by Bethany-Kris
Evelina took note of the water in Lily’s wine glass. “Wow. And it’s Christmas, too.”
Lily’s cheeks turned pink as she said, “Uh, I’m going to go find my—”
“Whoa, now.” Abriella grabbed Lily’s wrist, keeping her from running. She gave the wine glass and Lily’s embarrassed smile another once over. “You’re not the kind of girl who bolts, either. Don’t tell me you’re—”
“Shut up, Ella.”
“What am I missing?” Evelina asked.
She always felt so out of the loop, now. Like everyone around her knew some giant secret about someone else that she didn’t know.
Lily waved a hand as if to dismiss Abriella. “It’s nothing.”
“Are you?” Abriella asked quietly.
“Is she what?”
Abriella rolled her blue eyes and mouthed, “Pregnant.”
For a split second, time stopped.
Then, Evelina found her voice. “What?”
“Shut up, shut up,” Lily grumbled, sticking her hands up to cover both her friends’ mouths. “Shut up right now … good God.”
“So you are?” Abriella asked, her voice muffled.
Evelina couldn’t help but giggle.
Lily raised a single brow. “Not a damn word.”
“But—”
“Not a word,” Lily interrupted Evelina sharply.
“Congrats,” Evelina whispered.
“Okay, that’s one I’ll accept.”
Evelina laughed when Lily finally dropped her hand.
“How far—”
Lily’s stare cut to Abriella, quieting her instantly. “Not here, okay?”
“Aren’t you happy?”
“Very. Damian is over the moon, too. But right now, I don’t want the kind of attention this announcement might bring.”
Evelina understood instantly. “Because of my brother and Alessa.”
Abriella’s shoulders dropped at the statement. “Oh.”
“I could only imagine how they’d feel to see someone being praised and whatever else while those same people shame them for their joy. That’s not okay with me.” Lily frowned and added, “So I just want to give it a little more time. I like that only a few people know right now, anyway. Our family gets to enjoy this privately before the rest of the Outfit knows, too. That’s how it should be, all right.”
“Who all knows?” Abriella asked.
“Tommas, Theo, and now you two. Damian and I don’t have a lot of people we’re close to. Theo figured it out on his own when he came over for dinner one night. Tommas was the first person Damian called after I told him because he had a moment.”
Evelina laughed. “A moment?”
Apparently, Lily’s statement wasn’t meant to be funny if the way her expression darkened with sadness was any indication.
“He never had much of a father growing up. It’s a scary thing, you know, having to worry about raising a child when you never had someone to raise you. He’s got nothing to go on, and he needed someone who wasn’t me to tell him that it’d be fine.”
“He’ll make a good father,” Evelina assured her friend.
Of course, Damian would. Because when the man loved, he loved. There was no in-between. Evelina had seen it well enough when her cousin fell in love with Lily.
“He will,” Lily agreed. “So, lips sealed.”
“Sealed,” Abriella agreed.
Evelina made the motion of a zipper closing across her lips.
“Thanks.” Lily turned to Evelina with a curious glint lighting up her gaze. “I heard you went AWOL last week.”
Oh, crap.
“I heard something about that, too,” Abriella said. “I couldn’t believe it. Evelina Conti skips out on her enforcers and doesn’t call home? No way.”
Evelina brushed their teasing off. “I called my brother.”
Abriella pursed her lips. “Joel said Riley was saying Adriano sent you away because someone burned the BMW.”
“That’s the story,” Evelina said. “Two incidents involving me makes for a bad situation.”
“But it’s not the truth,” Lily murmured. “Not one bullet hit your car during the shooting, and you weren’t in your car when someone burned it down. I hear things just like anyone else does, Eve. You’re not telling the whole story, are you?”
“Sounds to me like someone is getting just close enough to you to bother your father,” Abriella noted quietly. “And maybe you used that chance to skip out of life for a few days.”
“Sometimes we need to get away,” Evelina said with a shrug.
“Is that all you’re going to give us?”
“Yes.”
“Damn,” Abriella said, pouting. “You’re no fun. This would have been a much better story if you’d included something interesting.”
“It was interesting,” Evelina replied before she could stop herself.
Lily’s gaze widened. “And why was that?”
Evelina wasn’t entirely sure how Lily would take the fact that she’d slept with Theo. Or that she stayed with him in a hotel room for several days after and kept sleeping with him. Or that Evelina still wanted to sleep with him.
“I felt free,” Evelina settled on saying. “For a few days, nobody else mattered but me and what I wanted. I got what I wanted and then I had to come back down to real life.”
It wasn’t a lie.
Lily sighed. “It’s a nice place to be, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I mean, it wasn’t like you and Europe, but it was freeing.”
“You know what I learned from Europe?” Lily asked. “I learned that being free doesn’t always mean not being confined. Sometimes it’s coming home and being freed here, too.”
Evelina didn’t know what home was anymore. Was it the friend she was about to betray when she became engaged to Abriella’s lover? Was it the friend she would hurt by her lies when Lily found out what had happened between Evelina and Theo? Was it the greedy father and the new stepmother? Was it the Outfit with its dirty ways and confusing games?
Where was home for Evelina?
“Being home is a freeing thing?” Abriella laughed under her breath. “I can’t say that my home feels anything like that right now.”
“Truth,” Evelina agreed before gulping down the last bit of her wine.
“No,” Lily said simply. “There’s a difference. Home is what makes you feel free, and freedom is the home that doesn’t confine you.”
A brown-eyed, rich-voiced man with a magic touch and demons on his back had done that for Evelina. But she and Theo were still worlds apart, even when they stood side by side.
Evelina stayed close to the wall and behind the backs of the guests as her father took the head of the room. With a glass of red wine in his one hand and a handful of Courtney in the other, Riley looked as though he was king of the world. For the moment, Evelina supposed he was.
“Thank you all for coming to celebrate this holiday with my family,” Riley said, his voice carrying over the murmurs.
“This house always looks better when there’s lots of people filling it,” Courtney said, her giggles following her statement.
“It does.” Riley lifted his glass higher to the guests, smiling widely. “We’ve had a rough few months together, this family. We shouldn’t be fighting with one another. Our families have always been above that sort of nonsense and tonight, my family would like to cement our happiness and extend our loyalty to this life and its ways in the best way we know how.”
Evelina’s chest tightened. She had all she could do not to run for the door. Tommas Rossi slid into her side wordlessly. She hadn’t even noticed he was nearby until he was staring her right in the face with a sad smile.
“Ready?” he asked quietly.
No, she wanted to say.
“He’s making a terrible show of this, isn’t he?” Evelina whispered.
“He’s making a point.” Tommas shrugged. “Let him make it, Eve. The idea of this is all we need.
Smile, please.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Smile.”
His fingers locked around her wrist like he knew she was about to bolt.
“Evelina, Tommas?” Riley called out.
People turned, staring. Evelina could practically feel the eyeballs searing into her and Tommas as her soon-to-be fiancé kept holding her in place and watching her closely.
Movement from the corner of her eye drew in her attention. Theo cocked his head just enough to catch Evelina’s stare and hold it. He tipped his glass up for a drink, but not before she caught the sight of his frown.
He stood alone.
Theo was always alone.
“Eve.” Tommas squeezed her wrist. “Smile for me, please.”
“I—”
“The idea, Evelina, is the most important thing you need to maintain,” Tommas murmured. “You have always been good at this. Do not give them anything different.”
An idea was not a guarantee. Evelina was finally starting to read between the lines. Tommas didn’t need to tell Evelina to smile again. She put on her best smile as his hand slid from her wrist into her palm. As her father called out their names again, Tommas turned around and tugged Evelina forward with him. She went without a fight.
At the head of the room, Evelina focused her stare on a painting at the far wall. She didn’t want to see the hurt this would cause her friend. She didn’t want to know who would be happy and who would be angry.
“When my deceased wife was alive,” Riley said, his tone dripping with false sadness and heartbreak, “… the Rossi and Conti families had always been close. Our familial relation kept us that way, and when Mia was buried, I think both sides felt the cracks begin to form and the divide widen.”
Coughs echoed from one corner of the room. Evelina found the person making the noise—Serena Rossi. At least she seemed sober tonight. That was a first. Tommas stiffened beside Evelina, tossing his mother a cool look from where he stood. Serena quickly quieted.
“When one family started to divide, the others followed,” Riley continued. “I want to begin repairing that crack and moving us all back together again. And I will start doing that with another marriage.”
“Marriage.”
“A wedding.”
“Tommas …”
“Evelina …”
She heard all the words and quick whispers that followed her father’s statements, but Evelina didn’t move her eye off the painting at the back of the room for a second.
Riley lifted his wine glass toward his son and Alessa in the corner. “In a couple of weeks, my boy will solidify our relationship with the Trentini family through his marriage to Alessa. The Rossi family has already become acquainted with the DeLucas through their recent marriage. It is time that the ones who are left wipe what slates remain so that we can all start out clean.”
The idea, Evelina told herself over and over. She kept repeating those words even when Tommas pulled out a jewelry box. Like the proper gentleman she knew him to be, he got down on his one knee. Her smile never fell. Her voice never wavered.
It wasn’t easy.
Evelina swore the change in the room was instant. Like a shock of realization had settled over the thirty or so guests standing frozen in the dining area and they were finally waking up from it.
The flurry of movement from the side was the only thing that broke Evelina’s concentration as Tommas slid the ring down her finger. The flyby of dark hair and a black dress was all Evelina saw of Abriella before the girl was gone.
Taking her attention off the important goal at hand was the wrong thing to do. Evelina was quick to gage the rest of the people and their reaction to the announcement as well. One person stood out to Evelina above the rest.
Joel Trentini.
Clenched fists. Tight jaw. Burning eyes.
The conversation between Riley and Tommas that Evelina had overheard rang heavily in the back of her mind.
You’re willing to marry your daughter off to Joel Trentini just to keep him in line?
What had her father done?
Glancing back at Riley, she could see her father was watching his new underboss carefully. Riley wasn’t missing Joel’s visible rage for a second. Chances were, he’d just played another hand. Evelina just happened to be the damn card he put down.
“Riley!”
Joel Trentini’s sharp hiss gave Evelina the chance she needed to get away from her father’s side when Riley turned to Joel with a scowl.
“It’s Boss, Joel.”
She didn’t wait around to hear what else would be said as Joel and Riley moved off into a more private section of the room where less guests were. Evelina left the dining area without a second look back.
She needed to breathe.
Just one damn breath.
Not a minute after Tommas had put the ring on her finger, the man disappeared. Riley hadn’t seemed to mind Tommas taking leave like that, but it left Evelina unsettled. She didn’t want to face all those people alone after the big announcement but that was exactly what she’d been left to do.
With her father and stepmother, of course. She might as well have been fed to the damn wolves. Like a sacrifice.
Doing her best to hide the tremor in her hands, Evelina slipped down the first hallway she came to. It led to the downstairs section of the Conti home where extra bedrooms, a couple of bathrooms, the laundry room, and an entertaining room with a bar and pool table could be found. Guests were rarely allowed into that section of the home unless directly invited. Evelina figured that would be the safest place to go if she didn’t want to be found for a few minutes.
She was wrong.
The moment her foot hit the bottom step leading into the lower floor, she heard voices echoing from down the darkened hall. They might as well have been spitting hatred and rage with just their tones alone.
“You’re a fucking coward, Tommas,” Abriella said.
She almost sounded like she was goading him.
Evelina cringed and turned on her heel to go back upstairs but Tommas’ next words stopped her.
“I am not, Ella. It was me or Joel. Don’t you fucking get that, girl? Is that what you want, for your friend to be married off to someone like your brother? And for that matter, it’s never going to even hap—”
“Shut up,” Abriella hissed. “You couldn’t even give me the decency of telling me first. You could have called me or at the very least, sent me a message, as low as that would have been. It would have been better than this. At any time tonight, you could have taken me aside and told me, Tommy! Why didn’t you tell me?”
Tommas didn’t say a thing.
“Because you’re a fucking coward, that’s why, Tommy.”
“I am not. But what I couldn’t do was hurt you, Ella. I couldn’t do that.”
“You already did!”
“Stop it. You know I love you to death, Ella. I’d fucking do anything for you—I’m doing it now.”
“By marrying my friend,” Abriella said in a scoff. “That’s rich, Tommy.”
“You’re not getting it,” Tommas muttered, a heat coloring his words. “There is so much shit at play here. More than you can possibly understand, and here in this house is not the time for us to get into it all. I haven’t been able to tell you a lot because you’ve not been around. Phones aren’t safe, not like we think. I couldn’t refuse and give your brother the option of stepping higher.”
“Is that all it is for you? Who has the better position? You’ll marry Eve, your cousin—even if it is through name only—and one of my very best friends, just to get yourself higher in the Outfit?”
“No!”
“I’ll be your whore then, right? I’ve always been your little slut in the bedroom, so why not take it outside, too, huh?”
Evelina heard a thump followed by a sharp gasp right after Abriella finished her tirade. Concerned, she peeked her head around the corner to see what had happened. Tommas had Abriella pin
ned to the wall with her two wrists caught in his one hand and placed high above her head. His other was holding under her chin tightly, forcing her head up so she had to stare at him.
If it wasn’t for the way Abriella twisted closer into Tommas’ hands, moving toward the man, Evelina might have stepped in. But instead, she didn’t. Abriella didn’t look like she wanted help when Tommas kissed her and Abriella bit him hard on his bottom lip.
“Fuck,” Tommas snarled under his breath.
“Coward. All you’ve done is made me your whore, Tommy.”
“Stop it. You don’t ever get to say that about yourself.”
“Just you, right?”
“Five minutes, Ella,” Tommas pleaded. “Just give me five minutes with you alone, outside of this house, and away from these people to explain.”
“I’ll give you nothing. Not anymore.”
“Ella—”
“I hate you,” Abriella whispered, her voice breaking. “I hate you for doing this to me. And you know what you’ve done to me. I’ve let you own me because you got me, Tommy. It’s so much more than tonight. You fucking know. I’m so ruined now. You did this. I hope you’re happy.”
“Five minutes,” he pleaded.
Abriella got one of her hands free and struck Tommas hard. Evelina jumped at the sound the slap made.
Tommas didn’t even flinch. “Is that how you want to do this, then?”
“Useless,” Abriella spat.
“Stop.”
“Asshole. Coward. I hate you, Tommy.”
Those four words shook Evelina straight to her heart. She suspected this situation would hurt Abriella, but she hadn’t realized quite how much in the end. Clearly the two had a relationship that was complicated and delicate in a way Evelina couldn’t possibly understand.
Tommas pushed Abriella harder against the wall and kissed her until she was forcing him away with tears streaking down her cheeks.
“You never could say it, Ella. Come on, baby, just fucking say it for me once.”
Abriella glared. “No.”
“Tell me, Ella, tell me you love me. We’ve been doing this for almost four years and not once have you said those words to me even when I begged you to fucking do it. You try to hide it, but you can’t. Lie to me, even. Tell me you love me.”