by Bethany-Kris
Her jaw clenched.
Vanna did her best to hide it.
“Are you?” she returned.
Senior nodded. “After you father died, I took you in, by default—”
“Your father ordered the murder of mine.”
“Vanna,” Mario warned quietly from the table.
“Your father was planning against my father’s life. This is how Camorra works, child. You know that, so do not pretend otherwise.”
Child.
Twenty-one, but against this man, she was still just a girl.
Nothing less, nothing more.
His reminder, as gentle as it was, changed nothing for her. And this was exactly why Vanna didn’t like to get into these discussions with anyone. She would always have her opinions about those things, and how this all came to be. Her father was the traitor, sure, and she was the blood straight from his veins. The more she reminded them all of that fact, it became far more likely that they wouldn’t allow her to continue walking and living among the rest of them.
“You’re at an age now,” Senior continued as though Vanna weren’t glaring daggers at him, “as my son reminded me this week, where other women of your status and position have been handed different expectations, and acted accordingly.”
Vanna straightened on the spot.
Her spine as stiff as a board.
“And what does that mean?” And then she had another thought, one that made her glance around the side of Senior’s large form to stare right at Mario still sitting at the table. “You reminded him of something about me?”
“Well,” Mario started.
Senior held up a hand, quieting them both. Anyone with an ounce of brain matter, that had seen this man get angry on at least one occasion, knew better than to test his very short patience. It took nothing at all for him to go from zero to one hundred, and he had no problem with making very violent and rash decisions when his anger took over.
Vanna wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire.
Not at all.
“Vanna,” Senior murmured, drawing her gaze back to him as he readied to put the final nail in her coffin. She just knew it. Felt it in her fucking bones for what was coming next. Those words didn’t need to leave his lips for her to already be aware, and yet ... they still felt like knives slicing across her skin when he said it. “It’s time for you to serve your purpose as a woman in the clan—for the greater good, as they say.”
“The greater good.”
It wasn’t even a question.
And why was her voice so faint?
“We—this clan—have given so much to you, haven’t we?” he asked.
God.
She wanted to say no.
She knew that wasn’t what he wanted, though.
“Yes,” Vanna whispered, “it has.”
And it took, too.
A lot.
They took so much from her.
They weren’t done taking, either.
Senior confirmed it, saying, “Mario brought it to my attention that at your age, and he’s right, you should be focusing more on the family—the clan, and your life.”
“I am focusing on my—”
“Marriage, family ... business.”
She sucked in a sharp breath.
Her eyes burned.
Still, she held back those tears.
“You and Mario are to be married soon.”
Yeah.
There it was.
Vanna wanted to be surprised.
She wasn’t.
Her heart screamed to fight the news.
Her brain knew better.
This was Camorra.
The boss spoke.
The rest of them listened.
That didn’t mean she was happy because a rage like never before curled around her heart, squeezing with heat that damn near stopped the beats altogether. She didn’t know if Senior could see the hatred in her stare, but she didn’t really care, either.
“That so?” she finally asked.
Senior nodded. “It is.”
“How soon?”
“Ma thought an October wedding would be nice,” Mario said.
Vanna did her very best to stay still, and not cross the room to claw out his eyes when he finally stood from the table, and Senior turned just enough for the two of them to face each other. Her future husband. Fuck him.
He was finally getting what he wanted. That was the thing here. It’s why he never pushed before. He didn’t force Vanna. Not her feelings, or her physical choices. Mario didn’t have to. He knew what he would eventually have.
Her.
“Three months,” she said quietly.
Mario smiled. “Yes, and we’ll announce it to the rest later at dinner.”
Well, he would.
She had nothing to say now.
• • •
“Hey.”
Vanna outright ignored Mario’s call behind her as she loaded the tray with clean glasses to take upstairs to Senior, and his men. She wasn’t even asked to do it—simply told to by Gemma, because apparently that was going to be her life now.
Mario’s wife.
A woman who served.
No fucking thank you.
“Are you listening to me? And could you drop the fucking silent treatment for five goddamn seconds?”
Oh, was he mad?
Poor him.
“I’d rather not speak to you at all,” Vanna replied, picking up the tray and turning to face Mario with a sardonic smile, “never mind look at you, but if you’re going to insist on me doing it, then maybe you shouldn’t complain about the attitude you get in the process, yeah?”
He blinked.
She took great satisfaction in that.
It was all she had, now.
“Vanna—”
“Excuse me,” she muttered, not even giving him the chance to speak before pushing past him in the kitchen entryway, “because I have people upstairs who want clean glasses for their drinks. And you know they don’t like to be made to wait by a woman.”
He didn’t let her get past him entirely before his hand struck out, and he grabbed her. He wasn’t easy about it, either, his fingers tightening around her wrist painfully, making her hand flex against the tray to the point that she almost dropped it.
“Let me go,” she said quietly.
Vanna didn’t even look at him.
The warning should have been enough.
Except it wasn’t.
Shocking.
Mario didn’t let go, and if anything, he just held tighter. In fact, he tugged on her arm, pulling her a little closer to him in the process so the side of her body pressed against the front of his, and she was forced to smell that spice cologne he seemed to prefer that reminded her of men like his father. Old men.
Nothing young, and fresh.
Nothing attractive.
“Stop it,” he hissed, his first show of nastiness to her in a long while. The last time it had been when he caught her with a guy she’d been sleeping with in high school during her senior year, and he had possession and jealousy issues to handle. “You knew this was fucking inevitable, Vanna. I’ve been telling you for years what I wanted. How is it my fault that you just continued to ignore me, huh?”
“Because no wasn’t enough? Because me saying I don’t like you wasn’t a good answer for you, or—”
“You don’t get a choice, that’s the problem.”
Vanna laughed.
Bitterly.
Yes, it was a problem.
For her.
Not him.
“You’ve been comfortable, you know,” he said, head tilting down so he could murmur those words in her ear. “Comfortable thinking you were free ... that you could do whatever the fuck you wanted; that you weren’t one of us, Vanna, but surprise, you are. All that shit you wanted? The life you thought was yours? That was an illusion, and I let you have it as long as I could, but now I’m tired of waiting, and I want what’s mine.”
Right.
Yeah.
Because that’s all she was to him.
Just a thing.
Something to have.
A trophy.
With the title wife.
“I’ll never love you,” she breathed, “never want you. There isn’t one single part of you that makes me need you, and you’ll know it for every single day we’re together. If you’re going to force me into a marriage with you, then I will make sure you suffer for it, too. I hope you know that.”
“Is that a threat?”
His grip on her suddenly took her breath away. Vanna almost dropped the tray again. Still, she held her composure, refusing to show Mario how much he affected her, and not in a good way, either. Sure, he didn’t scare her, not really. If he thought he could beat the compliance into her, then she had news for him.
It still bothered her, though.
“Not a threat,” she replied cuttingly, sneering up at him before she yanked her arm right out of his hold, and before he could stop her, took a step away from him. Out of his reach entirely. “It’s a promise.”
“You were always meant to be mine.”
“Only in your mind.”
“But who is the one getting what they want here, Vanna?”
Yeah.
And she wouldn’t soon forget it.
Mario would ruin everything for her. She’d known it from the start. All of her plans, the vendetta—something she struggled with for reasons she wasn’t quite ready to admit—and just her life. This man would ruin all of it. But damn him if he thought she wouldn’t fight for it.
“I’m still my own woman,” she told him, “and you’ll treat me like it until a marriage certificate says differently.”
Mario tipped his chin up. “And what does that mean?”
“Nothing changes, that’s what it means.”
“You’re going to be my wife.”
“And until then, I am still Vanna Falco. I will do what I want, when I want, and how I fucking want, Mario. It’s the least you can give to me after all this.”
“Like what, going to the stupid college?”
God.
He called it stupid like he understood.
As though he knew her hopes and dreams.
“Or my penthouse,” she replied. “Nothing changes until it has to. Otherwise, I’ll make your life a living hell.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“You keep using that word.”
His gaze narrowed.
She smiled.
“But it doesn’t mean what you think it does,” she added quieter, “now excuse me.”
She left him fuming behind her.
No doubt, she would pay for that.
Eventually.
• • •
Vanna made it through the night of the dinner—and Mario’s news—and then Saturday. But barely. She was still trying to process; still trying to figure out how this changed her plans, the vendetta ... her entire fucking life.
And then she just didn’t want to do anything.
She didn’t want to think.
Or feel.
Or be.
None of it.
So, instead of wallowing in her penthouse for another lonely night, she decided to do the exact opposite. Something that might very well get her into trouble, if Mario found out, but hadn’t she been playing with fire a lot lately, anyway?
What did it matter?
Vanna was ready to be burned.
What better way than Bene Guzzi?
No questions asked, she sent Bene a text, asked him to meet up with her at a café a few blocks away from her penthouse, and he was there within the hour.
He took one look at her.
Saw the sadness.
Asked, “What happened?”
“Nothing,” she lied.
He didn’t press.
She adored him for that.
Instead, he asked, “What do you want to do?”
“Anything.”
That was how she found herself flying down the highway in the passenger seat of Bene’s Lambo while they sped out of the city going fifty over the speed limit. His hand skated across the seats, finding its way to her thigh, and squeezing tight.
Heat lit up her body.
Pain squeezed her heart.
“Ever been to Maggie’s Falls?”
Vanna looked over at him, enjoying the way the shadows of the car darkened his handsome features. “No, never even heard of it.”
“You’ll love it.”
Why didn’t she doubt that?
“Good,” she whispered.
Bene quieted just long enough for Vanna to think he wasn’t going to say anything else. Of course, he surprised her. He always did. From the jump, this man hadn’t been what she expected.
It was still a goddamn problem.
For more reasons than ever.
“Whatever’s going on,” he said, “it’ll be okay.”
Vanna didn’t know how to tell him, but ...
No, it wouldn’t be.
Not for him.
For her.
Or for anyone else.
Had she made a mistake?
Was trying to finish her father’s vendetta the biggest one yet?
Vanna didn’t have those answers, and she no longer knew what to do to fix all of this mess that surrounded her. All by her own making, too.
Sweet justice, maybe.
God.
Instead of answering Bene, she asked, “How long until we get to ... that place?”
“Another hour, maybe.”
“Okay.”
They drove the hour in silence, but Vanna didn’t mind, and neither did he. As long as he was touching her, it didn’t seem like Bene cared about anything else. It was almost strange how she felt the same way, but for now, she refused to indulge those feelings.
Nothing good would come from it.
It was easier this way.
Bene had said Maggie’s Falls, but Vanna didn’t think anything of it. She certainly didn’t think he meant a place way out in the fucking woods. Literally, three miles into the woods, off the highway, on a dirt road that eventually ended, to where they had to get out of the Lambo, lock it up, and walk another twenty minutes before the two of them stood on a rocky ledge that overlooked a small waterfall that dropped into a swimming hole. A rope hung from a tree on the other side; one people clearly used to swing and drop into the water.
“It’s twenty feet deep, that hole,” Bene said, “so it’s safe to jump from here.”
Shit.
“We’re like ... twenty feet high.”
“Yep.”
He started shrugging off his clothes.
Vanna laughed.
“How did you even find this place?”
He shot her a wink. “Bored with my twin one summer.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, kind of stumbled on it.” He looked her up and down. “Are you going to jump in with me, or ...?”
Damn.
She loved the way he was looking at her.
It was also really high.
“The water is probably cold,” she said.
Bene stood straight, pushing down his pants at the same time to let her know he was wearing nothing underneath. She noticed that—sometimes he went with boxer-briefs, and sometimes he wore nothing at all. Like his moods or the weather, it changed depending on the day. He did nothing to hide the way his cock hung against his thigh, semi-hard and inviting to her.
“I’ll warm you up,” he promised.
Jesus.
Behind her, she heard the ring of her phone muffled inside her purse. A familiar ringtone. She hadn’t heard it in a while, but she knew what it meant. The detective was calling—they had another meeting coming up, and he probably wanted to make sure she still had all the details for it settled out so it was safe.
Vanna had every reason to answer that call. To ask the man for safety in exchange for her info.
To take his offer of a program that would put her underground, and out of sight of the Camorra for the rest of her life. Now, she had every reason to do that.
And yet, she continued staring at Bene.
He gave her every reason to stay rooted to the spot. To wish she’d never known about the vendetta. He made her want to turn back time, so things could have been so different.
Vanna felt like a failure.
A fraud.
Traitor.
She truly was her father’s daughter. Just not the one he wanted.
Bene closed the distance between them, his kiss finding hers in the darkness, with the canopy of trees up above hiding even the stars and the moon. The sounds of the water surrounded them and took her away to a different place while the man pressed against her seemed determined to pull the soul from her body with nothing more than his kiss.
So fine.
Fine.
She’d just give it to him.
He could have it.
If only she could fix this.
“Are you getting in, or not?” he asked, words teasing the seam of her lips.
Vanna pulled off her dress when he backed away.
Her panties went next.
Then, her bra.
He jumped in first, cutting through the water, and coming back up with a swing of his head that tossed the water from his face as though he’d done it a million times before.
The phone kept ringing behind her.
Vanna jumped in second.
Free falling.
Twenty feet below.
Bene’s knowing, sexy laughter surrounded her as adrenaline rushed through her bloodstream, and she swore it felt like she was flying as she cut through the air. She hit the water, slicing through it as it took her breath away.
She was right.
It had been cold.
Bene was right there to make her warm when she came up for air, though.
11.
Bene grabbed Vanna the second she came up for air, dragging her to him in the water until her legs wrapped around his waist, and his lips found hers. She tasted like the clean water of the falls, of the droplets falling on his face from the waterfall overhead, and of the air all around them.