by Bethany-Kris
Instead, his father died before it could happen.
And he just passed on that unhealthy love to her.
In a new way.
“Vanna, are you listening?”
No.
She spoke so they didn’t break down the door.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Vanna said.
A lie.
Another to add to the pile.
Maybe Bene was right.
Maybe she was just a fucking liar.
In her blood.
Fused to her DNA.
How else could she survive now?
How else would she protect this child?
Bene’s child.
Even if he hated her, she would do whatever she had to … everything she needed to, even if it meant sacrificing her own happiness, to make sure his child was born alive, well, and loved. And maybe, someday, she could fix this.
But today was not that day.
And after today, her life was not her own.
“You have five minutes before you need to be downstairs,” the woman behind the door called. “So, let’s not waste time. Everyone is antsy to get the ceremony started.”
Right.
“I’m coming.”
Except she didn’t move.
She couldn’t.
Someone would drag her out of the bathroom.
That she could promise.
Run.
Run.
Fucking run.
Vanna’s thoughts kept screaming at her even though she knew it was impossible to do what her heart wanted. All it took was a look down the corridor outside of the doors leading into the main floor of the church to find the man standing there, watching her. At her stare, he had the nerve to cock his eyebrow, like she needed a reminder what he was standing there for. No, she knew very well.
Not that he needed to, but if he raised his suit jacket, she knew a gun would be tucked into his waistband. At the ready, in case she decided to do anything stupid. Or, that’s how Mario put it when he visited her earlier. The bastard was determined to see this day through, no matter what.
She didn’t have anyone to walk her down the aisle—yet another sad thing about this whole farce—so she was stuck waiting behind the large, double doors alone until the organ changed to the traditional wedding march.
With a new chaperone.
Who wouldn’t let her run.
Her fingers curled tighter around the bouquet as she glanced to the side, in the opposite direct of her current chaperone. That way only led to the private quarters of the church where she had gotten ready under the watchful eye of Mario’s mother, and other women from the clan. The same women who practically pulled her from the room, and dragged her down the hall when she didn’t want to go willingly.
A beautiful day for a wedding.
Smile, it’s your wedding day.
This is a privilege for you, Vanna.
Their words still rung in her mind.
Still taunted her.
Vanna heard the music change beyond the closed doors—the church organ muted through the thick, darkly stained wood. The song that meant it was her turn to walk through the doors after the only person who went before her, a young girl from the clan who acted as a flower girl. Her gaze went back to the door, her veil shrouding her features just enough to hide the fact that she couldn’t smile, and she barely held back tears.
God.
She wanted to cry.
More than anything.
A part of her knew, though, Mario would like that too much. And besides, she had never been that woman. The one who cried her way through shit that was out of her control. No, she always fought her way through it, instead.
This wasn’t one of those times.
There was no escape.
The doors were pushed open from the inside, making them swing toward her and giving her a good view of all the people standing inside the church. Instead of focusing on their faces, she stared at the white satin aisle runner dotted with red and white rose petals.
She breathed deep.
Willed away the pain.
Prayed for the nausea to subside.
The music played on—it was her turn to walk. All she needed to do was take one step, and then another. Keep going until she reached the end. To where Mario currently waited with a burning gaze zoned in on her like he could read her mind and knew exactly what was running through it. How she was still trying to figure a way out of this.
Something.
Anything.
She could force herself to do this. She could.
What choice did she have?
But God …
She didn’t want to.
That made it harder.
Holding the bouquet tighter, letting her father’s rosary bite into her fingertips, she held the roses closer to her stomach. Her fingers brushed against the beaded bodice of her gown covering her still-flat abdomen, but just having that moment was enough to settle her nerves for the moment. She didn’t dare outright touch it.
Not with all these eyes—
“It’s a raid! It’s a raid!”
Vanna swung around fast at the shouting coming from behind her, the bouquet falling from her hands to the floor. Her father’s rosary spilling to the carpeted entrance of the old church as the man rushed past her, one of the soldiers the Detti boss had demanded watch the outside of the church throughout the ceremony.
He blew by her.
Still shouting.
Raid!
It’s a raid!
She didn’t care about him.
It was the others coming in through the front of the church. And the ones she heard shouting from within the church, too.
“Police! RCMP, everyone put your hands up!”
“Police! RCMP! Les mains en l'air!”
Vanna’s hands flew up high. She was one of the first to be arrested, RCMP officers spilling into the church through all entrances and exits. Hell, they brought everyone, it seemed. She hadn’t seen that many cops in one place in … a long time.
She didn’t get the chance to ask questions. Not anything beyond, “What am I being arrested for?”
The cop’s answer?
“Precautionary.”
What the fuck did that mean?
She also didn’t get to appreciate they ruined the wedding in the nick of fucking time. And after the cop who slapped the cuffs on her had dragged her out of the church and put her in the back of a cop car, Vanna was sure she saw a familiar figure watching from across the street. He looked the same as he always did—black leather, a face made to sin, and a dark gaze she could feel on her long after it was gone.
Bene.
He’d been there.
Waiting.
“Miss Falco, is it?”
Vanna glanced up from the sleeves of her hoodie where she had been pulling at the fabric to keep her hands busy. The plain-clothed cop that slipped into the room she had been housed in after arriving at the station gave her a smile.
A tight one.
It wasn’t warm at all.
“That’s me,” she said, “but I can’t say I know who you are.”
He arched a brow. “Constable Andrews, but you can call me Detective, if you’d like. I work with the division for—”
“Am I under arrest?”
“No.”
“Then, why I am I still sitting here?”
At least, someone had the decency to grab the bag of her clothes from the private dressing room in the church. A female cop accompanied her to a bathroom to change, and pack away the wedding dress and veil she hoped to never see again.
No one answered her questions.
She asked a lot.
“We’ll get to that in a moment,” the detective said, closing the door behind him. “Before I ask a few questions, is there anything I can get for you?”
Vanna scowled. “A lawyer?”
“Do you think you’ll need one being you’re not under arrest, and I’m only
here to ask a few cursory questions relating to your connection to your fiancé’s family, their business, and your previous status as an informant for a … Constable Keefs?”
She straightened in the chair.
No one should have known about that, but especially not another cop. Her informant business with Keefs had been strictly between him and her, and when she refused to keep feeding him information, well it was over.
That was it.
“If I had any say,” Vanna muttered, “Mario Detti wouldn’t be my fiancé, for one.”
The detective narrowed his gaze, rounding the table to pull out the metal chair on the other side so he could take a seat. “And their business?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
Mostly true.
“So, you wouldn’t know anything about the shipment of heroin we just picked up at the Niagara Falls border crossing that was coming to an address of a warehouse owned by your future father-in-law?”
Vanna’s jaw ticked. “Can’t say I do, no.”
All lies.
She stumbled upon that information during one of the clan’s many family dinners, which she then snatched someone’s phone, took a bunch of pictures, and sent it off to Bene to do with it what he could, if he even wanted to. That had been two weeks ago, or a little more.
“Are you also unaware of Mario Detti’s connection to Constable Keefs, who he was paying a large sum of money to monthly in order to keep the detective from passing over the information he had on the illegal dealings of the Detti family to his superiors and the team of investigators he was working with for the Guzzi investigation?”
Her face stayed passive.
Still like stone.
“No, I don’t,” Vanna said quietly, “sorry.”
The man nodded. He flipped through a paper in the folder on the table, and then another. The silence stretched on, causing her nerves to grow tight with every passing second. Was that his point? She hated to tell him, but this wasn’t even her worst experience of the day.
“And you’re going to deny that you were the informant for Constable Keefs investigation into the Guzzi Cosa Nostra, as well?”
“What would it matter, if I even was?”
“It wouldn’t,” the man replied, “except with Constable Keefs being caught up in this bribery scandal with the Detti organization … well, his word is unreliable, and any prosecutor worth his weight wouldn’t dare to put him on the stand. And without a cooperating informant to confirm the information pulled from Gian Guzzi’s home, as we only have digital photographs and recordings that could have been faked, with the right programs, well—”
“His charges will be dropped.”
“Most,” the man agreed, “yes. Unless, Miss Falco, you have something you would like to tell me.”
Did she?
Absolutely not.
“I can’t say that I do,” she replied.
As though that was the answer he expected, Constable Andrews dropped the folder to the table, and sat back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. “Well, then I’m very sorry for wasting your time today. You’ll be allowed to gather your belongings, and an officer will escort you out of the station whenever you’re ready to go. Unfortunately, your fiancé and many others in his family won’t get the same treatment … seems we have quite enough on them currently to keep them right where they are.”
Oh?
Vanna almost smiled.
“Shame, that,” she whispered.
Yeah, a real fucking shame.
Under the table, her hands stayed flat to her stomach. Protecting the growing life there. Hiding the proof of her baby away from the rest of the world.
What would happen now?
She had no clue.
“At least, they let you get out of that monster of a dress.”
Vanna’s head snapped up, the revolving doors she’d just stepped out of still spinning behind her. Gone was the large, poufy dress he’d watch her be arrested in only to be replaced with gray sweatpants, a similarly colored hoodie, and running shoes. It wasn’t her typical look, but he wasn’t at all shocked that she still managed to pull it off.
Everything looked good on her.
Fuck him for noticing, too.
He might have enjoyed the sight of her surprise on another day, but today, he wasn’t entirely sure what to feel. Except for maybe the fact he shouldn’t be here at all. Not standing on these steps. Not waiting for her release from the police interviews.
None of it.
And yet, there he stood.
“Bene?”
Her hesitant call of his name had him standing a little straighter on the steps of the police station. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, he stared at the woman who had changed his entire life in far more ways than she could possibly know. He wished that so much of this between them had been different, but as this was what they were given, then he would try to do something with it.
Try being the keyword.
“Did you come to tell me you hate me again?” she asked. “To call me a liar, and leave before you let me explain? Do you want to taunt me because you have what you want, and now I have nothing?”
He didn’t miss how she kept a good distance between them. She took a few steps away from the door, likely wanting to get far away from the cops in that building, but she didn’t begin to climb down the stairs to come closer to him.
“Don’t you think I would be owed that?” he asked back.
Vanna swallowed hard. “That doesn’t mean I want to hear it.”
“That’s the thing about love and forgiveness, isn’t it?”
Her brow dipped. “Pardon?”
Bene took one step higher, asking, “How about I ask you a question?”
“Well—”
“It’s a good one, I promise.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Why me?”
“Honestly?”
Bene nodded, taking one more step on the stairs.
Vanna blew out a hard breath, her arms full with a large brown paper bag. Likely the items she had gone into the station with, or what they gathered of hers from the church when the raid happened. “You were the logical choice—all your other brothers weren’t single, or around.”
“Marcus—”
“Not my type.”
For some reason, that made him grin.
And chuckle.
A little.
“And why did you change your mind?” he asked. “About coming after my family, I mean. What made you—”
“Because a part of me knew I was chasing someone else’s wrongs—a part of me thought it was the only way to keep my dad alive when I worried, I was forgetting him. Because I blamed your father for the way my life went. Because I love you.”
Each time she said because, he took another step. There were only three left between him and her, now, but Bene wasn’t quite ready to close them. He thought there was still a lot left unsaid between the two of them, and if they didn’t get it out now, then he doubted there would be another chance for them to do that.
And he needed to make a choice, didn’t he?
To love this woman, and fight for her.
Or to let it go.
Give me a reason not to let it go, Vanna.
“What did you mean—about love and forgiveness?”
Bene arched a brow, tipping his head to the side a bit as he regarded her. “It only really works if you want to be forgiven, Vanna.”
She just stared.
He looked back.
“When you hurt somebody,” he added, shrugging and taking one more step higher, “then you don’t get to decide anything about their forgiveness, but especially when it’s someone you say you love. You hurt them, and so you should be prepared to deal with the consequences of their forgiveness, even if it hurts you. It’s your willingness to accept their forgiveness in whatever form it takes that proves you understand what you did.”
“You hurt me, too, but I don’t think the same thing applies.”
He had hurt her.
Said things in anger.
Behaved rashly.
Couldn’t deal.
She’d taken the brunt of it.
“But I understood,” she added softer. “So, I’m not sure if it’s that there’s nothing to forgive, or I already did. What about you?”
“I wish you could understand the weight of what you did.”
“I do.”
“Really, you think?”
Vanna dragged in a shaky breath, blinking before tears slipped out of the corners of her eyes and made glistening tracks down her cheeks. He expected her to quickly wipe away the tears, but she didn’t even bother.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Bene, and I’m sorry that I made it worse because you fell in love with me.”
“But are you sorry for that?”
It took Vanna a second.
And then, two.
Bene waited her out.
“I’m not sorry that you love me, no, and I’m not sorry that I love you, either.”
“This is a messy thing, Vanna.”
She lifted one shoulder, holding that brown bag tighter to her midsection. “I wanted to fix it. It was too late, I knew it, but I still wanted to fix it. I tried everything I could to make it better and—”
“Stop.”
She did.
Instantly.
She tipped her head down, and because of that, didn’t see him climb those last steps, and cross the remaining distance between them. He didn’t even think about it before wrapping Vanna in a tight hug at the top of those stairs. The second she was in his embrace, he found life became far more bearable. All the noise of the city faded into the background. Her sugared scent soaked into his lungs, the soft strands of her hair on the top of her head pressed against his lips, and for the moment, everything was good again.
Just fine.
Or they could pretend.
Vanna dropped the paper bag between them and hugged him back. He’d done well—did all he could to keep a respectable distance until they said as much as they could before his control snapped. Hanging on by a thread, watching her do what she needed to survive from a distance, all the while she still risked herself to help him, and his family …
Yeah, he didn’t need to be told.
He knew she loved him.