by LJ Shen
I didn’t tell Angelo about what his father did. Unlike Wolfe, I was good with making the separation between father and offspring. Maybe because I knew too well what it felt like to be embarrassed by your parents’ actions.
“Thanks.” I threw my bag over my shoulder, standing in front of him, awkward and guilt-stricken. He was making an effort, trying to rebuild that bridge that had burned between us, and I was standing on the other end with a match, ready to destroy it once again. But there was a delicacy in keeping my loyalty to my husband and patching things up with a boy who’d meant the world to me. A tightrope I was too clumsy to walk.
“I need to make a confession.” He messed with his tousled, beautiful hair. It hurt my heart to recognize what I refused to see in the beginning of my engagement to Wolfe. That one day, Angelo would make an amazing husband to someone, but that someone wasn’t going to be me.
“Go on.” I rubbed my eyes. I never felt so tired in my life, and it’s not like I missed an hour of sleep. He looked down now, shuffling from foot to foot. No longer confident and cocky.
“The night of your engagement party, something happened…something that shouldn’t have happened.” He swallowed, his gaze becoming hooded. He took a deep breath. “The blonde chick from the masquerade was there. You just shut me down after I had this whole speech in my head about how the evening was going to play out. I fucked up and couldn’t find my words, and you kept looking for your fiancé. I felt like my world was collapsing, one wall at a time.” He rubbed his cheek now as though he’d been slapped with the truth. “I made a mistake. A huge one. I slept with the reporter. Actually, that was only a small error. Not the terrible one. The terrible one occurred afterward when I met your husband on the stairs.”
I looked up, searching his face. To my shock, I found Angelo blinking back tears. Actual tears. Tears I absolutely hated seeing there even though I knew what he was about to tell me was nothing short of awful. That it ruined me in a lot of ways. Whatever Wolfe and I were today, he could never erase the night he took my innocence by force.
“You told him we slept together?” My voice trembled.
He shook his head. “No. No. I wouldn’t do that. I just…I didn’t exactly tell him it didn’t happen, either. I was busy trying to get back at him instead of clearing up what looked like a misunderstanding. I was so mad, Frankie. And a part of me still hoped that you guys were going to break up over it. I wanted to give fate a little push. I wasn’t planning on ruining it for both of you. I mean, I was, but only because I thought you were on board. I thought you wanted to try giving him a chance because your parents pressured you. Not because, well…”
“Because I love him?” I finished, my voice hoarse. I squeezed his shoulder. He looked down at my hand and sniffed.
“Yeah.”
“I do,” I said, letting out an exasperated sigh. “God, Angelo, I’m so sorry, but I do. I never planned on falling for him. It just happened. But that’s the thing about love, isn’t it? It’s like death. You know it will happen one day. You just don’t know how or why or when.”
“That’s a rather dark view on life.” He offered me a grim smile.
I couldn’t be mad at Angelo. Not really. And especially when Wolfe and I had overcome what he and Kristen threw at us. Some would even call it the pivotal moment of our entire relationship.
“Still.” Angelo grinned, his boyish dimples on full display. The same smile that broke my heart every time I saw it on his face, peeking under his dark lashes. “If you ever change your mind, I’m here.”
“I’m compromised,” I answered him with an arched brow, blushing. He sighed theatrically.
“Believe it or not, goddess, so am I.”
“Get out.” I slapped his chest, feeling the tension evaporating from my bones. “When was your first time? With who?” The question sat on the tip of my tongue for years, but up until now, I never had the chance to ask. We were trying the whole friendship thing now. Well, sort of.
Angelo let out a sharp exhale.
“Junior year. Cheryl Evans, after calc class.”
“Was she little Miss Popular?” I grinned.
“Guess you could say that. She was the teacher,” he deadpanned.
“What?” I choked on my laughter. “You lost your virginity to your teacher?”
“She was, like, twenty-three. No other girl that age would put out without a serious relationship, and I was getting antsy. I was also saving the whole real thing for you,” he admitted. It made me sad and happy at the same time. That life took us in a different direction, but that Angelo whom I loved not too long ago was on the same wavelength as I was.
“Welp.” He gave me two thumbs down. “Maybe in the next lifetime.”
Last time he said it would happen in this one. I grinned.
“Almost definitely.”
We hugged, and I hurried across the lawn toward the line of double-parked vehicles full of college students bumming rides from one another, scanning the landscape for Smithy’s shielded, brand-new Cadillac. This time, Wolfe went above and beyond with all the accessories to make sure it was bulletproof. I spotted Smithy in the car, messing with his phone, and smiled to myself. Everything was going to be okay. Wolfe might not respond to the news with enthusiasm, but I hoped he wouldn’t be crushed, either. I was almost at the car when Kristen, the journalist, appeared out of thin air, jumping in front of me, looking haggard. Her hair was frizzy and the bags under her eyes purplish from what I assumed was lack of sleep.
My two executive protection agents got out of the car simultaneously, hurrying toward us. I raised my arm and waved them away.
“It’s okay.”
“Mrs. Keaton.”
“It’s fine,” I insisted. “Take a step back, please.”
Kristen didn’t even notice them. She zigzagged in place.
“Francescaaaa,” she slurred, pointing her finger in my general direction. She was too drunk to point it at me. I tried to remember where we left things off with her. Last I heard, Wolfe said he got her fired. She was obviously feeling vindictive. But it’d been weeks.
“Where have you been?” I asked, trying not to scan her tattered shirt and dirty jeans. She waved a hand around, hiccupping.
“Oh, here and there. Everywhere, really. Crashed at my parents’ in Ohio. Came back here to try and look for a job. Called your husband hundreds of time to try and get me un-blacklisted. And then…crap, why am I telling you this anyway?” She laughed, flipping her greasy hair aside. I looked behind me to see if Angelo was around. She read my mind.
“Relax. I just fucked your friend so Wolfe would get mad at you. He’s too young for me anyway.”
And too good for you, I thought to myself.
Pregnancy obviously messed with my logic because I felt the urge to rub her arm or buy her a cup of coffee. I knew damn well that she tried to ruin my life to save hers, and that she wanted my husband for herself (at least before he got her fired). But the thing about compassion was that it wasn’t given to people who necessarily deserved it, but needed it nonetheless.
“Obviously, my plan failed miserably.” She dragged her chipped fingernails over her cheeks, scanning my pristine white cardigan over my knee-length black dress.
“You look like a fucking church girl.”
“I am a church girl.”
She snorted out a laugh.
“He’s a kinky bastard.”
“Or maybe he just likes me.” I dug in an imaginary knife into her chest. She did, after all, try to make my husband believe that I cheated on him. No matter how dire her situation was, there was no need to be mean to me. I hadn’t done anything to her.
“Good one. Wolfe just likes fucking something that belongs to Arthur Rossi. You know, because Arthur fucked with his family. Poetic justice, and all that.”
“Excuse me?” I took a step back, assessing her fully now. I’d had my fill of surprises today. Between the pregnancy test, Angelo’s confession, and now this, I realiz
ed that the universe was trying to tell me something. Hopefully not that my fairy tale, which hadn’t begun just yet, was ending abruptly.
One of my bodyguards took a step forward, and I spun on him.
“Stay away. Let her talk.”
“He didn’t tell you?” Kristen threw her head back and laughed, pointing at me. Ridiculing me. “Did you ever wonder why he took you from your father? What he had on him?”
I did. All the time. Hell, I asked Wolfe about it on a daily basis.
But of course, admitting this to her was giving her more power than she deserved.
Kristen leaned her elbow over a huge oak tree, whistling. “Where do I begin? This is all confirmed, by the way, so you can cross-examine your husband the minute you get back home. Wolfe Keaton wasn’t really born Wolfe Keaton. He was born Fabio Nucci, a poor, bastard Italian kid who lived not too far from your block. Same zip code but trust me—very different houses. His momma was a drunk, neglectful excuse for a human being, and his father was out of the picture before he was even born. His older—much older brother, Romeo—raised him. Romeo became a cop. He was doing a fine job until he was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Namely—Mama’s Pizza, the little parlor three blocks down from you. Romeo went to get Wolfe some pizza. They walked into a gun fight. Romeo, still clad in his uniform, burst through the back of the parlor to break things off. They had to kill him, or he’d have outed all of them. You father killed Romeo in front of your husband despite his desperate pleas.”
I never beg.
I never kneel.
I have my pride.
Wolfe’s words came back to haunt me, making my skin dampen and chill. That was why he was so adamant on not negotiating or showing remorse or mercy. My father didn’t spare him any of those things when he needed them the most. I stared at Kristen, knowing there was more. Knowing that was the tip of a very thick, very lethal iceberg.
She continued.
“After that happened, he was adopted by the Keatons, a rich family from the right side of the tracks. The same house you live in right now, in fact. The Keatons were Chicago’s finest. A high-profiled couple who never had any children and had the world to give to him. They changed his name to separate him from the mess that was his early life. Things were looking up for little Wolfey for a minute there. He even managed to overcome the severe trauma of seeing your father putting a bullet between his brother’s eyes.”
“Why didn’t my father deal with Wolfe? Since he watched, too?” I hated that I was asking her questions. But unlike my husband, my pride was not as vital for my survival.
Kristen huffed. “Wolfe was just a kid back then. He didn’t know the key players and didn’t have an open beef with The Outfit like his brother. Not to mention, no one was going to believe him. Plus, I guess even your father has some morals,” she scanned me with disgust. My jaw tensed, but I said nothing, too afraid she’d stop talking.
“Anyway,” she singsonged, “can you guess what happened next?”
“No,” I gritted out. “But I bet you’ll be happy to tell me.”
I knew that she was telling the truth. Not because Kristen wasn’t capable of lying, but because she was having too much fun delivering the news for it not to be accurate.
“Wolfe goes off to college. Makes friends. Lives his best life, so to speak. Second year at Harvard, he’s about to come back for summer vacation when the ballroom where his parents are attending a charity gala explodes with a ton of politicians and high-end diplomats inside. Any guesses who’s responsible for it?”
My father, of course.
I remembered that incident. One summer when I was eight, we didn’t go to Italy. My father was arrested for the ballroom incident and released shortly after for lack of evidence. My mother was crying all the time, and her friends were always around. When Dad got out, they started fighting. A lot. Maybe that was the moment my mother realized she didn’t marry a good man.
In the end, they decided that the best course of action would be to send me to boarding school. I knew they were protecting me from my father’s reputation here in Chicago and giving me my best shot.
Kristen whistled again, shaking her head. “Suffice it to say, your husband did not return from that trauma. The problem was, officially, and on paper, the blowout was the result of a gas leak. The entire hotel chain shut down soon after. Your father’s arrest was a farce. They couldn’t even send him to trial even though everyone knew he got back at Wolfe’s mother, a Supreme Court judge, for ruling against one of his best friends.”
Lorenzo Florence. He was still in prison. He smuggled over five-hundred kilograms of heroin into the US, working for my father.
I stumbled back, collapsing to the grass. My bodyguards had had enough. They both started in my direction. Kristen pushed off the tree, squatting to my eye level, and smiling brightly. “So now Wolfe really wants to get back at your father and gather ammo against him. He’s been doing that ever since he graduated, actually. Through private investigators and endless resources, he managed to find something on your father. Whatever it is, he is hanging it over his head. You know the end game was always to kill your father, right?”
I couldn’t answer. They dragged me toward the car while I kicked and screamed. I wanted to stay and listen. I wanted to run away.
“He’ll be the heir to The Outfit…” Kristen yelled, running after us. One of the bodyguards pushed her, but she was having too much fun.
“He doesn’t want The Outfit,” I screamed back to her.
“He’ll discard you just as he’s always planned. Have you ever wondered why he never bothered to have you sign a pre-nup? Don’t be so sure you’ll get out of this in one piece. It’s not like anyone from Wolfe’s family did…”
“No, you’re wrong.” I felt my lower lip trembling. They ducked me into the back seat of the vehicle and slammed the door behind me. I felt dizzy and nauseous. I was too physically weak and emotionally shocked to cope with these revelations.
Kristen appeared at the window and signaled for me to roll it down. One of the EPAs nearly beat her off from inside the car, but I rolled the window down, anyway. She pushed her head into the car.
“He’ll throw you out by the end of the year, sweetheart. Once he’s had enough of fucking you. I’ve seen it happen a thousand times before. Wolfe Keaton doesn’t do love, sweetie.”
“Maybe not with you,” I bit back. She frowned, looking wounded.
“You’re delusional,” she said.
“And you’re desperate. How did you find out this information?”
She shrugged, a bitter smile spreading on her face like margarine. Easy but toxic.
I didn’t have to ask again. I knew.
My father.
That night, when Wolfe arrived at my bed to bring me the dinner I’d missed, I turned him away. I wasn’t ready to face him, and I definitely wasn’t ready to tell him about the pregnancy. I knew deep down that Kristen was at least partly right. This was Wolfe’s plan all along. To ruin my family and discard me somewhere along the way. Whether the plan was still in motion or not was beside the point. Not that I had the greenest clue what his plan was nowadays.
All I knew was that the odds were against us.
“Everything okay?” he asked, brushing my hair away from my face.
I couldn’t look him in the eye. I flipped through pages in a book I didn’t really read. I was pretty sure I was holding it upside down, too, but couldn’t tell, since my eyes could barely register the shape of the book, let alone its contents.
“Sure. I just got my period,” I lied.
“I could still stay,” he suggested, his hand sliding from my cheek, his thumb tilting my chin up to face him. “I’m not coming here just for the sex.”
“Well, I’m not in the mood to give you a blow job, either.”
“Francesca,” he growled, and my eyes darted up to meet his. I hated the fact that I loved him so much. He was right. Love, by definition, was unrequite
d. One party always loved more.
“Should I be worried?” he demanded.
“What about?” I flipped another page.
“Your ability to read, for one thing. You’re holding it upside down,” he snapped. I closed the book. “You. Us. This.” He motioned between us with his hand.
“No.”
Silence fell between us, but he still wouldn’t leave. I became agitated. It was weird how we started the morning unassumingly, with a strawberry milkshake and a quickie, and how fast we could turn into enemies again.
“Let’s go outside. You can suck on a cancer stick and bring me up to speed about what crawled up your ass.” He stood up and snatched my cigarette pack from my desk.
“No, thank you.” I forgot to throw away the cigarettes when I got back home tonight, but they were definitely not on the menu for me in the foreseeable future.
“Nothing you want to say to me?” He scanned my face again, his jaw tense, his eyes dark and feral.
“No.” I reopened the book, this time in the right direction.
“Do you want me to come with you to the OB-GYN?”
My pulse jumped, hammering against my throat.
“Nice of you to offer months later, but the answer is still no. Can I be left alone, please? I think I outdid my duty as a trophy wife and a warm hole at night this week.”
He narrowed his eyes, taking a step back. My words hurt him—the man who was steel and metal. He turned around and dashed away before we exploded on one another.
I fell to my pillow and cried as soon as the door shut behind him, making up my mind.
Tomorrow, I was going to open the box and retrieve the very last note.
The one that would determine if Wolfe really was the love of my life.
I HELD THE NOTE CLOSE to my chest as I made my way out of the cafeteria, blazing right onto the lush, wet grass at the entrance. The first rain of autumn knocked softly on my face, making me blink as the world shifted in and out of focus.
The first rain of the season. A sign.