Mafia Prince: A Second-Chance Mafia Romance (Moretti Mafia Book 1)

by Lucia Black

  “Look, if you really want the girl, you need to be the one to tell him,” Giovanni said like it was simple and obvious. It may have been simple and obvious in theory, but in practice, Alessandro knew it would be far from easy. Giovanni continued with casual nonchalance. “He won’t respect you if you don’t. Neither will her father.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Alessandro tried to explain. What his brother was saying made sense, but that didn’t make Alessandro a better candidate to breach the topic to their father. “You don’t want to marry her either, and if you talk—”

  “It’s not about that,” Giovanni cut him off. “Whether or not I want to marry her doesn’t matter. It’s about you taking your place in this. It’s about you taking responsibility.”

  “What about you and Delilah? If I didn’t come to you about this, what were you going to do?”

  Giovanni sighed. “That’s . . . complicated. All of this is, honestly.” He looked away, staring out the window. “I don’t know about Delilah. That’s a conversation for another day. It’s something I do have to deal with. But if you love Lorna the way you say you do, you have to take ownership of it. I can’t come in and be your savior. If you two want each other, then make it happen.”

  Alessandro let the tongs of his fork sink into the yolk of an over-easy egg, and he watched the yellow liquid bleed over the white plate. Giovanni was right. He had to take responsibility for his feelings. It wasn’t Giovanni that he fell in love with her, and it wasn’t fair to put him through the wringer for it.

  She wouldn’t respect him if he didn’t take responsibility either. If he couldn’t even face his father, how could he expect to be worthy of her? He hated when Giovanni was right like this, but he would have to swallow his pride and stand up for what he wanted.

  If that meant facing his father and hers, it would be worth it. He would do anything for her. For Lorna, he would walk backward into Hell on a tightrope over a tank of hungry sharks.

  Admitting human emotion to his father couldn’t be any worse than that.

  23

  Lorna

  The bed was cold. Empty. After a week of sleeping next to Alessandro, it felt wrong to wake up feeling so alone. Lorna rubbed a hand over her face. His scent lingered on her sheets, teasing her with the memory of the tender way he put her to bed. He’d taken care of her with the gentle, nonjudgmental kindness usually reserved for a child or a loved one. She squeezed her eyes shut. But he didn’t love her. He pitied her. He spent entirely too much time getting back at her for what she had done to him years ago, and in some ways, she let him. No matter what everlasting competition was between them, Alessandro was a good man. He was caring, and she knew that. She also knew last night had been a moment of weakness on her part. That was more than sex. More than the games they played. More than the affection they felt for each other. That was genuine emotion and vulnerability. She couldn’t let it happen again. She did not need Alessandro and depending on him now would only hurt in the long run.

  She dressed and pulled her hair back in a low bun to keep it away from her face. The mirror showed her eyes dull and empty, dark circles underneath, pale lips, sunken cheeks. She looked tired. It had to be due to all the stress she was under with her father in the hospital and a wedding she didn’t want slowly encroaching on her. But it was nothing a little concealer couldn’t fix.

  She heard someone in the kitchen when she left her room, and a small part of her hoped that Alessandro had stayed after all and he was making breakfast and she would walk in and he would smile and tease her for drooling last night. But she refused to acknowledge that feeling.

  The refrigerator door closed, revealing Logan. “Good morning,” he greeted her, pouring himself a glass of orange juice. She wasn’t surprised to see him in her apartment. He was her closest friend, really, despite the fact that he was old enough to be her father.

  “Morning.” She went for the Keurig. “I’m going to see my father again today.”

  Logan sat at the bar. “I figured. Came to drive you.”

  “I’m capable of driving myself to the hospital,” she said dismissively. She didn’t think she wanted an audience to witness her reaction to her father’s condition. She knew it wasn’t good, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep a poker face.

  “Of course you are,” he agreed sincerely. He took a drink of orange juice and smiled at her, not even considering leaving.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at her feet. “You saw him.” It wasn’t a question. Logan wouldn’t leave her alone knowing that her uncle was around. Logan wanted him dead maybe more than Lorna herself. He was only waiting for Lorna to give the order. She wouldn’t, though. Not unless she was pushed.

  “Yeah, I saw him,” Logan said. “So did Alessandro.” He paused to watch Lorna’s reaction. She gave none. “Had to stop a murder. He was ready to kill him.” Logan sounded impressed.

  Lorna hummed noncommittally. Part of her wished she hadn’t told him. What would he do with that information except get angry? That was part of the reason she never told her father. What could he do about it now except get angry, order more violence, and be disappointed in the weakness of his daughter for not telling him when it happened? What good did telling him do? None whatsoever.

  Logan idly tapped the side of his glass with one finger. “Alessandro was willing to kill for you.” He tilted his head conspiratorially. “What’s going on there?”

  Lorna took her coffee out of the Keurig. “Nothing.” Nothing she wanted to discuss. Talking about Alessandro would force her to put her feelings into words and putting them into words made them real. She wasn’t supposed to feel anything for Alessandro, so she wouldn’t admit to it. And maybe if she denied it enough times, it wouldn’t be true.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Lorna.” He sounded disappointed. Like she was a child with chocolate smeared over her mouth and had just denied getting into the cookie jar.

  She exhaled a drawn-out sigh. “I’m not going to do this, Logan. I’m not going to sit here and have girl talk about the cute boy, pretending that you don’t know what happened a decade ago.”

  Logan’s face spread into a self-satisfied smile. “So, you do think he’s still cute.”

  Lorna set her coffee mug down on the counter with a clunk. “My father is in the hospital in piss-poor condition. Alessandro is not on my mind right now.” It was a lie, but the sentiment was true. Alessandro was very much on her mind. The tender way he touched her with no sexual expectation, no flirtation. He just cared. And that emotional intimacy was not something Lorna was ready to face. Not in the face of her father’s heart attack, and not in the face of her wedding. She shouldn’t be thinking about him, so she would deny it until it that became the truth.

  Logan finished his orange juice and raised his hands in surrender. “You ready to go?”

  She picked up her purse and gripped her to-go coffee mug. “Yeah.”

  The walk to her father’s room in the hospital was a longer walk from the actual parking garage instead of the fire lane, but Logan’s presence was a calming reminder that she had someone on her side. The room looked even more bleak today. Her father slept limply in the bed, a thin white sheet and blanket tucked over his pale green hospital gown. The sterile smell of cleaning solutions threatened to give her a headache. His hands looked more withered than Lorna had ever seen them. Maybe she’d just never seen them still like this. He was always doing something, gesturing, talking with his hands. But now they lay still at his sides over the sheet, veins and tendons prominent under papery skin.

  Lorna heard the nurse’s voice from a distance and didn’t quite process the words. He was in bad shape, but he would pull through. The stent was in place, and he would make a full recovery. He was really very healthy otherwise, despite the heart problems. He would need to monitor his activity and see a doctor at the smallest sign. She and her mother should be aware of him, since he may not notice that he’s struggling, or be too proud to a
dmit it. His cardiologist was happy to answer any questions and meet with her personally if she were interested.

  Lorna watched the little lights on the monitors blink out her father’s vitals. A life reduced to little blinking lights. An entire soul stripped down to heartbeats and blood pressure and respiration. She clutched at her purse as if it would stabilize her. She hated to see her father like this. The strongest man she knew shouldn’t be laying in a hospital bed with wires and tubes sticking out of him. It wasn’t right. She tried to sit at his bedside hoping he would wake up and be happy to see a familiar face. But the nurse informed her that he wasn’t likely to wake up any time soon. His body needed sleep to heal.

  Logan had told her he’d be waiting right around the corner where there were a few chairs in the hallway. She was ready to go. She couldn’t look any longer at the body in the hospital bed. He couldn’t possibly be her father because her father was always so full of life and motion and vitality.

  She stood up from his bed and didn’t touch his withered hands. Logan was probably bored waiting, anyway.

  Right outside the door, holding a vase of silk flowers with a decorative note, stood Uncle Ernesto. He smiled under his mustache when he saw Lorna. That smile haunted her dreams when she was a child. That mustache made her skin crawl and her stomach twist into knots. But Lorna wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing all that. She ignored him and started down the hall to where Logan was waiting. She was too aware of her heartbeat. It seemed to echo off the sterile stone walls.

  A clammy hand on her arm sent a chill up her spine. She yanked her arm away and spun around, poised with her purse clutched in white-knuckled hands, a fight-or-flight reflex constricting her lungs.

  Ernesto attempted to corner her against the wall. “Lorna, sweetheart, it’s been a while.” His smile was unnerving, filled with perfectly straight teeth and the unspoken horrors of Lorna’s childhood. The monster beneath her bed did not have fangs, it had teeth like those. Dull and yellowed from time and too much coffee.

  She set her jaw. She was no longer a frightened nine-year-old. She was a grown woman who knew her value and proved herself capable of taking down men three times her size. Ernesto was a bug beneath her shoe. She could crush him. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. She lifted her chin. “I suggest you walk away,” she said in her most threatening voice.

  He shifted the flowers to rest on one hip. “What? I’m not allowed to say hello to my favorite niece?” He motioned one hand to the vase. “I brought some flowers for your dad. They can’t be fresh, but I thought it’d brighten up the space. I’m glad I ran into you.”

  Lorna’s mouth felt dry and her hands felt cold and every atom of her being felt very intensely that she should not be so close to this man. She backed away until her back hit the wall. She hated herself for this irrational fear because she had every advantage here. But was it really so irrational when she could still hear him telling her that good girls did as they were told? Was it really irrational when she had kicked and screamed, but not hard enough or loud enough to stop him? She felt sick at her stomach.

  She collected her thoughts enough to list her own advantages. “Listen, I have two men in the parking garage, my personal trainer is right around the corner, and I carry a knife that I’m well versed in using if you really want to push me.” He looked at her in mute disbelief. She tightened her jaw and adjusted her bag on her arm. She still felt nauseous, but not as powerless. She reminded herself again that she was no longer a frightened child. She was Lorna fucking Bianchi and she would inherit her family business and run it like the boss she was raised to be. She looked down her nose at her uncle. “I like your chances since we’re already in a hospital, but then again, I know where your arteries are.” The threat hung suspended in the air for a beautiful, breathless moment.

  A shadow passed over Ernesto’s face. He raised his free hand and bowed his head with a muttered apology that he didn’t mean. It didn’t matter. No apology could cover the way he’d hurt her, and she wouldn’t believe he meant it even if he tried to apologize. He took a step back to allow her space to pass.

  Footsteps behind her in the hall. She turned to see Alessandro’s face register Ernesto and a dangerous fury darken his features.

  24

  Alessandro

  Alessandro did not expect to see Lorna’s uncle again. Out of sight out of mind was perfectly all right by him. He’d seen Lorna emotionally vulnerable. He’d heard her take her anger and sadness out on her poor piano keys for hours on end. He’d seen her hurt and upset, but he’d never witnessed her collapse in on herself like last night. He never wanted to witness it again. And more than anything, he wanted to destroy the cause of it.

  Lorna’s uncle had her backed against a wall. Her posture was defensive, gripping the straps of her purse on her shoulder, tension in her legs, tightness in her jaw. Alessandro saw the woman he loved in a potentially dangerous situation, and all rational thought left him. He forgot Logan’s warnings, disregarded his brother’s lecture about respect and responsibility, and ignored the often-neglected little voice in his head telling him not to do something stupid.

  He took off toward them before Lorna could say anything, and he wrapped a hand around the uncle’s throat. He dropped the vase he was holding, and it cracked on the cold tile floor. Alessandro hit her uncle as hard as he could, knuckles cracking the lens of his glasses and bending them out of shape. He made a sound between a choke and a cry, and Alessandro tightened his grip on his neck and drew back his fist for another blow.

  Lorna stood stock still, eyes locked on her uncle’s pitiful face. “Alessandro, stop,” she said quietly.

  Alessandro did not stop. This evil, wicked man needed to learn a lesson that obviously couldn’t be learned any other way. His fist connected with bone in a sickening crunch. Warm blood gushed out of the uncle’s nose and dripped onto Alessandro’s hand around his neck. He brought his knee up into his gut and snarled at the wet choking sound he made.

  “Stop,” Lorna said louder, still unmoving, frozen in time and space, eyes wide and unblinking. “Stop it, let him go.”

  He couldn’t stop now if he wanted to. There was a twisted sort of justice in this. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for innocence lost. He released her uncle’s throat and snapped his jaw back in a hard uppercut. He stumbled back against a gurney waiting against the wall and the noise probably alerted every nurse around the corner at the nurse’s station, but Alessandro didn’t care. Let them try to fix him up once Alessandro was done with him. What sort of monster could hurt a child? Could see that child struggling, fighting, crying, calling for help and disregard it? What sort of twisted, blackened mind could draw pleasure from the suffering of children?

  Alessandro grabbed his shirt and shook him; the helpless flailing of his arms did nothing to deter Alessandro’s rage. “Did it make you feel powerful?” Alessandro demanded, wrapping his hand around the pedophile’s neck again. “You like pushing yourself on a child?” Alessandro hit the side of his face again and the broken glass in his lens shattered, cutting Alessandro’s knuckles and Lorna’s uncle’s cheek. “Think you’re a big man now?” Another hit. Lorna’s uncle whimpered pitifully, and Alessandro felt justice singing through his veins.

  Strong hands caught his next punch and ripped him away. “That’s enough.” Logan’s voice had an edge. Alessandro fought him. He wasn’t finished. But Logan held him back while the pitiful uncle picked himself up, and a few nurses rushed in to help, calling for security in the process.

  Lorna still hadn’t moved, eyes fixed on nothing, the complete lack of expression on her face terrifying. When the nurses collected her uncle, she blinked and locked eyes with Alessandro. He could feel the heat of the anger that blazed behind them even from the other side of the hallway. She spun on her heel and took off in the direction of the elevators. Logan didn’t let Alessandro go and steered them both to follow her.

  He licked his lips. “Lorna—” he starte
d.

  “No.” She cut him off with a finality that stunned him into silence. Logan sighed and muttered something under his breath about Alessandro being a dumbass. Well, perhaps it had been dumb, but he would do it again if given the chance. Lorna ignored them both and didn’t even turn around until she got to the elevator and pressed the button. Then she glared at Alessandro again. “What gave you the idea that that would be okay?” She spoke slowly through clenched teeth.

  Alessandro wriggled in Logan’s grip, but he held on, and he realized it was best to leave that alone. Logan wasn’t who he wanted to fight. “He hurt you,” Alessandro said. That was reason enough for him.

  The elevator dinged, and Logan spoke. “I suggest we take the stairs. Now.”

  Lorna readjusted her grip on her bag, turning to the ‘exit’ sign and pushing the door open to the stairwell. “And who gave you the right to avenge me?” she asked as they descended.

  “I’m not avenging you, I’m—” he argued, trying to keep up even as he was in Logan’s grip.

  “Then you’re defending me?” Lorna challenged, stepping out of the door and into the parking garage. “You’re stepping in, rushing to my aid like some gallant knight?

  Logan finally let him go and he rubbed his arm. “I’m doing what any decent person would.”

  “So any decent person would beat up a man in front of my father’s hospital room?”

  When she put it like that, it sounded pathetic and stupid. “I was angry because he hurt you and he shouldn’t get away with that.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” she sneered, then shoved his chest. He stumbled back. “I don’t need a hero. I’m not a damsel in distress. I don’t need you to hold my fucking hand.”