Going Once, Taken Twice: A Dark Romance

by Claire St. Rose

  We had never managed to get that balance of alcohol and willingness right again. She would always push back when I wanted to have sex. The night before she had practically run away from me. I mean, I know I can be a little much, but she was going to have to get used to it if we were going to continue being married to each other.

  Sometimes I actually forgot that that was the new state of my life. Married. I mean, it wasn’t like Isa was making me excited to go home to her every day. She had been upset the night before, but not upset enough not to make coffee in the morning. She was nowhere in sight by the time I was leaving. Why couldn’t my dad have picked someone else to hate, someone with a nice, domestic daughter who would cut the crusts off the sandwiches she made me and suck my dick every night without complaint. Someone who was actually happy to see me and didn’t try to run away from me every chance she got. Someone who could wash the fucking dishes without smashing half of them into smithereens every night.

  I had never been able to keep girls around long, but fuck it, Isa was no walk in the park either. I couldn’t speak on her dating history, but women always served very specific purposes for me. They were there to admire, meaning they had to look pretty and they were there for my pleasure, meaning they had to be willing and available for me to fuck whenever the urge arose.

  Marriage had been the furthest thing from my mind when my dad brought it up. I didn’t have to get married. Why would I want to do something like that? You got married when you had no other choices, and I had plenty of choices. Money was never an issue, and when you had money, the other things in life tended to sort of fall into place on their own.

  Money got you power. Power got you access, access to whatever you wanted, even women. Especially women. There was never any lack of those. Maybe it was better that my dad had gone ahead and picked Isa because there was definitely no chance that the women who ran in my circles would be any kind of decent wife material. Shit, they’d be even worse at the dishes than my darling wife was. They would run the charge on my black card up sky high before becoming bored and—maybe—develop a drug habit or pester me to let them go off to Europe or somewhere like that.

  I sighed. At least with girls like that, girls like Elissa, they wouldn’t be as disappointed with the man they ended up getting married to. They would have lower expectations. At least they would know the kind of person they were becoming involved with and they wouldn’t try to change me. They wouldn’t have a prestigious job they were giving up, and they wouldn’t be so bull-headed about submitting to me.

  I took my time getting to the meeting that day. It was at one of my father’s restaurants, and besides the fact that I really wasn’t that keen on going, there couldn’t have been much that needed my attention anyway. Isa and I were married. That was the greatest of my father’s issues—and it had been solved. Our territories had been merged, and our force strengthened against outsiders.

  It was a win-win for everyone involved… except—of course—Isa and I.

  I made my appearance at the meeting and let the men mostly talk amongst themselves. The more my mind wandered, the more I thought about Isa. The fact that we were at a restaurant also made me think about her. She had been so mad at me last night. Was that going to become a pattern with her? Sleeping in another bedroom when she was upset with me? Because if it was, we would never be in the same bed again. I would never be able to touch her again. The thought pissed me off, but mixed in with the feeling was some guilt. Maybe I had hit a sore spot for her. Maybe she was tired and just not in the mood to deal with my teasing, even if I didn’t mean it maliciously.

  Did she think I did? Was that why she was so angry? Did I have to make it up to her? I sighed. She was so hard to read. She wouldn’t tell me like a normal woman what she liked and what she wanted me to get for her. She reacted with the same wooden polite gratefulness to all the gifts I bought for her. Diamonds didn’t seem to make her any more excited than new dresses.

  The conversation the men were having had mostly turned into a dull drone, as I thought about salvaging my marriage. Then, Filippo, a big guy and one of my favorites called my name.

  “Lorenzo, we have some bad news. It’s about your wife,” he said. I raised an eyebrow, bored. What the hell could it possibly be? I almost laughed to think that the next words out of his mouth would be a message from Isa that she had told my mother or her father, believing that through my men was the most effective way to get to me because we apparently weren’t speaking at the moment.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “There’s been a hit put on her.”

  The silence following the statement was deafening. I asked him to repeat himself, just so I was sure that I had heard him right.

  “Isa D’Agostino? Your wife. There’s been a hitman hired to ice her,” he said again.

  “Montorini,” I corrected him. “Her name is Isa Montorini. How do you know this? Who is it?”

  “We couldn’t tell you, boss; we don’t know. We don’t have a name for the guy.”

  “Then why are you coming to me with half the story? What am I supposed to do with that?”

  Filippo looked flustered.

  “Can you even tell me who he might be connected to? Hm?”

  “No, boss. Besides the usual suspects, we don’t have a lead.”

  I rolled my eyes. What the fuck was I supposed to do with that?

  I stood up. “Find out who the guy is. Don’t contact me again until you do.”

  My jaw ticked in annoyance as I made my way back to the car. This was so stupid. The annoyance I felt with the men at their shoddy intel was eclipsed by the anger—no, the rage—I felt for this sucker who was after Isa. This was so dumb that it was laughable. Who would dare? Who was the idiot who would even try it? Who had the nerve? I wanted to meet this guy. Shake his hand before I broke his neck. How dare he?

  I had only been married for a couple weeks, but as soon as I put that ring on Isa’s finger, she became my family. Who wanted to box? Because they had their fucking fight. The hit might have been on Isa, but I knew whoever it was, they were looking for me. They were trying to get my attention. Isa had been completely off the radar until we had become involved, and now, she had her first contract killer after her. They were obviously a coward because they hadn’t just come after me like a man. They had gone after a woman. Little did they know, that might just prove to be worse for them. They wanted my attention—and they had it.

  I sped home to check on Isa. She wasn’t safe there anymore. We would move out temporarily and find somewhere to hide out until this had blown over. Until I had had the pleasure of putting the guy in the ground myself.

  Chapter Five

  Isa

  Lorenzo had a routine. He would get ready in the morning, putting his suit on and doing his hair before going downstairs to eat breakfast. He wasn’t fussy about what he ate, but he did demand—at the very least—to have coffee. Black. No cream and no sugar. He would be out the door after that—to a place he never bothered to tell me where it was—and be back at the house between four in the afternoon and seven at night. I knew that the Montorinis were a mob family. That little fact was true about my family, as well. It was part of the reason why Lorenzo and I had had to get married. I didn’t know or particularly want to know what that entailed, and Lorenzo wasn’t exactly forthcoming with any details, so I didn’t press him on anything.

  I didn’t want to know. I had lived in blissful ignorance of the organized crime underground for a full twenty-seven years. I could have gone my whole life without the knowledge of what men like my father, Lorenzo’s father, and apparently Lorenzo, too, were up to, and unless he opened his mouth to tell me anything, I wasn’t going to ask.

  He didn’t tell me what he did, and I wouldn’t tell him what I did, or at least what I planned to do that day. Being a housewife was fulfilling and enjoyable for many women, but I was not one of them. How on earth did Lorenzo expect me to sit at home all day and not die of boredom? He p
robably expected me to join societies, or go shopping, take up aerial yoga, or what have you, but I couldn’t stand being unproductive. I had seen my mother spend years in the role of housewife and stay-at-home-mom but unfortunately for Lorenzo, she and I were not cut from the same cloth.

  I picked my phone up as soon as I was sure that he had left the house and called Marina. She was the one thing from my past life that had remained constant, and likely the one and only force stopping me from completely losing my mind.

  “Hello?” she said down the line.

  “Marina? Where are you?”

  “I was just heading to work. Where are you?”

  “Is everybody at the restaurant already?”

  “Yeah, the chefs have been doing prep since earlier this morning for the lunch service, why?”

  I smiled.

  “I’m coming to work.”

  “Work? You mean, here? At the restaurant?” Marina sounded worried.

  “Yes, wait for me. Tell the guys I’m coming in today.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, I thought your husband didn’t want you to go to work anymore,” she said carefully.

  I sighed.

  “Marina, if I spend one more day in this house I am going to lose my mind.”

  “Won’t he be mad if he finds out you came back here? Won’t your dad be mad, too?”

  “They’ll get over it,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. Sure, I was married, but I wasn’t a prisoner. I should be able to leave the house when I feel like it, and dammit, I should be able to earn my own money, too. It was the twenty-first century for Christ’s sake. Sure, wives were supposed to be submissive to their husbands, but I wasn’t about to give what I wasn’t getting back. He had maintained his entire life while gaining a roommate through the marriage, and I had had to abandon everything I knew, loved, and had grown accustomed to. No. It didn’t work like that. I wasn’t the one.

  In under an hour, I was at the restaurant; Campania, allegedly named from the region in Italy where our family had originated. The place had been in the family for decades. It had belonged to my grandfather before my father took it over. It had undergone a transformation after my father took over, going from a mom-and-pop, Italian comfort food place to a fine dining, modern Italian restaurant. I had been working there since I got back from culinary school and had until I got married been their executive chef.

  They had lost a few business days getting the repairs to the interior done after the shootout with Antonio Montorini’s men, but as far as I could tell, they had bounced back beautifully. My old head chef, Maria, took up the mantle of executive chef when I left, but everything seemed to be going smoothly.

  I always thought I looked my best in my chef whites. I tied an apron around my waist and joined the other chefs in the kitchen. They were surprised to see me, and I wasn’t sure what my father had ended up telling them to explain my sudden disappearance. They knew I was married, and from their questions, I guessed that that was all that they knew, thankfully.

  There was lunch service that afternoon, and scallops were on the menu. I had never been so happy to see a pile of bivalves in my life. I started shucking them out of their shells, laughing with the others. I had never had any siblings growing up, and my extended family were close by in Jersey, but we didn’t all that much bonding when I was growing up. The staff at Campania was mainly female, and the women had become like the sisters I never had. Prep and service was always alive with gossip and laughter. Being back, I realized just how much I had missed being with them every day. I could thank my two fathers for that loss. All the girls were dying to know about my new husband.

  “Why weren’t we invited to the wedding, Isa?” Lucretia asked. She was a line cook, one of the longest serving at the restaurant.

  “It was sort of fast. We had a short engagement. A small ceremony with mostly family present. We kept it very intimate,” I said vaguely.

  “Fast? Why? Are you pregnant? Did you and Montorini have a shotgun wedding?” she teased. I pulled a face at the thought. Shotgun wedding… it was something like that, but with literal shotguns because our families were both deeply involved in organized crime.

  “Oh no. No babies. I’m not pregnant,” I said.

  “I bet you wouldn’t mind becoming pregnant with his kid, though. I can’t believe you’re married to Lorenzo Montorini,” quipped Pierre, the sous chef and one of the few men we had on our team. Most of the girly banter went over his head, but he was one of us, and we didn’t hold his gender against him.

  Maybe I sort of did after that question he had just asked me.

  I shuddered to think about it. I hadn’t even fully adjusted to the thought and reality of myself as Lorenzo’s wife. A baby this soon would be a disaster. Besides, I didn’t want kids. Not his kids at least. I wanted a few years to establish myself as an executive chef, maybe even expand the restaurant into a franchise around the city. I couldn’t do that while bouncing Lorenzo Montorini, Junior on my knee. That dream would probably never come true anyway anymore, but that didn’t mean I was going to pack it in and become the Montorini family heir production factory.

  “Yeah, he’s hot. I bet your honeymoon was amazing,” Lucretia added. Marina was quiet at my side, thankfully. She already knew all about how I felt about being Mrs. Lorenzo Montorini.

  “The hotel was incredible,” I said truthfully. “Have you guys made any changes to the menu while I was gone?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Come on, you can give us more than that, Isa. What is he like?” Lucretia goaded. I smiled uncomfortably, not wanting to get into the details of my sham marriage with my co-workers. If the circumstances were different I would be gushing about the wedding night. They obviously had expectations of what being married to Lorenzo was like which were far from the truth. They didn’t need me spoiling their good impression of my husband. They were clearly far fonder of him than I was. I wouldn’t shake their pretty fantasies of him. At least he had admirers in those close to me, even if I couldn’t stand him.

  “What kind of wife would I be if I told you what went on behind closed doors?” I asked coyly, hoping to throw her off. She shrugged.

  “I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be able to shut up about him if he was my husband. Do you know how many hearts broke the day you two got married? That man is a prize stallion you have in your possession, Isa.”

  I tried to laugh, but it came out flat. The way she was talking about him, she should have been his wife. What sort of man did she think he was anyway? I was just about to ask her what she knew about him when I heard yelling from the front of the house. I closed my eyes and dropped the scallop and knife I was holding. Two men were arguing, their voices mounting into shouts. One was John, the maître d’. The other one of them belonged unmistakably to Lorenzo.

  He had come for me.

  I heard him calling my name, his voice getting closer and closer as he neared the kitchen. Shit. How did he know I was here? Could he not yell like that in public? It sounded like the kind of yelling that would prompt neighbors to call the police if it was coming from the apartment below yours. I wiped my hands down the front of my apron and turned to face where the voice was coming from. He appeared seconds later. We argued all the time, but the look on his face was something I had never seen before. His fists were balled and his hair was messed up as if he had been running his hands through it. He stared me down for a few seconds before he said anything.

  “Did you lose your phone?” he asked.

  “My phone?”

  “I’ve been trying to call you. I went to the house and you weren’t there. I was worried.” The last word had sounded strained as he said it. Was he looking for me? For what? Did he have another dinner party he wanted me to cook for and then not attend? Everyone had sort of retreated from the kitchen, falling away somewhere unseen. Lucretia had ended up outside the kitchen in the front of the house. She and the other chefs were all watching us,
as if they were waiting for one of us to strike. More accurately they were watching Lorenzo.

  I wasn’t even mad. He looked a treat. I hadn’t seen what he had worn that morning, but it was a really nice suit, not black but a deep slate gray. His shirt underneath was crisp white, and the vest between the two pieces was navy. He looked amazing, and he was mine. An odd sense of pride came over me as I thought about the fact that the attention he got from other women didn’t mean anything. They could look all they wanted, but only I could touch. He was married to me.

  He was married to me, and he had come to whisk me back home. If this was any other day, I might have agreed to take my apron off and leave silently—but not today. Not after the night we had had, and not when I was finally feeling normal and happy for the first time after the wedding. I painted a smile on my face and addressed him

  “Worried about what, honey?” I asked sweetly. His brow furrowed, hearing me call him anything other than his name. “I just get so bored in the house all day after you leave. I thought it’d be a good day to see my old friends. Help them out with the lunch service.”