“Thank you,” I say suddenly, and he looks at me in surprise and confusion. “For saving me. For marrying me, yes, but for everything else too. It was you who got me out, wasn’t it?”
He is silent for a moment as if thinking if he should be honest, and then he nods. “I didn’t want to get on your father’s bad side just in case…” he tells me, trailing off.
“When I was in there, those men…they ruined me. The first thing I saw when I woke up was Cheng, and he warned me about everything they would do to me and why. So, I anticipated it all and never knew when and if it would end. He told me I’d want to die but didn’t know for sure yet if he was ever going to kill me or just eventually give me back to my father, entirely useless and broken. So, I knew what my fate would be before the first of his men had their way with me.” My voice had lowered to a whisper. I can’t remember talking about this really at all since I made it out. This is what I can give him though, honesty and gratefulness. “I kept hoping my father would save me, and when he didn’t, I hated him. I hated him even more for allowing Cheng to bid for my hand. You were my escape, and I don’t think I could have fallen for anybody else.”
He brings my face to his gently and kisses me a million times. I can feel nothing but the love he has held onto for me radiating off of him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
SALVATORE
She hates that I’m making her go to this engagement party for her cousin, Gabriella. I’m reluctant to go, given what’s transpired over the last week. Aria hit me where it hurt, dug a damn knife into my heart and twisted it. I know that she was acting on her emotions, but it doesn’t give her the right to treat me the way she did. Yesterday she did everything she could to show me that she’s sorry. It’s time to stop living in the past and prepare for today.
I run my hands over the silkiness of the deep blue dress I had made for Aria. I happened to be in town and saw the fabric when I was walking by, needing to see it grace her skin. So, I did what any good husband would do. I found a local dressmaker, provided her with my wife’s measurements, and told her exactly how I wanted it to look. She created something far past my wildest expectations.
“What’s that in your hands?” my wife asks, and I allow the fabric to fall naturally.
Walking over to her, I place my lips against her temple. “It’s the dress you’ll be wearing to Gabriella’s engagement party.”
“I really don’t want to go,” she tells me again, for what seems like the tenth time.
“I don’t care. We need to keep up appearances, and in doing that it means attending family parties that we’d rather not be at.”
Aria nods, takes the dress from my hands and goes off into the bathroom. “Give me thirty minutes to get ready, and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
***
Almost an hour later mio dolce comes cascading down the stairs beautifully dressed, the color looking better on her than I ever imagined. I quickly rush her to the car, and our driver takes off, heading to the venue of the party. We’re already late. I have to say, I’m a man who hates tardiness. I’ll let her get away with it this time, but I hope she doesn’t plan to get away with it again.
When we arrive to the hotel that the party is being held at, I take ahold of Aria’s hand, and we walk inside. At our arrival, heads naturally turn, and the room grows silent. The eldest daughter of Baptiste Funar and her mercenary of a husband, oh my! They must have assumed we weren’t going to show up.
A woman in white with dark brown hair comes trotting up. “You two made it! Everyone kept telling me that we didn’t think we’d see either of you two today. I told them to shove it, that my favorite cousin would most certainly be here with her beloved.” Gabriella, no doubt.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Aria lies straight through her teeth, packing on the fakest smile she can muster up. I smirk, knowing how she really didn’t want to be here in the first place. From the corner of my eye I spot Andrei being led upstairs, watching as he looks like he’s being led outside. Something isn’t right, it’s like I can smell it in the air. “Mio dolce, find Marcel and stay with him. I’ll be back in a bit,” I tell her, not sticking around for her response. I head up the stairwell and follow where I had last seen Andrei, as soon as I come within his sights I see his uncle with a gun trained on his head. What the fuck?
I pull my glock from the back of my pants and raise it at Gabriele. His eyes meet with mine and he tsks, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“The clock is ticking, Salvatore.” He looks down to his nephew, taking the safety off his gun, pushing it further against his head.
Shit. This isn’t good.
“Is this really the time, for fucks sake? It’s one of your daughter’s engagement parties,” I interject, hoping to distract the old man.
“This is as good of a time as any. Business must still be running, I’m afraid,” Gabriele spits out, staring at Andrei. “I thought you might need a little motivation to get your job done, Salvatore. Why is it that he’s still alive?”
“I’ve been busy,” I reply. “Hits take time; a finesse. I can’t act quickly and end up not doing my job right in the process. Surely, you understand that.”
Gabriele smiles, smacking the back of the gun against Andrei’s head before looking to me. “You can’t tell me that you don’t want to kill him. Don’t you ever think of the things that your lovely wife had to go through because her father was too selfish to rescue her? About the ways that she was violated, abused worse than you could ever imagine? That has to boil your blood. You must want him to pay for that.” I do, deep down inside want Baptiste to pay for it, for all of it.
“I want Aria to be left out of all of this, every part of it. She knows nothing. You stop getting your goons to follow her, or I’ll start picking them off one by one,” I threaten, seriousness evident in my tone. He made a deal with me, in no part of that deal did shaking up my wife come into it.
“Ah, there we go. I suppose I can keep my niece out of this mess but only if you do what you were hired to do and make sure that his children support my movement when the time comes.”
I nod once, staring at the old man. I can’t believe Aria is related to this atrocity. The sad part is that I don’t have much of a choice here. I will do everything and anything I can to keep her safe, even if it means making a deal with the devil.
Chapter Twenty-Four
ARIA
I glance over at my husband as he comes out of his office, and for not the first time since I was told I had to stick to the house, he looks not at all like himself. He looks tense and frustrated, like there is a problem he can’t solve, which I don’t think I have ever seen him believe himself unable to solve a problem. If nothing else works, he just goes for his gun. But this is different.
"Sal..." I say quietly, patting the spot next to me, my brows creasing in worry as he looks over to me. "Come talk to me, please."
He sighs and joins me, though the tenseness doesn’t go away. So, I decide to make him lean his back towards me as I begin to massage his shoulders. He seems to like it and pauses to take his shirt off so I can better to get to him.
"It's just this latest job. They aren’t always so easy or pleasant," he says with a shrug. "Nothing more."
I don’t press because I know enough about what he does to know that I don’t want to hear anymore and that he won’t want me to either. His job is to kill people, and while I believe many of them deserve it for one reason or another and that my husband can easily turn into the monster necessary to get the job done, I can't think that every life he takes is one he relishes in taking.
Hey, how does a vacation sound?" he asks me suddenly, looking over his shoulder. I give him a strange look back. This seems to me an odd time to go on vacation considering the safety concerns. "Maybe somewhere in the Mediterranean."
Was it so bad, the danger we were in, that we needed to get out of the country? I don’t say what I suspect when I answer him. "I do f
eel cooped up, and it does sound like a nice idea. Are you sure it would be safe?" I question as he turns around and takes my hand.
"I think the whole family should go; Marcel, your father, your sister...a good getaway and bonding experience. And we will have plenty of protection."
I try not to grimace at the mention of my father coming with us, but if this truly is about safety, then it makes sense. I hope he doesn’t expect me to pretend like I am going to have a good time with them, though. I will spend my time with those I care about or on my own, enjoying the beach.
For all I know, this could be leading us to Andrei, the best lead he has. So, I go with it. "Okay, maybe it'll be just what we need."
Chapter Twenty-Five
SALVATORE
I lay on the beach with my beautiful wife next to me, but I can't help but to fucking keep going over the reason we are really here in my head. The plan is actually only part mine. The other part came from Gabriele himself; who he wants me to try and frame. He wants it to look ,like the Chinese is who is going to kill Baptiste. I have nothing but hatred for those men, and so it doesn't bother me at all that he could be blamed. But I have a bad feeling it isn’t going to be so simple.
I have them on vacation because I am trying to get close to Baptiste, so close that I can kill him. Then, my men in conjunction with Gabriele's will clean it up, and it will never come back to me. hat is the plan. But I know all about the best laid plans.
I don’t trust Gabriele, not one bit, but at this point, I have no choice but to trust him. I will have to deal with him and his plans later on.
I feel her hands on me before I realize she is talking to me. "Yes, mio dolce?" I ask her sweetly, kissing her hand, but I know from the look on that gorgeous and intuitive face that I have been caught.
"It’s like you are not here," she says, another worry line creasing her brow that I hate to see there because of me. I glance over at her father and the rest of her family before standing us both up and walking her down to the water line where we can talk. I know this could anger her or send her running from me, but I can’t keep a secret from her. I have just now realized that.
"Why are we truly here?" she questions me as the tide laps at our toes. This scene should be serene, romantic even, but here I am, holding my wife’s hand on a beautiful beach, about to tell her I have to murder her father.
"Mio dolce, you have to understand that I am trying to do everything to keep you safe. And your brothers..." I trail off, unsure of how to unveil this monster inside of me so wholly. "I have been ordered to kill your father, and it is your uncle who has ordered this through Andrei's mouth," I tell her with a sigh. "I am afraid of the threat to all of us if I don’t follow through."
"I can’t believe you would bring us here to kill my father!" she says angrily, no one around is to hear her rageful whisper as her face turns read much like her own father when he is angry. I have been learning that she has inherited his temper, but there is something about it that makes her more endearing and sexier. But I swallow that thought down, there is nothing positive about this moment. "Why can't you trick Gabriele and kill him instead? We know what he has done. Or get Marcel involved, have him help get this under control," she screeches. These are things I have already thought of myself, and if I see an opening, I will take it. But I can’t get her hopes up.
"I understand why you are upset but this is more complicated than you can imagine. If you wish, I will tell Marcel, but I can’t promise he will be able to help in any way other than to make sure you have no part in this." My eyes are serious as I look at her. This is my order; that she will stay out of it. I am not losing her over this fucking clan war.
"Then, tell him now before it is too late," she pushes me. I don’t like being pushed, but if something happens to me, I don’t want the last emotion for her to see me have to be anger. So, I do what she says, pulling Marcel aside.
I tell him everything, hoping that he will understand the need to be calculating here rather than just choose the outcome we want; like Baptiste surviving.
"I don’t like this, I want you to understand, but I also get the predicament we are all in now. I will only allow this plan to go through if you promise to try to take a shot at Gabriele first. I don’t like the idea that he is making a move on us like this. It is clear that he wants power here. He will take everything from us and go after Iona nd Mariana again."
I am in agreement with that. Gabriele would be hell on Earth if he won, but for now, we are at a stalemate.
"You have to know that I am willing to die for Aria. No matter what you need to keep her safe. I need you to keep yourselves away from this until it is over; one way or another."
Marcel nods at me with a tight jaw, getting my meaning.
Chapter Twenty-Six
SALVATORE
I don’t think I have ever been so fucking out of sorts before a kill before. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the guy I am about to kill is sitting next to me in this SUV on the ruse that his daughter and son have been taken somewhere for their safety due to their threat against then and now I am getting him to safety as well. But where I am taking him is the exact opposite. One of the other conditions that I was given by Gabriele DiGiovanni, was that I had to kill Baptiste, my father-in-law, at a certain location.
We pull up into the thick sand surrounding this little beach house in the middle of nowhere. It looks like nothing special; abandoned after a storm or something, but it is entirely private. It is just the place where no one will gear screams...or gun shots.
My thoughts are with my wife as we escort him inside. I hope that no matter what happens to me here that she has a safe and happy life.
I see no signs of anyone else around the front of the house as we get inside, but I know instantly that I am not here alone. And this is not something I bargained for. I walk in, and the exits are all blocked instantly by Gabriele's men, and Gabriele himself stands on the top of the staircase overlooking us with a smug gleam in his eye. Of course, he couldn’t let this go without fucking witnesses, without him watching the light go out in Baptiste’s eyes.
There are so many things wrong with this scene, and I instinctively step in front of Baptiste because this is not going at all as planned. There are too many eyes on me for me to shoot Baptiste Funar and get away with it. It doesn’t matter what I have been guaranteed; two can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. That’s something I should have remembered before I came on this foolish trip.
See because now, Gabriele has me in a vulnerable potion. Either I can go ahead with killing Baptiste and hope that Aria isn’t labeled a traitor right along with myself. Even if I had a way to get a message to her to tell her to distance herself from me, she won't do it. She will be loyal to me, even at the end of it all.
I can't allow anything to happen to her. She has one through too much pain and suffering in this life already. I already know what I will have to do in order to save her, and I say my goodbyes in my head. It was amazing while it lasted; more time in the sun than I ever deserved, a man who makes a living as an assassin.
"You do not have to keep acting as if you are protecting him, Moretti," Gabriele says with a dark chuckle that makes my spine tingle in the worst way. If ever there is a man in this world that truly makes me fear for anything, it is Gabriele DiGiovanni. It is not so much that I fear for myself, I fear for those I love and for his complete unpredictability.
"This is not exactly what I was agreeing to, Gabriele," I say coolly as I look around at the sheer number of men crammed into this place. My men could certainly take some of them out, but they would never win. I would not even fair well. And Baptiste would likely still die in a shootout situation.
"I never specified whether or not there would be witnesses. This changes nothing. You have an order to follow, a job to do. So, do it, so we can celebrate," he says, causing his men to cheer. Then, he ticks his head to the side, and I watch as Andrei is brought out, looking to be in wors
e shape than the last time I saw him. I am not surprised at this. No matter his involvement, he is nothing but my motivation. His eyes seem to be kind of dead, though it’s hard to be sure under the bruises. He is being brought out to remind me why I am here.
"Andrei!" Baptiste gasps, finally showing some emotion for one of his children. I try not to scoff. My sudden want to protect him and the Clan does not mean I forgive him for anything.
"Yes, your son has been very helpful to us," Gabriele says, addressing his brother-in-law who comes out from behind me. I hiss, annoyed that he is not even trying to protect himself here and know that it is time to sacrifice myself. I don’t know if it will save him, but it might save Aria.
I bow down, kneeling in front of them, placing my glock on the ground. My hands are up in surrender. "I hope you appreciate why I can no longer agree to this, but I do so in peace. I hope you still plan to leave my dear wife out of this as you still get what you want. He is yours." Guns are turned on my men as another of those dark sounds comes from Gabriele's throat.
But before anyone can make a move, shots are fired at random from outside the house, and we are all forced to take cover. The doors are free now, and I gesture for Funar to run, thinking this is someone here for his protection. But Gabriele moves so fast, shooting him down. I suppose he figures he can go out with a bang. Baptiste lies motionless next to me as I crawl, my glock back in my hand, as Ion, Mariana, and a good portion of the Clans bust through the door, surrounding us.
The shooting stops, and guns of taken from Gabriele's men and mine.
"You are charged with the attempted assassination of Mariana Vasile," Ion calls out, a gun trained on Gabriele. I am sure this is end of him, but at the last second, men leap in front of him as bullets fly. Gabriele goes down, and there is blood, but I can't tell if he is fatally injured or not. But as hidden guns are pulled, I know I need to get out of there to my wife. This is Clan business now.
Deceit (The Clans Book 4) Page 8