knees. “Please don’t let him do this. I don’t want to die. Please. Please. Please.”
A moment later, the gun went off, and even with the silencer, it was the loudest sound in the world. The bullet lodged in the wall, a couple of inches above her head.
She fought not to hyperventilate as she looked up for Leo’s reaction. Maybe he was bluffing. Maybe he would be angry at Angelo-if for no other reason than for the bullet hole in his wall. But his face remained stoic, cold. It was as if a switch had flipped inside him. There was nobody home. She was locked in a room with identical sociopaths.
Even so, she scooted closer, pressing her face against his leg, as if getting close enough to her former protector would prevent a bullet from going through her. “Please, don’t do this, Leo. I’m sorry. Please. I’ll do whatever you want. Please. Please.”
Had Angelo meant to miss? The slightest miscalculation would have killed her. Or maybe it was the slightest miscalculation that had left her breathing. It was impossible to determine the true scenario.
“Faith, I’m going to say this once,” Leo said. “I have sacrificed everything for you. Any hope of the kind of life I would want for myself. All so you can live, because I can’t take more blood on my hands. I’ve chosen not to violate you. Everything I’ve done has been unselfish and for your safety and interest. I’m sorry that your life as you knew it has been taken from you. I’m sorry you’re in this situation, but the words you speak have consequences. Do not ever imply you want to die or wish Angelo had killed you again, unless you are truly ready for death, because you might bluff, but we don’t. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.” Finally, she could breathe again. Assuming Angelo didn’t lose his temper and shoot her anyway, she’d be allowed to live this time. “Good.”
Angelo didn’t disguise his disgust. “You better please him, little girl.
You were intended as a gift.”
When he was gone, Leo helped her stand.
“L-Leo?”
“Yes, Faith?”
“Are you going to make me… I mean are we going to… ” Are you going to rape me? Are you going to beat me? Are you going to chain me in your dungeon? Are you going to hurt me? But she couldn’t bring herself to say any of those awful things, so instead, she looked at him helplessly, praying he could read her mind. After all, he’d told her not to say things she didn’t mean or there would be consequences, and she’d said she’d do whatever he wanted to live. And she knew exactly what he wanted.
Her first night here, when she’d begged for his mercy, he’d been affected by her tears. This morning it was as if he were farther away, harder to reach and reason with. How long until nothing could sway him to show her mercy? How long until his sexual frustration peaked? Living here with him wasn’t safe. It was only temporary safety. When the safety ended and he took what he’d been aching to have, would she wish for death and mean it? How would she know?
It wasn’t until Angelo had pointed a gun at her for the second time that she realized nothing had changed. She still wasn’t brave enough to die. But she wasn’t sure if she was brave enough to survive, either. Not with Leo’s compassion becoming harder to earn. It was as if being around Angelo and the rest of his family for an extended period had begun to unlock his criminal side.
“Go get cleaned up. I’m sure the women are already making breakfast,” he said, ignoring her question.
***
Leo grabbed his clothes and went down the hall to shower, careful to lock the bedroom door behind him. Angelo waited in the hallway with his arms crossed over his chest.
“You’re too soft. I wish you’d let me shoot her,” he whispered.
“If she had wanted to die, I would have. If she’s going to live in this house unmolested, she needs to show me the smallest respect by not tossing half-hearted suicidal words around. I don’t think she understood how ungrateful it was. Now she understands.”
Angelo followed down the hall. “So, now that you’ve got part of your balls back, are you going to take what’s yours?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“I’ve caught the way she looks at you,” Angelo said. “She might not know it yet, but she wants you. This could work.”
“She’s vanilla.”
“So?”
“So, she might want me, but she wants me in a Disney princess sort of way with soft candlelight and missionary position and love and candy. She doesn’t want me in a ‘chained down in the dungeon while I lay pretty welts down across her ass’ way. If she were kinky, I’d take her and turn her body against her no matter what she said she wanted. I’m not sure I’m up to that challenge with someone who isn’t wired like me.”
When Leo reached the bathroom, Angelo put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. Okay? You’re right, I should have killed her that night. You’ve done so much for me, supporting me and Davide when nobody else would. I wanted to give something back. When it went south, I didn’t want to admit I’d hurt instead of helped you. I’ll stay out of it. You don’t need more shit from me.”
“Thanks, that means a lot, Ange.”
They hugged and beat each other on the backs, then kissed on the cheek.
“And we make up on Christmas morning,” Angelo said, chuckling.
“It’s a Rockwell moment.”
Leo ran the shower hotter than normal, fighting with himself over what he was going to do with the woman in his bedroom. Why couldn’t she be a freak like him? Physically, she was just his type. She was smart. She wasn’t a psychotic like Caprice.
He considered utilizing the submissive tendencies she did have. The ones that made her want to placate and appease and get along. It wouldn’t make her any more receptive to anything in the dungeon, but maybe he could compromise. A quieter, gentler dominance. One that wouldn’t look kinky to the untrained eye but that might still be enough if he held full control and she gave him her obedience.
She was his no matter what she was or wasn’t into. Whatever he actually did or didn’t do with her didn’t change the fact that he could do anything. That point had been made clear. He could have her destroyed at the point of Angelo’s gun at any time. And now she knew it.
***
When Leo reached the kitchen, he was surprised to find Faith already eating breakfast. Angelo kept a respectful distance.
Most of the family, in fact, was somewhat back to normal. Uncle Sal appeared to be assessing her in a wolfish way, as if determining if her head should go on his office wall, but Leo hadn’t expected Sal to back down overnight.
Gemma sat in the corner, whispering with Caprice. Great. The psycho and the sister who didn’t know what was good for her, both huddling together in conspiracy. At least they couldn’t be conspiring on getting him and Caprice together, unless Gemma wanted to punish him and realized Caprice was punishment. But as self-involved as his sister was, he didn’t expect her to have picked up on that subtext.
At the kitchen table, Gina was trying to fatten Faith up with second helpings.
“She’s not eating for two,” Leo said, approaching the table.
“Not yet,” Gina said giving him a conspiratorial wink.
Faith looked up, fear still in her eyes. She’d managed makeup to minimize the evidence of crying, but that stark look was still there. He hoped the family thought she was rattled from the previous night’s drama, rather than the truth that she was actually afraid of Leo now.
He stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her, kissing the side of her neck. He lingered until her breathing went back to normal and her muscles unclenched themselves, then he sat in the chair beside her, and his mother’s attention went to loading up his plate.
“Admit it, Ma. You want us all fat.”
“Hush. It’s Christmas. One week out of the year isn’t going to take away your good looks.”
Leo took the moment of his mother’s distraction to steal a kiss from Faith. She gasped against his mouth when he turned her to him. He wanted to gauge the truth of what Angelo had said.
For all his faults, Angelo could read people. It was part of what made him such a good capo. He knew if someone could be trusted, if someone was fucking him over. He’d known immediately that Faith wasn’t having sex with his brother like he’d intended, something Leo didn’t want to know how he’d guessed.
In spite of her fear and the events of the morning, she melted into him like butter on a hot griddle. Interesting. He allowed his fingers to trail through her hair and used his other hand to touch the side of her neck. Her pulse was racing. Fear or something more?
Her face was flushed, her eyes glazed. She looked away quickly, back to her plate. That wasn’t fear, and she wasn’t a professional actress. Angelo was right. No matter how conflicted or terrified she was, she wanted him.
But it didn’t matter. She didn’t want him. She wanted the version of him his family saw, the cleaned up, respectable version. The holiday edition. She didn’t want his darkness. That, she cowered from. He couldn’t be with a woman who would cringe in fear from such a pervasive part of him. As attractive and nearly perfect as he found her, that single missing ingredient made the entire cake fall.
Leo glanced down to find Angelica crawling near his feet with Christmas paper in her mouth. “Someone has been unwrapping presents without us.” It had escaped most of the adults’ notice that the kids had disappeared from the kitchen.
“Angelica is a baby. She can’t open presents by herself,” Alba said.
Leo laughed. “I know that, Grammie, but if she’s got wrapping paper, someone had to give it to her.”