Romero stared at my phone. What the fuck was Scuderi thinking? I had wanted to kill him so often in the past, now I wished I hadn’t.
Nino came out of the meeting room and put a cigarette in his mouth. The guy was getting on my nerves. “Why the long face? Get a nice long blowjob from one of the girls.
She always makes me smile.”
I rushed toward him, grabbed him by the collar and threw him against the wall. He slammed his head against it and dropped his stupid cigarette. “What the fuck, asshole! Let me go!” he screamed like a fucking pussy.
I punched him twice in the stomach and he fell to his knees. God, I wanted to fucking kill someone. I didn’t even care who. I hit him over and over again.
“Hey! What’s going on here?” growled Luca.
He grabbed my arms and pulled them behind my back. “Romero what the hell are you doing? Calm the fuck down.”
I relaxed in his grip and took a deep breath.
Matteo knelt beside Nino, who was bleeding from a head wound and nose. I didn’t even realize I had hit him in the face too. Aria joined us after a moment.
Since she had started working on club books, she came here quite often. She gave me a questioning look, then concern contorted her face.
“I’ll kill you, you bastard,” Nino growled.
Matteo helped him to his feet. “You’re not going to do anything.
Go inside and have someone sew your head on.”
Nino staggered away, but not without giving me a deadly look. As if I gave a damn. Let him try to kill me. I was going to wipe the fucking floor with his weak ass.
“Did something happen to Lily?” asked Aria frightened, moving closer to me.
“You can let me go now,” I said to Luca. He did so and stepped back, his half-closed eyes passing between his wife and me.
“Why would Romero know if there was something wrong with Lily?” he asked cautiously.
Aria said nothing, just looked at me. Maybe I should have worried that Luca might find out, but I didn’t give a damn about that either.
“Your father arranged a marriage with Benito Brasci for her,” I said in a low voice.
Aria gasped, “What? He never said anything about finding her a husband!” She cast a glance at Luca. “Or did she mention anything to you?”
Luca’s expression was stony. “No, she didn’t say that. But right now I’m more worried about Romero knowing before anyone else and almost killing one of my men because of it.”
I leaned against the wall. I might as well tell him the truth. “Lily and I dated over the ‘summer.'”
Matthew let out a low whistle. For some reason it annoyed the hell out of me. I glared at him and almost lost it again when I saw his smile. What the fuck was so funny?
Luca approached me. “Didn’t you tell me a little while ago that you weren’t interested in her? That there would be no fucking problems when she was around? I remember that conversation damn well, and now you’re fucking telling me that you’ve been seeing Liliana behind my back all summer?”
Aria touched Luca’s arm and positioned herself halfway between us. “Luca, please don’t get mad at Romero. He and Lily meant no harm. They fell in love.
It just happened.”
“And you knew from the beginning?” muttered Luca. “You knew and you didn’t tell me? Didn’t we talk about loyalty and trust when you helped Gianna escape?”
Aria whitened. “They are my sisters.”
“And I’m your fucking husband.”
“Luca, he didn’t mean to-” I began.
Luca pointed his fingers at my chest. “Stay out of this. You’re lucky I’m not putting a bullet in your head right now for transgressing my orders.”
“Hey, calm down Luca. Maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds,” Matteo said, trying to be the voice of reason, which was itself a joke.
“Oh, I suspect it’s exactly as bad as I think,” muttered Luca. His eyes stared at me. “Just tell me this, are we going to be in trouble on Liliana’s wedding night?”
I knew what he was asking.
“Lily is not going to marry that guy. Isn’t he over 50 years old? That’s ridiculous,” Aria interjected.
“He’s over fifty and he’s a piece of shit,” Matteo added.
Luca ignored them. His eyes darted into mine. “Is there going to be a fucking problem on our wedding night?”
“I slept with Lily,” I said calmly.
Matteo let out another of his annoying whistles.
Luca cursed. He looked as if he wanted to smash my head with a sledgehammer. “Why couldn’t you leave your cock in your pants? Couldn’t you at least set a limit before you really fucked her?”
“I don’t regret it,” I said. “Now less than ever.”
Luca took a step back as if he didn’t trust himself this close to me. “This is a fucking mess. Do you realize what will happen if Benito Brasci finds out his wife is not a virgin? Scuderi will find out it happened in New York and we’ll be screwed.”
“I don’t think there will be any problems.
I was once standing next to Brasci at the urinal. The guy has a tiny cock. He can’t expect there to be blood on the sheets with that sausage. Liliana probably won’t even notice his cock inside her,” Matteo joked.
I saw red. I launched myself at him, my fist colliding with his jaw. But Matteo was not Nino. After my first blow, he blocked the second and pulled out his knife. Mine was also out. We faced each other , knives pointed at each other.
“Enough!” roared Luke, getting between us and pushing us away from each other. “I’m going to shoot you down like rabid dogs if you don’t recover this very instant.”
“He started it,” Matteo said, never taking his eyes off me . We had never fought each other, and I wasn’t sure I could beat him in a knife fight, but I wouldn’t have minded finding out .
“You provoked him,” Aria said. “What you said was horrible.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. “My God, I was trying to light the mood.”
“You failed,” Luca said coldly. “Now put the knives away . Both of you.”
I sheathed the knife and Matteo did the same. I exhaled. “I shouldn’t have hit you,” I said finally.
Matteo nodded. “Sometimes I should keep my mouth shut .”
We shook hands and I leaned against the wall again.
My legs were heavy. I looked down at my phone. I had to call Lily, to tell her I would not leave her.
“But she’s not pregnant, is she?” asked Luca after a moment.
I shook my head. We had always been careful.
“Then maybe we’ll get out of this unscathed. Brasci might not notice, and there are ways to fake bloodstains on the sheets.”
“She’s not marrying that man,” I said.
Luca raised his eyebrows. “Oh, isn’t she? Are you thinking of stopping Scuderi? Maybe kidnap Lily and marry her?”
I said nothing. I wanted to punch Luca too, but that would surely be the nail in my coffin.
“Luca, please. Can’t you talk to my father?”
“Talk to him and tell him what?” growled Luca. “That my best soldier fucked his daughter and wants her all to himself? That I broke my oath to protect Liliana and now she’s lost her fucking honor? That’s going to fucking go down well.”
“No, but you could tell him that Gianna and I want our sister in New York with us, and if he wouldn’t, maybe he might consider marrying her off to someone in the Family. You wouldn’t have to tell him who right away. It would give us time to figure something out.”
“I can’t intrude. It’s none of my business. And if your father has already promised Liliana to Brasci, he won’t change his mind. It would make him look bad and offend Brasci.”
“But we must do something!” exclaimed Aria.
“I’m not going to war over this!” hissed Luca.
I understood him. He had to consider only the Family. But I didn’t have to.
*** Liliana I was awakened by the sound of a telephone. Slowly my conversation with my father and then Romero replayed in my mind. My eyes darted to my travel bag in the walk-in closet, thinking and hoping it was Romero again before I remembered it was in silent mode. Disappointment washed over me once again. I sat down, disoriented and exhausted from crying. The clock on the bedside table showed me that it was only 10 p. m. I walked over to my desk where the landline phone was and picked it up. It was Aria. She must have heard by now. Had her father called her to tell her the good news?
I lifted the receiver. “Hello Aria,” I said in a rough voice. There was no way to hide that I was crying. Aria knew that voice.
“Oh, Lily. I just heard. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it.”
“We won’t let the father get away with this. We’ll find a solution,” Gianna shouted in the background.
They were together, they had husbands they loved, and I would be stuck here with an old man I could never love.
How could things have gone so horribly wrong?
“Did Father call you?” I asked, my voice regaining some of the emotionlessness I preferred.
“No, he didn’t. We found out through Romero.”
“He told you.”
“Yes, he did,” Aria said slowly. “He attacked one of the other soldiers who had told him something, so Luca talked to him and he understood.”
“Why did he attack that man?”
“What do you think? Because he doesn’t want you to marry Basci,” Aria said softly. “He tried to call you for the last hour but you didn’t answer. He’s almost gone crazy here. He wants to talk to you.”
“Is he there with you?”
“Yes. I’m going to hand him the phone now, okay?”
Fear rose in my throat. “Okay.”
“Lily,” Romero murmured into the phone. His voice was anything but detached now. I let go a sharp breath and felt tears streaming down my face.
“Lily?”
I swallowed hard. “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with me now that I’m promised to someone else.”
“No, never. I know I didn’t react the way I should have.
I-I was so angry when you told me that your fucking Father wanted to sell you to that old bastard. I wanted to fly there and kill him. I didn’t want to take my anger out on you , so I tried to push it away.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“Do you still want to run away?”
Yes, more than anything else. “It would mean war.
You said it yourself.”
“I don’t care. I would risk the war for you.”
“Is Luca there to hear you say that?”
“No, he’s not there.”
“He would kill you if he could hear you.”
“Even your sisters would risk war for you.”
I had no doubt of that. Gianna, in particular, but even Aria who was the most reasonable, would do anything to protect me , and that was what scared me so much. Fabiano would soon find himself in the middle of mafia business. The war with the Russians had gotten worse in recent years, and I probably didn’t know the half of it. If New York and Chicago started fighting each other again, it could cost the lives of many people I cared about.
“I have to meet him tomorrow.”
“I don’t want you to be alone with him, Lily.”
“But what if he asks me and my father says ‘yes’?”
“You’re a good Italian girl, play that card. If I have to worry about you being alone with him, I’ll book the next flight and be there tomorrow. Fuck. I want to do just that and kill him.”
I smiled slightly, wishing he could do that. I wanted nothing more than to have him with me, to feel his arms around me.
“I’m not a decent girl anymore. Maybe if I tell my father I can get out of this marriage.”
“He might kill you. Your father is very flighty from that thing with Gianna.”
“Maybe it would be better than marrying that guy.”
“Don’t say such a thing. We will find a solution .”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see it . I wanted to believe him . “I know,” I said softly.
“Aria will call your father in the morning to get an idea of his determination .”
“I don’t think she’ll be able to talk him out of it.
Does Luca know everything about us?”
“Yes, at least everything he needs to know to assess the situation.”
My cheeks flamed, but Romero was right. We had to tell Luca the truth if we wanted him to be able to do anything. “Was he very angry?”
Romero was silent for a moment. “He was not happy. I punched Matteo; it didn’t improve the situation much.”
“You punched Matteo? Why? I thought Aria said you attacked another soldier.”
“I did both,” Romero admitted. “I just lost my mind.”
“Please don’t get in trouble because of me. I don’t want you to get hurt, promise me.” There was another moment of silence before he said, “I promise.”
But I had a feeling it was a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep. If he had already attacked Matthew, the Family Counselor , it was not a good sign.
“Call me after your meeting with Brasci tomorrow. I’ll go crazy if I don’t hear from you. And don’t make him feel anything. He has absolutely no right. I’ll kill him if he puts a finger out of line, if he even looks at you the wrong way.”
“Didn’t you promise to stay out of trouble?” I joked without conviction.
“I’ll try, but I’ll be nervous tomorrow, that’s for sure.”
We talked about some unimportant things before saying goodbye and hanging up. I clutched the phone to my chest. Slowly I lay down on the bed. I was relieved that Romero still wanted me, but I was also afraid that he would do something that would get him killed. Luca really liked Romero , but he was also Chief and needed to keep his men in line. If Romero did something that would publicly harm the Family, Luca would have no choice but to punish him severely.
I would not have allowed that to happen.