by Bethany-Kris
“What do you want?” Evelina asked. “I know the deal, Tommas. I know how to act. You don’t have to worry about me embarrassing you later or whatever.”
Tommas nodded, smiling grimly. “Thankfully, that is one thing I do know about you, Eve. The rest is a mystery.”
He sounded tired and lost, like this was the very last thing he wanted to be doing, too. She wasn’t surprised.
“Turn around,” Tommas ordered, “I have a gift for you.”
Confused, Evelina did as she was told. He came up behind her, and she watched him in the large dressing mirror as he pulled a long, thin jewelry box from the inside of his suit jacket.
“Have you told her, yet?” Evelina dared to ask.
Tommas stilled on the spot, his gaze darting to hers in their reflection. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Eve—”
“Have you told her?”
“No,” Tommas admitted.
Evelina shoulders dropped. “She’s going to hate me.”
“Actually, I suspect Abriella will hate me a great deal more than you, even if she doesn’t understand why I have to do this right now.”
“I don’t understand why you’re doing it so why on earth would she?”
“Because you don’t have to, but she should know better.”
Tommas popped open the jewelry box and pulled out a strand of ivory colored pearls. Sweeping Evelina’s hair to the side, he placed the necklace around her neck and fastened it without a word. His fingers grazed the back of her neck, but it did nothing for her. His hands certainly didn’t bring forth any feelings or desire. Tommas was a handsome man with his strong features, blue gaze, and his dangerous nature, but she wasn’t his.
He was already taken. She would never fill that spot for him.
“Abriella should know better,” Tommas repeated, “because everything I do is for her, Evelina.”
“Marrying another woman is for her? I don’t think Abriella will be very agreeable to that, Tommas.”
“I simply need the idea of it, Eve, and nothing more. For both of us.”
His vague words did nothing but confuse Evelina further.
“Is there a ring, too?” Evelina decided to ask.
“I’ll hand it over later when we announce the engagement.”
“Fantastic.”
“One more thing …” Tommas pulled Evelina’s curls to the side a little further, but he kept his gaze locked on hers in the mirror.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Who has touched you?”
Evelina froze. “W-what?”
The pad of his finger pressed to the mark on her neck with the gentlest of pressure, almost like he didn’t think it was his to touch.
“Someone has left his mark behind, Evelina,” Tommas murmured. “Men who leave marks like these on a woman’s body tend to do it because they want it to be found, and because they want other men to know they’re to stay away. I’d like to know who it is that left his on you.”
“I—”
“The best thing to do right now would be not to lie to me. If you don’t want to answer that question, I’ll ask another. Is there any more that could be noticed without you realizing someone has seen them?”
Evelina had to think about it, but only briefly. Theo’s marks were hidden under her clothes, beneath her bra and panties where only a lover would find. It was just the one on the side of her neck that she had to be mindful of.
“No,” Evelina finally said.
Tommas gave her a slow smile and fixed her hair, hiding the mark. “Good.”
Evelina didn’t know what to think. “Good?”
“Yes. As I said, I don’t expect you to understand this, Eve. You don’t need to. And you, like Abriella, will figure it out in due time. Her anger I can withstand, I’m sure. Will you tell me who left these?”
“No.”
“Be mindful and let whoever it is know that he isn’t to leave another that I, or someone else, can find.”
Evelina blinked, stunned speechless. Without another word, Tommas turned on his heel and left the bedroom, leaving Evelina behind.
Who was that man?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Theo just opened the front door to his sister’s and brother-in-law’s home in time to see Damian draw Lily in for a quick hug and a kiss on the top of her head. Damian’s hand dropped to Lily’s stomach momentarily before coming back up to tug on one of her curls.
“Better?” Damian asked.
Lily nodded. “You make it that way.”
“Good, sweetheart. No tears on Christmas.”
Theo felt like he’d somehow intruded on a very private moment between his sister and her husband. Clearing his throat, Theo opened the door a little wider and stepped inside to announce his arrival and interrupt the couple.
“You came!”
Theo hid his frown as his sister wrapped him in a tighter hug than she normally would. “Of course, little one. Why wouldn’t I come?”
Lily shrugged and took a small step back. “I don’t know. I guess there’s just been a lot of nonsense happening and maybe I thought you would—”
“Be smart and lie low,” Damian interrupted.
Theo offered his old friend a nod that Damian returned. “Hey, man.”
“Evening. And Merry Christmas, I suppose.”
“Merry Christmas.”
Lily eyed her husband over her shoulder before saying, “He was invited to the party at Riley’s, wasn’t he?”
Damian nodded. “He was.”
“Then what’s the problem, Damian?”
“There’s no problem,” Theo said. “Riley passed word that all was forgiven.”
Although, Theo didn’t know what in the hell there was to forgive. He’d had no involvement in the drive-by shooting or the burning of Evelina’s car. As far as he knew, and he was pretty damned sure of it, none of his men in the DeLuca crew had stirred that mess up, either.
Theo didn’t entirely trust Riley and his motives, whatever they were, for inviting Theo to the Christmas party. Nonetheless, rules were rules. Theo wouldn’t refuse a boss, even if he despised the very breath that boss breathed.
“If there’s no problem,” Lily said, jutting her fist to her hip, “… then why does my husband keep acting like he’s going to jump out of his damn skin every five minutes?”
“That’s just Damian. He’s twitchy.”
“Fuck off,” Damian muttered under his breath. “Just be good tonight, Theo, and don’t cause any shit.”
“Who said I was planning anything like that?”
“Hard to say with you, man.”
“Give me a bit of credit.” Theo smirked. “It’s Christmas, after all.”
“Oh!” Lily threw her arms high and turned fast on her heel. She disappeared out of the foyer in a flurry of blonde hair and happy laughter.
Theo tossed Damian a questioning look. “What is that nonsense all about?”
“Happy day,” Damian said, waving it all off. “The hormone thing is crazy with pregnancy. Today is a good day. I don’t question it, I’m simply grateful for it.”
Theo decided to take his friend’s word for it. Pregnancy and babies were not something Theo could see in his near future, never mind the far future. It just wasn’t his style. He didn’t want to see his kids ending up being raised the way he had, or the way he watched others grow up. There would be no abuse behind closed doors in his home, and certainly no show for the watchers. He wouldn’t give someone the chance to do that to his children.
And Theo knew if he had kids, they would forever be known as DeLuca kids. Mob kids. Mafia principes or principessas. Their father would always be the gangster—the Outfit mobster. What kind of heritage was that to have to carry around? No, Theo wouldn’t do that to his blood. Kids weren’t even a thought in his mind.
“The guy who dropped it off said there was big bonus for the carrier who would deliver i
t on Christmas,” Lily said as she walked back into the foyer. In her arms, she held a small package a little bigger than a shoe box. “We haven’t opened it.”
She dropped the box to the decorative table.
“But it was addressed to you and Lily,” Damian said.
Theo could see who the package was addressed to, and he recognized that messy scrawl on the top, too. Suddenly, his lungs wouldn’t work and his fingernails were biting into his palms.
“It’s from Dino,” Lily said quietly.
“He expected to be serving time right now, right?” Damian asked.
Theo nodded, but stayed quiet.
“So maybe he got something ready for us so we could have a gift from him at Christmas.” Lily tugged on Theo’s jacket, pulling him closer. “This is a nice surprise. Aren’t you happy, Theo?”
He was. Or he was trying to be. But as he stared at the box, all of his anger and guilt came rushing back tenfold. There was no escaping the tidal wave of grief that washed through his bloodstream, and cracked his cold heart all over again.
Theo had been doing okay. He’d pushed a lot of his anger aside and was trying to think about moving forward, and not the wrongs that had been done to his family, Dino’s death included. He hadn’t forgotten or entirely forgiven what happened, but he didn’t have a lot of choices in the matter to fix the situation, either. The package was just another reminder to Theo that his brother had expected to still be alive, if not a little more confined than before. He still expected to see his family grow and succeed after all the work and pain he’d gone through to give the DeLucas someone to be proud of.
And his boy … Dino’s son …
Theo refused to even go there.
“Open it,” Theo said gruffly.
His feelings were not his sister’s burdens to bear. Lily was clearly excited over the surprise and Theo understood why. She’d taken Dino’s death especially hard. She still had a great deal of guilt for the years she’d pushed her brothers away, and all the time she wasted. Theo wasn’t going to ruin her happy moment with his anxiety.
“Yeah?” Lily asked. “If you want to wait, we could do it after the dinner party.”
“Nah, just open it up, little one. Let’s see what’s inside.”
Damian crossed the foyer, pulling out a small pocket knife. When Lily tried to take it from her husband, Damian clicked his tongue chidingly and then sliced the top of the box across the tape.
“I could have done that,” Lily grumbled.
Damian chuckled. “Pregnant, not disabled. I’m aware. You’re clumsy, though. You’d probably end up slicing yourself or something. And on Christmas, no less.”
“I am not!”
“You kind of are,” Theo said.
Lily made a disgusted noise, waving the men off as she popped open the top and stuck her hands into the box. She pulled out a box of chocolates that Theo knew happened to be her very favorite, and in the other hand, she had two envelopes.
She passed over the envelope that had Theo’s name marked across the front. His was much bigger and looked stiffer than Lily’s did. His had to be at least ten inches long and eight wide while hers was standard size.
“You first,” Theo said, eyeing the envelope Lily held with her own name marked on it.
“Why not you first?”
“Because I’m the oldest between us, and I make the rules.”
“Yes, but it’s her house,” Damian put in.
Theo flicked his hand in Damian’s direction to silence him. “Be quiet, you’re not a DeLuca. You get no vote here.”
“Neither is she, not on paper, anyway.”
“Oh, shut up, both of you.” Lily grinned and winked at her brother before ripping off the side of the envelope. She tipped it over and pulled out what looked to be a letter and several photographs. “Is that …?”
“Let me see,” Theo said, moving closer.
The pictures were old, certainly. He recognized himself and his siblings in the photographs almost immediately. Dino was well into his teenaged years while Theo was just beginning to get there and Lily was still little.
Lily flipped through the photographs silently. Each one had the siblings together in some variation, and a couple had them with their parents.
“Those had to be done—”
“A month before Mom and Dad were killed,” Theo interrupted quietly.
He remembered the day the photos were taken with vivid detail. His mother had been ecstatic for the photographer because the person was apparently the best in Chicago at the time. Their father had paid a lot of money for the shoot. Dino and Theo had been their usual rowdy selves while Lily soaked up the attention as the baby of the family.
“And the letter?” Theo asked.
Lily handed the letter off to Damian without a word. Theo didn’t miss the tremor rocking his sister’s fingers before she went back to flipping through the photographs all over again.
“The strip of negatives are folded up in here,” Damian said. “If you wanted to have a few sized larger, we could go do that, Lily.”
Lily didn’t say a thing. Theo supposed his sister was in a similar state as him.
“What does the letter say?” Theo asked again.
His own letter burned against his palm. He was stuck between wanting to open it and wanting to hide it.
Damian glanced down at the paper he held, reading, “Merry Christmas, Lily. Have you forgiven me for Damian, yet? I suppose being separated by a few states, cement walls, and bars will give you all the time to work through your anger. I’ll see you when you’re ready, little one. In the meantime, I was cleaning out some things in storage while I was getting the house ready for when I was sentenced and found these. What do you give a woman who has everything, or everything that she wants, anyway? You give her memories she didn’t even know she had. I went back for these and a few other things like Mom’s rosary. I’m sure you’ll do something amazing with them, something better than hiding them away in a box. Love, Dino.”
“You hated that dress,” Theo said, pointing at the one his sister wore in the pictures.
Lily sniffed and wiped at her eyes quickly. “Did I?”
“Yeah, but Mom loved it and you loved the way Dad treated you like a little princess, so you wore it for them. It was a nice day and you managed to stay clean somehow. Usually you were dirtier than sin, because you were always chasing after me back then.”
Damian folded the letter up and stuffed it into the envelope. “Do you want me to put the pictures away in the office for now just to be safe?”
“In a second,” Lily whispered. “What is inside yours, Theo?”
Tension crawled over Theo’s shoulders. He hadn’t known Dino planned anything like this. They were speaking at the time, barely, and yes, Theo knew about Dino’s son, but that was about it. He didn’t know what would be inside.
“Open and read it for me?” Lily asked quietly.
Theo couldn’t deny his sister a damn thing when she was lit up like she was, so he opened his own envelope from Dino and pulled out the contents just enough to get a glimpse at what was inside. In his hand, pictures of a boy and his father—Junior and Dino—stared up at Theo with wide smiles and pride.
Lily reached for the pictures instantly. Theo slammed them back into the envelope. Why had his brother sent him these? Why would Dino do that knowing Lily would be right there, too?
Dino’s main goal when he was alive was to keep his son as far away from the Outfit and that mess as much as he possibly could. At least, that was how he explained it to Theo. Dino didn’t want their family’s past, or their uncle, to stain his son.
“Theo?” Lily asked. “Let me see the pictures.”
“They’re the same as yours,” Theo lied.
Damian’s brow furrowed, but the man stayed quiet.
“The backs were new prints, Theo,” Lily argued.
“He had some done up from the negatives.” Theo’s lies came like running water. “Lat
er, okay?”
Lily opened her mouth to speak, but Damian beat her to the punch. “We’re going to be late, sweetheart.”
“Fine. I forgot my purse in the kitchen.”
Theo could see it in the set of his sister’s pursed lips that she was pissed off, and didn’t believe a word he was saying to her. Even so, she left in search of her purse, and Theo took the chance to escape the house at the same moment.
He had planned on going to the dinner party with Lily and her husband. It would have looked good on Theo to show up with the head Capo for the Rossi crew, even if that Capo was married to Theo’s sister. It would have showed he was agreeable to settling down the feuds.
Mostly, Theo was sick of getting blamed for shit that wasn’t his fault or causing.
Right then, he just didn’t give a damn.
“Hey!”
Theo hadn’t even gotten the chance to close the driver’s door of his Stingray before Damian was yanking it back open.
“What in the hell, man?” Theo growled.
His anger was spilling like hot lava into his veins. Dino had put Theo into a terrible position with his sister. Theo was the one left protecting Junior, not Dino. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Lily by lying to her, or worse, telling her the truth and then refusing her access to her nephew.
Theo made a move to toss the envelope into the backseat, away from Damian, but the man grabbed it right out of Theo’s hand. Damian took a couple of quick steps away from the car as Theo jumped out, reaching for the item to take it back.
“Give that to me, you asshole,” Theo practically snarled.
“What—” Damian’s words cut off as he pulled the pictures out. “Jesus Christ.”
“Give them to me right fucking now, D.”
Damian’s gaze darted between the pictures and Theo’s face. No doubt, the man was drawing his own conclusions. Damian had never been stupid.
“He had a fucking kid?” Damian asked.
Theo sucked in a hard breath, willing his rage to subside. “It’s none of your damned business.”
“Wrong. Anything that affects my wife is entirely my business, Theo. Your attitude in there bothered her, and I knew you were trying to hide something, but this? This, man? She … Oh my, God, Theo, he had a fucking kid!”