Over the Line: A Second Chance Sports Romance

by Celia Ryan

  “Roberto, it's Vienna.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “Nothing. The Giotis had nothing to do with the death of my parents. It's time to let it go.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  “Roberto? Are you there?”

  He sighed, “Of course I'm here. You're wrong, Vienna. I will convince you in the end.”

  “You can try. Luka and I are together now. I'm not going to lie to myself and deny my feelings anymore. I want to be with him. And you're going to leave him alone, and leave me out of it.”

  “Don't you want revenge? Your whole life was destroyed because of them. Don’t you realize that?”

  I had realized that. Luka was building it back up piece by piece, and I couldn't risk things with him. We were starting our family now. I was terrified to leave Roberto—he might even try to come for me—but I needed to move on. “I built my own life now. Don’t ever call me again.”

  “You’re just like your dumb mother. Running out on family, that's a death sentence. Look at what happened to her.”

  “Luka will not let that happen to me.” I ended the call before I had a chance to listen to anything else he had to say. I made my decision. Now we just had to tell his family.

  I walked over to the closet and pulled out one of the new dresses I had bought. A surprise at Sunday dinner would be perfect. Just get it all out in the open at once. I would call Luka and ask him to meet me, tell him everything. In the end, I hoped he would understand.

  Just as I was about to slip into the dress, I heard keys in the door.

  “Luka? Is that you?”

  The door opened and I walked out of the closet, expecting to see him in his Sunday best. He left the apartment this morning in a sexy suit with a dark blue tie. I hadn't seen him ever look hotter. But as I held the dress up to myself and turned around, I stifled a scream.

  My uncle was standing in the bedroom. And he had a gun pointed at my head.

  Chapter 22

  Vienna

  “What the hell are you doing here? Put that gun down!”

  I looked at the man in front of me. He looked completely deranged. His usual suit was replaced with jeans and a T-shirt. His hair that was usually combed to one side was disheveled. His hands shook and his finger was on the trigger.

  “I've been watching you. I knew you would side with them in the end.”

  “Side with who? The Giotis? They haven't done anything wrong! What you're doing right now is wrong. Put the gun away, Roberto!” My voice wavered. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. What was he doing?

  Was I going to die over this? Would I lose the new family I was building?

  He shook his head and wiped sweat from his brow. “I can't do that.”

  He moved toward me, and I felt the clothes against my back as I reached the corner of the closet. I didn't have any weapons, and I wasn't the type of girl to be good in a fight. I was in trouble.

  “Why can't you? I'm your niece! Don't you want the bloodshed to end?”

  “You can't really be with him. He's a traitor. He took your family from you. Can't you see that?”

  “I guess love just creates blinders. It doesn't matter to me about the past. I'm looking forward to my future. You can have a future too, uncle. You just have to put the gun down.”

  He shook his head. “You’re just like her. Running away from the family.”

  “I'm not like her. I'm not trying to run away from you. I just need this to end. I've made my choice!”

  “That's what she said. Right before she packed her things and got in the car with that drunk bastard that brought her here. And then she really turned her back on us by working for another family. Like they were her blood! They were not her family. We are.”

  I needed time. I needed to calm him down and make my way over to the bed where the gun was hidden beneath the mattress. I needed to shoot my uncle. It was the only way I would ever get out of this alive. I had to protect myself and my baby. All of these years of pent up aggression toward my mother and wondering the truth about what happened to her had made him a crazy man.

  I should have seen the signs earlier. When I first went to live with him, my grandmother was still alive. She would cook for us every night, and sitting at that table with the two of them felt like home. But every night, during prayers, my uncle would mention my mother, and it always broke my heart.

  When my grandmother passed, he became more unhinged. I remembered family members coming to the house and telling him he needed to get his life together. That was when he started focusing on finding my mother’s killer. I should have noticed then. The times he would stay up all night watching Baltimore news online. How much he visited my mother’s grave. He began prepping me for Luka’s release. All the things I needed to say, to do, to make sure he fell for me.

  But neither of us had planned on me falling in love with him. Or maybe I had lied to him and myself this whole time. Did I really want the truth, or did I just want a reason to be close to Luka again? I wasn’t sure. Clearly, that had fueled his insanity further. I needed to figure out a way to escape.

  I refused to be his next victim.

  Chapter 23

  Luka

  As I walked up the stairs, I realized that I didn't recognize the car out front. Maybe there was a new tenant in the building. That seemed odd to me, as I hadn't seen any recent moving trucks. But I guessed one of the lofts could've been rented for a few weeks. I'd only been back less than a week myself.

  In less than one month, shit had completely hit the fan. Between finding Vienna and falling back in love with her, her pregnancy, a rat, and the threat of the Agnelli family, my world was coming unhinged. And I wasn’t happy about it.

  When I saw my door open, I realized my world could still explode.

  I pulled a knife from underneath my pants and I crept into my own apartment on high alert. I could hear two people arguing in the bedroom. One of them was clearly Vienna, and the other had a thick Italian accent that I didn't recognize. They were arguing about her mother, actually, about both of her parents. Who would come here to talk about that? Had my father found out she was here and sent someone to finish her? I had been so careful in the church, no one had heard.

  This didn't make any sense. I stood in silence next to the open doorway of my bedroom. I craned my neck to get a quick glance around the corner of the white walls. There was a man, definitely older than me, standing with a gun pointed into the closet. As I heard the conversation continue, I realized that Vienna was hiding in the closet from him.

  Fucking bastard. Whoever the hell he was, he would pay for scaring my girl.

  I gripped the handle of my knife and I backed up away from the doorway. I would need to charge at him. And bullets were faster than people. I took a deep breath and prepared myself. I held my breath and sprinted into the bedroom, slamming my body into his and tackling him to the ground. He hadn't even heard me coming, as his focus was solely on Vienna.

  As I knocked him down to the ground, the gun went off.

  Luckily, it shot up toward the ceiling, and I felt the drywall fall down on us. I grabbed his gun hand and slammed it on the ground, forcing him to loosen his grip. It fell away, just out of his reach. I pinned down both of his arms, dropping my knife in the process.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  He didn't move. He didn't even struggle and try to get away. He knew he was outnumbered. Vienna picked up the gun from the floor and pointed it at him. Her hands were shaking; she would never be able to take the shot.

  “Vienna, baby, there's rope in the closet. Get it for me.”

  She nodded, sucking her lower lip; she was terrified.

  “Now I’m going ask you again, who are you? And what the hell are you doing in my house?”

  “Ask her.” He looked directly in Vienna’s direction. She emerged from the closet, holding a thick rope in her hands.

  “Where did you put the gun?”

&nb
sp; “I left it in there.”

  I nodded to her. “Good. Now, let’s tie this bastard up.”

  I instructed her to get a chair from the dining room, and she pulled it into the bedroom, where I picked his ass up and slammed it down. I half expected the chair to break underneath his weight and my force, but it held. I quickly tied his hands to the chair behind his back and I waited for someone to speak. Vienna was on the bed with her knees pulled up to her chest, chewing on her nails. She looked as young and terrified as she had when they loaded her into the police car that night. It killed me to see it.

  “Is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

  I looked to Vienna. “Vienna, do you know this man?”

  She nodded. I saw that her mascara had begun to run, and she was silently crying. “He's my uncle. My mother's brother.”

  I looked at him in disbelief. “You're Roberto Agnelli? Maria’s brother?”

  He nodded and smiled a toothy grin. I couldn't have that. Not in my house. I wound up and gave him a swift uppercut to the jaw. I enjoyed the crunching sound my fist made when it reached his flesh. It was satisfying. Now he just looked his feet. But it was far better than him being happy about being stuck there.

  “So what are you doing here?

  If he tried to take her from me, I would have to kill him. I wouldn’t let anyone else have her.

  “I know what you did.” He sneered. “And I've told her, too. About her daddy. You were the one who set off the chain of events that caused her mother to be killed. And while I don't really care that her bastard father is dead, I do care that his friend took it out on my sister. He shot her because of you! Vienna was my in on getting some information on you, proving that you started everything. I couldn’t come for you myself, you see; the family thought it would start a war. I needed another way in, to get the information to them, and then let them take you down. All of you.”

  I looked at Vienna, shocked. “Is that true? Is that what this was to you? Just fishing for information?” My father and that guy at the church had been right. Fuck. But did it matter? I wasn’t sure. Not since we were having a baby together.

  She put her hands up in protest. “It might've started like that, but it's not anymore. I love you, Luka! I always have. But my uncle didn't understand that. He just wanted me to spy on you. But I couldn’t. I fell for you and everything just got messed up. And then there’s the baby…”

  I cracked my knuckles and balled my fists. When my flesh made contact with his face again, I gave him a black eye. He fucking deserved it. Trying to turn my girl on me.

  “But she wasn’t the only one, was she? Tell me about Armani! How many people did you plant here?”

  I looked back at Vienna but she looked confused. Roberto spoke in a gravelly voice. “I didn’t know if she would go through with it. I had to make sure there was back up. And now she’s having your kid, so I was right! How did you know?”

  I ignored him and turned to Vienna. “So you knew the whole time?” Roberto’s head was hanging in an awkward direction. He was grumbling in pain.

  “I never thought that you actually killed my father. I was trying to prove that you didn’t.”

  I had to tell her the truth. But I didn't know how I would do it.

  “Let's go to the kitchen.” I grabbed my knife off the floor and I held it against his throat. “And if you so much as breathe the wrong way, I will come back in here and slice you open. Do I make myself clear?”

  He moaned in response.

  I walked out of the bedroom and began pacing back and forth in the kitchen. Vienna followed me, looking completely distraught. How was I supposed to tell her this? When she turned on her own family in order to protect me?

  “You need to sit down.”

  She got up onto one of the barstools and put her face in her hands.

  “Your dad and your mom split up when you were just a baby. He was a drunken bastard that used to beat her and you on a regular basis. He was wasted all the fucking time.”

  I shook my head, remembering him so clearly. “Maria had somehow escaped with you before things got worse than they were. She came to my father looking for work and protection. She knew that one day, he would come looking for her. An entire decade passed, and he never did. Then suddenly, one day, he showed up at the club, asking about you and her. I was there. I saw the whole thing. He was a mess. He took a swig out of a flask just to stand up and stop his body from shaking. He couldn't be trusted. My father turned him away. But he kept coming back. Your mom came to my father and asked him for help. She wanted round-the-clock surveillance, even on you at school. It was too much.” I paused taking a breath. Her eyes were growing wider with every admission. “I was seventeen. Almost a man. My initiation was supposed to be the following year, but when your mother was so afraid and I thought that he was going to hurt you, I took matters into my own hands. I went to my father and told him that I was going to kill your dad.” She lifted her head and her mouth dropped open a little, but I pressed on. “He approved, said it made me a good man. So I did it. I went to the motel that he was staying at and I put a bullet in his head. He didn't even try to fight me. He knew it was coming, and I think he wanted it to happen. Just be put out of his misery.”

  I walked over to her, but she pulled away, looking afraid. I had just solidified everything in her mind that told her that I was dangerous. I was the monster who had killed her father. The person that tore her family apart.

  “You know he had a friend. He was crazier than your dad was. He came into that office with a gun and killed three people, including your mother. He was taking revenge out on us. Vienna, we would've done anything to keep you safe after that night. And I'm still trying to make up for it. But this? Lying to me? It doesn’t make me feel like I made the right choice.” I couldn’t believe our relationship had been built on this lie. On both of our deceits.

  I was going to get hell for saying that, but I probably deserved it.

  “You didn't make the right choice? You killed my father! You couldn't have helped him? Got him into rehab? Maybe he could have changed! Didn't you and your family ever think of that? Did you even give him a chance? And everything that happened here? I thought Roberto would kill me if I didn’t do it. He’s told me for years how bad you are, and how he needed to prove it to me. Whenever I said no, he’d hit me. He’d torment me! I had to do this. I just had to!”

  Now the tears were really flowing. I wrapped my arms around her and she was sobbing into my chest, pounding her little fists on me. I knew she was hurting, and I knew that it was my fault. But in the end, I did it to protect her. And since she allowed me to keep my arms around her, I knew that deep down, she knew that. She knew that it was what was right.

  “I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I took your father away from you. But I just didn't want you to get hurt! I never want to see you hurt. It kills me that I caused you this pain.”

  She pulled back and wiped her face, her skin red and blotchy from her tears. It looked like her face had been stained with her sadness.

  “I understand why you did what you did. But I just can't forgive you yet.”

  “Then I will do everything to make sure that you do. Starting with your uncle. What do you want me to do with him?” I knew what I wanted to do to him, send him to an early grave for putting her up to this. For hitting her. But it was her choice. I needed to respect that.

  She sighed heavily. “Send him home. Back to Jersey. Make sure I don't ever have to see him again.”

  I nodded. “I'll make a call. What else can I do?”

  She shook her head. “I just need some time alone. I'm going for a walk, and when I get back, he needs to be gone.”

  I nodded. “Done. But I need something too. I have to know what of this is actually real?”

  She sighed. “Everything.” She rubbed her belly for a moment. “Roberto sent me here for information, but even that first night, I realized I never wanted to find anything. I had fallen
for you the moment I got into your car. That night, the one night we spent at the club when our parents were out of town, I almost kissed you that night. I wanted to so badly. Roberto turned my anger over my mother’s death against you, and I thought that hatred he developed in me could erase all those feelings I had for you. But it couldn’t, it never did. I tried to end it, you can even ask him. I was so afraid he would kill me.”

  She was a rat, but her heart was in the right place. And it was clear she was terrified of Roberto. I had to forgive her. She was weak with years of anger and sadness. And those were caused by me. As angry as I was at her in that moment for deceiving me, I knew the anger wouldn’t last long. She would find her way underneath my skin again, in some ways she already had.

  She started to move away from me, but I caught her by the hand. “I want to keep you,” I said to her as honestly as possible. It hurt too much to watch her walk away from me.

  “I know.” She pulled her hand out of mine and walked toward the bedroom door. I prayed that it wouldn’t be the last time that I ever saw her.

  Chapter 24

  Vienna

  Luka removed Roberto from the bedroom and I got out as quickly as possible.

  I needed an escape.

  I watched them in the living room as I exited the apartment in silence. Roberto was just sitting tied to the chair, Luka standing over him, a knife to his throat.

  “Aren’t you going to say goodbye?”

  I shot Roberto a look over my shoulder. “No.”

  I slammed the door behind me. I ran down the stairs and onto the street, feeling the sun on my skin. I just needed to get away. I walked the streets, feeling free, but in other ways, I knew I was still trapped.

  How had Roberto gotten in? I thought that Luka could keep me safe. He promised me he always would, but what if he couldn't? What if he couldn’t keep our baby safe either? What a disturbing thought that was. Suddenly the sun didn't feel as warm on my skin, and a chill ran through my body. I needed to find someplace safe where I could sit for a while. I needed time to think. I walked a few more blocks, looking for a restaurant or a café I could dive into. Finally I came upon a dive bar which looked dark and was covered with graffiti. It was the perfect place where I could hide in a corner and no one would notice my tears.