by Kiera Silver
She jerked when the gun fired, a soft popping sound muffled by a silencer. After a second, when she felt no pain, she tentatively opened her eyes. They widened at the sight of Sal Peretti lying on the ground, a bullet hole in his temple, with most of his brains and a lot of blood around him on the floor. She gasped before meeting Gio’s eyes. “You killed your uncle?”
He nodded, his expression unreadable as he shoved the gun back into his holster before coming closer to her with a knife.
She tensed until she realized he was using the switchblade simply to cut the plastic binding her. “But why?”
“It’s the same reason Murphy killed Welsh. It’s the only way to restore honor and make amends for what my uncle has done. He had me kidnap you, made me believe your father had stolen my mother and brought about her death, and started to incite a war with Murphy and possibly even the Russians. If I didn’t kill him, it would be like I endorsed his actions, and that wouldn’t be good for any of our families.”
Her head reeled at the complicated honor code with which these men lived. Reluctantly, it forced her to view her father’s murder from a new perspective. She would have to hear Patrick’s side of it, and she wasn’t sure she could ever forgive him, but it was Gio’s explanation that made her even want to hear some sort of account from her husband for his actions.
She rubbed at the lines on her arm from where the zip ties had dug into her flesh when she’d fought to escape. She stared up at him impassively. “Am I free to go?”
He shook his head, looking grim. “No. I mean you are, but I have to take you home. I need to face Murphy myself and admit what happened, to try to make amends. If that doesn’t work, blood will flow through the streets.”
Oddly, she felt sympathetic toward him, in spite of his creepy leers and kidnapping her. He’d planned to murder her, but now he was trying to make amends. She didn’t really care what happened to Gio Peretti, but she cared a great deal what happened to Patrick and his men, and the other innocents that would be slaughtered if the two families went to war. Slowly, making sure her feet were steady, she stood up and straightened her spine. “We’ll do what we have to so Patrick sees reason.”
Gio seemed surprised, but then smiled slightly. “I hope he’s better at seeing reason from you than he will be from me, Mrs. Murphy.” He uttered her surname with complete respect this time. “I have a feeling he’ll take one look at your battered face and shoot me before I can say anything.”
It was no less than he deserved perhaps, but with knowing what was at stake, she said, “You’ll just have to stay behind me until we have a chance to explain.” She glanced down at Sal’s body. “What about him?”
Gio’s lips formed a thin line, and he shook his head. “Uncle Sal was a dinosaur, locked in the old ways. He should have retired years ago. My cousin Aldo and I had a plan to oust him from power and help him retire gracefully, but it didn’t come to fruition. I half-expected it to come to this someday, and I guess Uncle Sal expected the same damn thing, because he never seemed to trust me completely.”
She could have pointed out that perhaps the older man had reason not to trust him, since he had been conspiring against Sal, but she didn’t truly care about the inner dynamics of the Peretti family. “I see. What I meant was, what are you going to do about him right this minute? Are you going to leave the body here?”
He was already taking a phone from his pocket and typing in a text message. “It’ll be handled.”
That was enough information for her. She had no intention of going to the police to report the abduction, since no one had been hurt. She expected Patrick would seek vengeance against Baker, and he would probably be ready for Gio’s blood, but she hoped she could help him see reason. The fact that she was still alive and relatively unharmed would hopefully go a long way toward preventing Patrick from going to war.
“Release Scott too.” She made it a polite order, surprised when he didn’t even blink or betray his annoyance with her tone. He just nodded and typed another text message before indicating she should fall into step with him.
Her limousine was waiting, though Baker wasn’t in sight. She got in on the driver’s side, not allowing Gio the option of driving. She thought they shared the same goal now, of preventing a war, but she still didn’t trust him.
As she drove across the city, soon reorienting herself to her surroundings after they left the industrial area, he began to speak softly. Mostly, he seemed to be intent on sharing memories of his mother, and she listened politely.
As they neared the Murphy home, her stomach tightened with nerves, and she clutched the steering wheel in a tight grip. Patrick was going to be enraged, and she would have to deal with that before she could unleash her own anger on him.
As they pulled up the long driveway, Gio sat up tensely. “You think your dad loved my mom, huh?”
She nodded, attention focused on the ever-shrinking distance between herself and home. Patrick’s home. Would it ever feel like hers again?
“And they might have gotten married, huh?”
Again, she nodded. “It wouldn’t have surprised me.”
“That would have made you my sister.”
“Stepsister,” she correctly softly as she drew the car to a halt in front of the house. She was unsurprised to see Jake, Isaac, and Patrick running from the house before the engine even shut off.
“I would have liked that.”
She gave him a cool look before opening her door. “Try not to get shot before you have a chance to explain what you’ve done.”
She hadn’t even exited the car before Patrick’s hands were on her, pulling her out the rest of the way and into his arms. For a millisecond, she let herself sink against him, to take a deep breath and inhale his sent. Confined to that chair earlier, she’d been certain she would never see him again, and she was moved to the edge of tears just to feel his arms around her once more.
A muffled grunt from Gio caught her attention, and she pushed away from Patrick slightly to look over her shoulder, taking in the sight of Jake and Isaac dragging the other man from the car and pushing him to the ground on his knees.
She looked up, drawing in a breath at the rage in Patrick’s expression. Lauren put a hand on his chest, tapping her fingers lightly. When that didn’t get his attention or break his focus from Gio, she put her hand on his cheek, urging him to look down at her. “Listen to him. Please. Remember what’s at stake, and how many people will die if you guys don’t come to an understanding.”
His mouth tightened, and he lifted one of his hands to very lightly brush his knuckles across her swollen cheek. “There can’t be an understanding for this.”
She sighed softly. Part of her wished it was just as simple as shooting Gio and being done with it. If not for the repercussions for everyone involved, she might’ve been on board with that plan.
Despite his confidence in the car that he would have enjoyed having her as a sister, she couldn’t scrub the memory of his lascivious leers from her mind that easily. She had no doubt if Gio had been slightly less reasonable, or more driven by a need for revenge like Sal, she likely would have been raped and murdered by now.
It had turned out differently though, and the best thing was to try to maintain the tenuous peace between the families. “I’m just asking you to keep an open mind. Please.” It was a struggle to remain calm herself when all she wanted to do was scream at him and demand to know why he hadn’t told her about killing her father. It was the kind of deception that made her think their marriage was doomed. If he could keep something like that from her, what else was he hiding?
Another grunt from Gio refocused her attention, and she turned away from Patrick to face Jake and Isaac. “Don’t hurt him please. Let him up.”
The men hesitated, looking over her shoulder at Patrick for confirmation. She was aware of him stiffening behind her, but he must have nodded his assent, because the men released Gio, and he was on his feet a moment later. He made a product
ion of dusting his slacks before easing away from Jake and Isaac to walk toward her and Patrick.
As Gio neared, Patrick moved quickly to push her behind him, providing a physical barrier between her and the Italian man. “I should kill you right now.”
Gio inclined his head. “Yeah, I probably would in your situation too. If things were reversed, I mean, but I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
Patrick practically vibrated with rage. “The right thing? How is it the right thing to kidnap my wife and beat her? You have a lot of nerve coming here.”
Despite his resistance, she managed to step around him, standing beside her husband again. Lauren tapped his shoulder consistently until he looked down at her. “In a way, Gio saved me.”
His eyes reflected surprised, but a larger amount of confusion. “What does ‘in a way’ mean?”
“It means it’s my fault she was kidnapped to start with, and I orchestrated the plan, but I didn’t realize I was fulfilling an old man’s revenge agenda. I was moving forward without all the facts.”
Patrick crossed his arms over his chest, still glaring at the other man. “You freely admit you abducted my wife? How is the truce supposed to survive that, Peretti? She has my name and my protection, and you expect me to just what…overlook that you kidnapped her?”
Gio hesitated. “I don’t think you’ll overlook it, but I’m willing to make amends.”
Patrick moved quickly, before Lauren could even think about stopping him. One second, his hand was empty, and the next it held his pistol, the barrel pressed firmly against Gio’s forehead. “The only ‘amends’ I’ll accept are the death of you and everyone else in the Peretti family.”
“No.” Lauren spoke forcefully. “You can’t do that, Patrick. You’ll be killing a lot of people if you go to war. Gio wanted revenge for what he thought my father had done.”
Patrick’s expression was difficult to read, but she was certain she saw knowledge there, indicating he knew exactly why the Perettis had taken her—and still clearly had no plan to share that with her.
Mouth compressed, she glared up at her husband. “Together, Gio and I figured out my father and Alessa were probably going to get married, or were at least involved in a serious relationship. She was running away from an arranged marriage to some don in Sicily that Sal set up so he could have enough manpower to wipe you out and push back the Russians. Even when Sal knew the truth, he wasn’t willing to accept it. He still blamed my father for turning Alessa’s head, and he was going to kill me anyway.”
“Instead, I shot him,” said Gio, looking slightly remorseful. “It was the only way to restore honor and satisfy the debt.”
“Kind of like you and my father, right, Patrick?” she asked in a deadly soft voice.
He flinched visibly, but his gun didn’t flicker from its perch against Gio’s head. “So what if Sal’s dead? That doesn’t erase the fact you manhandled my wife and stole her away from me.” Without looking at her, Patrick waved a hand in her direction. “I should kill you just for what you did to her face.”
Once he mentioned it, her face tightened and began to throb again. She’d temporarily shoved aside the discomfort with the adrenaline rush. “That was Sal also. Gio didn’t hurt me.” She decided not to mention his rough handling when getting her out of the car and into the warehouse. That could only make things worse.
“You have good reason to hate him and want revenge, Patrick, but better reasons to let it go. Think of all the people you’ll put in harm’s way if you persist with killing Peretti. His successor will just start a war, or perhaps you plan to wipe out all of the Perettis before they have a new successor? Whatever your tactic, it’s going to lead to a lot of unnecessary bloodshed. Sal was the one who brought us to this point, but Gio took care of him. Just let it go.”
Slowly, mouth still compressed into a tight line, Patrick lowered his pistol and returned it to his holster. “We’re nowhere near even, Peretti, but Lauren has a good point. I don’t want anyone else to have to die. And you solved the Sal problem. Just make sure you don’t become my Gio problem.” His tone was rich with the threat of violence.
Gio inclined his head. “As a sign of concession, I’m willing to renegotiate the percentage for using your territory to move our products.”
Patrick’s expression betrayed nothing. “Today isn’t a good day for a business discussion.”
Sensing the crisis had passed, Lauren was able to focus freely on the agony in her face. An ice pack was suddenly all she wanted, and she stepped away from Patrick. “I’m going to go put something on my face. You promise you won’t kill him?”
Patrick nodded grimly. “I promise I won’t kill Peretti.”
She didn’t look at either one of them as she stepped around the two men and strode to the house. She no longer cared what else Patrick might do to Peretti. As long as he didn’t kill the other man or cause a war between the two families, she figured anything else was free game. After all, she’d only made him promise not to kill Peretti, and she hadn’t bothered to extract a promise from Patrick not to hurt the other man.
She went straight to the kitchen to remove the ice pack from the freezer, taking two and pressing them against both sides of her face for a few moments as she sat at the kitchen table. They provided some measure of relief via numbness, but as the pain in her face lessoned, the pain in her heart grew.
For the first time, she could focus solely on the way Patrick had betrayed her, and what he had done to his friend. She didn’t want to think about it, but she couldn’t help doing so. How was she supposed to even look at her husband again? Every time she saw him, she would be reminded of what he had done, and what he hadn’t told her.
Slowly, she pushed back from the table and went up to the room she shared with Patrick. Laying the ice packs on the vanity table, she moved the closet. Her luggage was stacked neatly on the top shelf, and she stretched to reach the largest case. As she unzipped it and put it on the luggage stand, she didn’t know what she should take or how much. Was she leaving for just a few days, or was she leaving him forever? She didn’t know, but she felt the urgent need to escape him and this house. Lauren needed time to think, and she couldn’t do that with him here.
Her case was half-filled when Patrick entered the closet a few moments later. She didn’t even look up at him as she continued pulling pants from the hanger and folding them neatly into the bag. “I’m leaving you for a while.”
“Lauren, let’s talk about this.”
She still couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “What’s there to talk about? You killed my father because Sal Peretti just assumed his niece had been kidnapped, and you had to maintain the peace. I get it from an intellectual perspective. But I don’t understand why the hell you never told me the truth.”
She shook her head, no longer worrying about neatly putting her things in the suitcase. She blindly grabbed a few more garments and shoved them in on top before zipping the bag. “How could you make love to me, make me fall in love with you, and marry me knowing what you had done?”
“I wanted to protect you.”
Anger spurred her to meet his gaze. “That’s a lie. You wanted to protect you. At any point, you could have told me the truth, but you were determined not to, weren’t you? You waited until I was your wife, figuring it would be safe enough if I ever found out then.”
He scowled at her, though he didn’t move any closer. “You were just as eager to take my name. You wanted me, Lauren, and you pushed me until I took you. I didn’t tell you the truth, but what was the point? It couldn’t change the outcome of what had happened.”
She gasped. “The point was you left this huge deception between us, not to mention you took my only family in the world away from me. My dad did nothing wrong. He was trying to save the woman he loved from some god-awful arranged marriage she didn’t want. Instead of giving him a chance to explain, you just did what Sal told you to.”
His eyes narrowed, and the
air crackled with anger. “I didn’t do what Sal told me to do, Lauren. I did what had to be done. Alessandra Peretti was dead, and it looked like your father had kidnapped her. He never told me or anyone else that they had been in love, or he was rescuing her. There’s no proof to support your theory.”
“There’s more proof for my theory than yours. Just because they were together, and she was killed during her so-called rescue attempt, doesn’t mean my father was trying to hurt her or hold her for ransom. You killed your friend to keep Peretti happy.”
“And how did you behave any differently today? You let Peretti get away with kidnapping you for the sake of maintaining the truce.”
She shook her head, trying to blink back tears that she refused to let fall. “It’s different, and you know it. This was my choice, and I did it for the good of everyone. My father never had a choice.”
Patrick straightened his shoulders, his expression growing distant. “He could have told me. He had enough time, and if he had asked for a moment to explain, I certainly would have let him. Instead, he never said much of anything, and he never tried to defend his actions. He did ask me not to do it, but only because he didn’t want you alone in the world. He never mentioned there were mitigating circumstances for why he was with Alessandra.”
He took a step toward her. “Howie had long enough to ask me to be your guardian, so if he hated me, or he felt ill-used, surely there’s no way he would have asked me to take on responsibility for caring for you?”
She shrugged, unable to understand that herself. How could her father have asked his murderer to be her guardian? “Maybe he wanted you to have a constant reminder of your guilt.”
Patrick shook his head. “Howie wasn’t like that, and you know it. I can only assume, if your theory is correct, that he realized how it was going to play out. Alessandra was dead, and she couldn’t verify anything he said. There was no one to back up his claim that they were in a relationship, if he had chosen to make it. I guess you met her, but he wouldn’t have dragged you into it as a witness. Peretti still would have demanded revenge and still would’ve believed what he wanted to believe. Surely, your father realized that. Do you have any idea why I was the one to shoot him?”