by Reilly, Cora
I wasn’t sure what Luca would have done if he were in Dante’s position. I wanted to believe that he would have made the same choice.
“But Aria make no mistake: if I ever run across Luca, I will kill him, and it won’t be quick.”
I shuddered because I believed him.
“You won’t tell Luca about this,” he said, an order.
“I won’t, believe me.” If Luca found out about this, he’d lose his mind.
He gave a terse nod.
I took a small step toward him. “Thank you, Dante. Thank you so much.”
Another sharp nod. “Do you have a plane ticket?”
“Yeah, my plane leaves in three hours.”
“I’ll take you to the airport.”
We got back into the car and again my hand found my stomach, still not able to believe that there was a small human growing inside of me. The result of Luca’s and my love.
Dante was tense beside me as he drove me toward the airport. He stopped in front of the departure terminal then turned to me, and a predatory expression took over his face. “Don’t ever return to Chicago, Aria. This once I’m doing this, but next time I will do what’s necessary to ensure the Outfit wins this war.”
“Can’t there be peace again? For your children and ours. For Fabi and all the others who will suffer in this war.”
Dante smiled coldly. “If Luca hands over Romero and Liliana, and if Luca apologizes, then perhaps there can be peace.”
Luca would do neither and we both knew it. Two men who hated each other, and more men eager to tear into each other pulled us all into darkness, children and women alike, and my child would be born into this dark world.
Born in Blood. Sworn in Blood. I enter alive and leave dead.
“Leave,” Dante said, and I did. I never looked back as I headed into the airport. I would never see Chicago again, never see Fabi again. I pressed my palm against my stomach, seeking consolation. I had to trust that Fabi was strong enough to survive in the Outfit. I could not risk anything again, not with a baby growing inside of me, not if I wanted to protect Luca and our family.
As I boarded the plane I wondered again if Luca would have done the same. Would he have let Val walk away?
LUCA
My control was hanging on a thread as I listened to my men. Matteo, too, looked like he had every intention of relieving our uncles of the burden of life.
Uncle Gottardo and Uncle Ermano seemed to be in a silent argument but I bet they were making plans to overthrow me behind closed doors. Ermano was a coward, and Gottardo was only marginally better, but eventually they would act. Perhaps Gottardo would send his remaining legitimate son to kill me.
“War was inevitable,” I growled. “You know that as well as I do. Don’t pretend you haven’t all been waiting for a chance to spill Outfit blood again.” My Underbosses nodded and so did most of my Captains. Not Gottardo and Ermano though.
My eyes went up to the high ceiling of the power station. I’d chosen it for every meeting of my Captains and Underbosses in the last three years to remind them of my bloody statement. I had a feeling their memory needed refreshing.
Gottardo rammed his fist down on the table, bringing my gaze back down to him, and shoved Ermano’s pacifying hand away. “Enough,” he muttered. “You risked too much bringing the youngest Scuderi girl here and making him Captain.” Gottardo nodded toward Romero with a condescending snort.
Romero tensed in his chair but Gottardo turned back to me.
“All because you let the blonde Scuderi whore lead you around by your dick.”
I shoved the massive table away and grabbed my uncle by the throat, lifting him from his chair and throwing it over. I thrust him against the wall and clamped both my hands down on his neck and squeezed as hard as I could. His head turned red, eyes bulging. He clawed at me, beat and scratched, but I didn’t loosen my grip. Nobody dared coming to his aid as he fought for his life.
I stared into his eyes as I had done many years ago when I’d killed his son. His bones gave in, pierced his carotid and esophagus. He choked, blood spurting out of his lips. He coughed, choked on his own fucking blood. Blood hit my face and shirt as he wheezed. I didn’t ease up until the light left his fucking eyes, then I unfastened my grip and let his corpse drop to the ground at my feet. It had become dead quiet around me. I faced my men. My hands, face and shirt were covered in blood, and from the look on Matteo’s face—shock and sick fascination—I knew I was a sight straight out of Hell.
“I am your Capo. I rule over the East Coast. I rule over you. If someone’s got a problem with me, then step up and tell me to my fucking face, and I’ll grant you a fucking quick death. But I swear by Heaven and Hell that crushing my uncle’s throat will look like a merciful end to the next fucker who dares to insult my wife. I won’t stand any kind of disrespect.”
Many men nodded in agreement; others looked like they had shit their pants. I didn’t give a fuck. “This meeting is over.”
I waved toward my uncle’s men then pointed at his remaining son, who didn’t look particularly sad about his father’s demise. “Take his corpse back home with you. I hope you won’t share your brother’s and father’s fate one day.”
I turned, fucking done with this meeting. Matteo was close behind me as I stalked out of the power plant and toward my Aston Martin.
Matteo stepped in front of me before I could get behind the wheel. “I think I should drive. You aren’t quite sane right now.”
I shoved the keys at him. “You think?” I muttered.
He headed back to the trunk, returned a moment later and held out a clean white shirt. “Perhaps you should change. I don’t want to have to explain this to the police if they catch us. Not all of them are on our payroll, remember?”
I pulled off my shirt and wiped my face and hands clean with it, but the pink tinge remained. Romero came out after us and I handed him the shirt. “Can you burn this?”
He nodded, eyes worried as he took my shirt. I didn’t need their fucking worry. I was fine.
I got into the car and Matteo got behind the wheel. We drove in silence but he kept looking my way. “You okay?”
I scowled. “I’ve killed so many people. You think I still care?”
“The last time you crushed a throat, you were a bit unhinged afterwards. You’ve been on edge anyway considering everything that’s been going on.”
On edge was a strange way to put it. Ever since war had broken out, the voices in the Famiglia that wanted me gone had grown louder. They were still a small minority but it made my life difficult. Perhaps tonight had silenced a few enemies, or perhaps I’d earned myself new ones. It was difficult to say yet. I’d have to replace my uncles with more trustworthy, younger Underbosses. I had tolerated them for long enough. It was time for them to retire before I had to kill another one.
“Back to our wives? Or do you need additional time to cool off?” Matteo asked.
“I don’t need time to cool off. I’m fine. All I want is to have Aria’s naked body beneath me.”
Matteo slanted me another look. I hardly ever mentioned sex with Aria. I hated to share even that tiny bit of Aria with anyone. We spent the rest of the drive in silence. Usually my pulse slowed quickly after the kill, but this time it didn’t. When we pulled up in the driveway of the mansion, I was still wired. Romero arrived shortly after and together we entered our home. It was quiet as we moved into the living room. The women had put up the remaining Christmas decorations. The Christmas tree glowed in red and silver. I needed a peaceful Christmas, couldn’t wait for a few days of quiet with my true family.
My mobile beeped, announcing an email. I took it out of my back pocket. It was from a journalist contact and the subject line read “Urgent” followed by about a dozen exclamation marks. I paused and clicked on the email.
I got this from a colleague in Chicago and stopped it from making the rounds or worse, headline.
I clicked on the three attached photos.<
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chapter 17
MATTEO
I had always suspected there was a point for both Luca and me when the darkness in us would rise too high, so high it would spill over and drown out all the light, all the good that remained. I feared this was the moment for Luca.
I stopped Romero from moving closer to Luca with a hand against his chest. Romero frowned, but then he looked at Luca and tensed. I, too, was frozen with apprehension.
Luca and I had spent all our lives together, had gone through the bad and the worse, had killed and suffered, had laughed and fought. I had never been truly wary of my brother. Not when he’d crushed our cousin’s throat, not when he’d threatened me for talking shit about Aria, but until now I’d never seen that look on his face.
I wasn’t sure what had him looking that way, but I knew only one thing that had the power to bring him to his knees, only one thing that could destroy Luca, that could make him snap once and for all. It was the one person I’d thought would stop him from snapping in the first place.
“Luca?” I asked carefully.
He stared down at a photo on his screen. I moved closer and what I saw made the blood drain from my face. It was a photo of Aria holding hands with Dante. It took me a moment to comprehend what I was seeing. It didn’t even make sense. Romero, too, threw a glance at the photo then frowned.
Gianna, of course, chose that moment to saunter into the living room in nothing but a nightgown, but stopped when she saw us. Her eyes darted from me to Luca and the smile slipped off her face.
“Where’s Aria?” I asked her sharply.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” she muttered, her eyes darting to Luca once more, who still hadn’t moved a muscle and who was still staring down at his phone, but I knew he was listening.
“Gianna, where the fuck is Aria? This is serious,” I snarled.
Lily appeared behind her, but Romero shook his head and gestured at her not to come closer. “Where?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly, but it was a lie. Romero knew it. I knew it. Luca knew it.
“Is she in Chicago?” I asked.
Gianna and Lily exchanged a glance but remained silent.
“What’s going on here?” Gianna asked.
And Luca raised his eyes from the phone.
“Fuck,” I muttered because that look in his eyes…it scared me shitless.
“Lily,” Romero began, but he didn’t get to finish whatever warning he’d wanted to voice.
“Did you know about this?” Luca asked in a voice I’d never heard from him. Low, dark, on the verge of breaking. He turned his phone so Gianna and Lily saw the photo of Aria holding hands with Dante, then he clicked to the next photo showing Dante with his hands on Aria’s shoulder, his mouth at her ear in an intimate gesture. And the next, the worst: Aria in a car with Dante and he was leaning over her, his back to the camera, hiding most of her body from view. You couldn’t see their faces, but they were close and his arm reached between her legs.
Lily sucked in a breath, and somehow it was the last straw. Luca roared and flung the phone away. It shattered against the wall. Next he gripped the Christmas tree and threw it to the ground. I grabbed Gianna’s arm and shoved her toward the entrance door. “Leave! Go to the car and wait for me.”
Gianna refused to leave, unlike Lily, who had allowed Romero to lead her outside. “Luca, stop being an idiot. Aria would never cheat on you, you stupid asshole!” Gianna shouted.
Luca had pulled a knife and was staring down at the blade, his chest and shoulders heaving, his face a mask of acute agony. Never had I seen him like that. Not even when our father had tortured us with knives, lighters and needles.
I gripped Gianna’s arm and pulled her out of the house and toward my Porsche, not caring that she was barefoot. She tried to shake me off. “Stop it, Matteo. He’s getting it wrong!” she shrieked.
I didn’t listen. I needed to get her to safety and then return to Luca and try to keep him from falling apart in a scary serial killer kind of way. I pushed her into the car, then locked the doors. Gianna hammered against the windows.
Romero had locked Lily in his Jeep, and gave me a worried look. “Aria wouldn’t cheat,” he said.
“You sure about that?” I muttered.
“You have to calm him down before he does something that can’t be undone,” Romero said.
I nodded. “Leave.”
“I’ll take a room in a hotel close by. Call me if you need me.”
Gianna started honking, driving me insane, but I wouldn’t let her out of the car. I didn’t want her anywhere near Luca when he was in that kind of mood.
With a deep breath, I returned to the mansion. Luca still held the knife in his right hand but in his left hand he held his iPad, that agonized look lingering on his face.
“Luca?” I ventured. He didn’t react. I moved closer. He had opened the photos on the iPad as if seeing them in a bigger format would make them less real.
“You had a lot of shit thrown your way today. Perhaps you should try to calm down before you act on your anger.”
Luca put down the iPad on the living room table and went to the liquor cabinet. If he didn’t drop that fucking knife soon, I might consider getting my own out. He grabbed a bottle of whisky, opened it with his teeth, spit out the screw cap and took a deep swig. Alcohol wouldn’t make him any less dangerous.
“Leave,” he rasped.
“Luca, you love Aria.”
Luca staggered toward me, and I had to fight the urge to draw a weapon. “Love!” He glared. “You might be okay with Gianna fucking around behind your back, but I can’t…I can’t fucking bear the thought of Aria…” His voice broke and fury contorted his face. Gianna hadn’t fucked around, but it was futile to argue with Luca, and I definitely wouldn’t let him ignite my own anger.
“Leave!” he roared. “Go to your wife and let me handle my own!”
I nodded, and took a step back. “Luca, some things can’t be undone,” I repeated what Romero had told me.
Luca turned his back to me, shoulders shaking with anger and worse—heartbreak. The former he could handle, but the latter he’d never had to deal with before.
But I couldn’t interfere, not without risking a fight with Luca, and today one of us would die. I might be willing to die for Gianna and even for Luca, but not for Aria, not when she might have cheated on my brother. I backed away, my chest fucking tight. I wasn’t sure if I’d see Luca again, not the Luca I knew, because if he hurt Aria, he wouldn’t recover. I wasn’t sure he would recover either way.
Gianna clutched my shirt when I slipped behind the wheel. “Matteo, you bastard, let me go to Luca!”
“No,” I hissed. Luca hardly tolerated Gianna on the best of days, and today was the worst I’d ever seen him—and I had been with him at every bad and worse moment in his life.
“Then let me call Aria. I need to warn her. Luca has lost his mind. He will kill her if he thinks she cheated on him. He’s a possessive asshole.”
Luca wouldn’t kill Aria because he was a possessive asshole. He’d kill her because she’d made him love and trust her, and had fucking betrayed him, had broken his fucking heart. I started the car but Gianna shoved my arm. “Matteo, damn it!”
“They will have to settle this.”
“Settle this? The only way Luca will settle this is with his fucking knife. Matteo, I swear, if you let your brother hurt Aria, we’re done.”
Tears shone in her eyes but I wouldn’t interfere. “For me to stop Luca, I’d have to disable him and for me to succeed, I’d have to kill him. And that’s not something you can ask of me, Gianna. Not when your sister brought this on herself. She knows Luca better than anyone.”
“She didn’t cheat on him, Matteo,” Gianna whispered desperately. “She would never do it. She loves Luca. And he’s going to destroy everything.”
“No,” I growled. “Aria destroyed everything. She broke Luca’s trust. She should have
known better. Luca isn’t someone who ever loved or trusted anyone like he does Aria. She shouldn’t have gone behind his back.”
Gianna shook her head. “She didn’t cheat. She didn’t. He must realize that.” She closed her eyes and let out a sob that tore at my heart. Gianna wasn’t a crier, and I’d never heard a sound like that from her.
“Luca loves Aria more than his own life,” I told her. “He will put his own life down before he kills her.”
With anyone else, those words would have been a lie, but Aria might be the only one who could break my brother’s heart and come out unscathed in the end.
ARIA
Would Luca be happy when I told him about the baby? He didn’t want kids yet but I hoped he’d come to terms with my pregnancy. The most difficult part would be to keep it a secret from Lily and Gianna until I could tell Luca. I wasn’t sure when he would be done with business in New York and when he’d return to the Hamptons.
There weren’t any guards around the perimeter when the taxi driver dropped me off at the gates. I entered the code in the keypad at the gates, then slipped in, confused. I’d thought I would have to sneak in, but there wasn’t anyone around. The mansion, too, was oddly quiet when I stepped inside and the curtains in the living area were closed, stopping the early morning light from spilling in. Everyone must have left, but why?
Worry settled in the pit of my stomach.
“Lily?” I called. “Gianna?”
“They aren’t here,” came a low growl from the back.
Luca.
He was sitting in the dark on the couch. I felt for the light switch and bathed us in the soft glow. “Luca?”
My eyes took in the Christmas tree on the floor, its baubles smashed to pieces, and next to it Luca’s broken mobile. What happened here?
Had there been another Bratva attack?
My eyes found Luca hunched over on the couch, dressed in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His elbows were propped up on his strong thighs and he was staring down at something. He didn’t look up at me.