by Lisa Cardiff
I stilled, not knowing what to say. I had convinced myself I dreamed the whole thing. I’d been on so many painkillers, and they had the unfortunate side effect of destroying the filter between my mouth and brain. When I remembered it a few days later, I immediately dismissed it.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it fucking matters. We aren’t puppets. We don’t have to do what our families want. The most important thing is what we want, and I won’t walk away from you, Carmela. When I want something, I don’t stop until I have it. Solnyshka, I want you. I want us. You think you need to be a good girl and do what your family wants, but you don’t. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll make this work. Trust me.”
I closed my eyes briefly, the passion in his words affecting me more than I could express. I willed it all away, refusing to be a prisoner of my emotions. I had to keep my mind clear and protect Kon from my family.
“I told Dominick and Gian about the deal I made with you and your dad.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. They staged an intervention of sorts last night.”
“What happened?”
“It was ugly. They weren’t happy at all. Gian wanted to kill us both and Dominick…yeah, well, I think he’d have strangled me if we were alone. The good news is that they are open to negotiating with you and your dad provided you walk away and we end everything between us.”
“What do you mean?”
I chewed on the corner of my lower lip and forced a blank expression onto my face, ignoring the determined wobble of my cheeks.
Don’t cry.
Don’t cry.
Everything will work out.
“I don’t know the details. They don’t discuss business with me. I’m sure they’ll be in touch. Your dad will be happy. Everything worked out the way we planned.”
“Wait. Are you serious right now? You damn well know I don’t care about the business deal. I care about you. I’ll deal with my father. He’ll push and fight, but he’ll do what I want. I control more than half of his business empire and a lot of those people will only deal with me.”
God, it was so tempting to give in and let him fight this battle for us, but my family would never talk to me again, and I couldn’t lose them. While they were overbearing, they were all I had. They were the only sure thing.
“What about my family? You can’t control them. You don’t have any leverage over them.”
“Fuck your family. They’ll come around, and if they don’t, they don’t deserve your love.”
“No. I can’t gamble away my family.” He didn’t understand what they meant to me. Evie told me her parents never married and their dad was absent most of their lives. My family held tight and never let go unless you crossed them, and then you were dead to them. “Things will never work. You know it, and I know it. We have the chance to end this while we’re still on good terms without any hard feelings. We should take it. It’s the best we could have hoped for.”
I clutched my chest, my words literally shattering my soul into a million pieces. While I hurt when Rocco died, giving up Kon somehow felt worse. Death ripped Rocco from my life and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. With Kon, though, I was pushing him out of my life, and I would have to live the rest of my days knowing he was out there somewhere, yet forever out of my reach, hating me and resenting every second he wasted on me.
He jumped off the bed and shoved his legs into his jeans, with a hard, low chuckle. “No hard feelings, huh? It sure as fuck doesn’t feel that way right now.”
“Kon, don’t be like that.”
He scooped up my dress from the floor and tossed it on the bed. “You need to go.”
“Kon—”
He tugged on the ends of his messy blond hair like he was losing his mind. “Go. I can’t look at you right now.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Nothing wrong? So you think it was okay to meet up with me for one more fuck before you broke things off between us for good?”
I pulled my dress over my head and came to my feet. “You make it sound like I used you.”
“If the shoe fits…”
Cries crawled up my throat and no amount of swallowing reversed their course.
“You’re not being fair, Kon. What are you promising me? Do you want us to get married? Or is this a fling that lasts until we’re sick of each other?”
“I don’t fucking know, Carmela. If you have your way, we’ll never know.”
“And yet you’re pushing me to walk away from my family and everything I’ve known without any assurances? Without a plan?”
“You need a plan? Don’t give up. Figure out a way to buy us more time.”
“More time for you to decide if I’m more than a quick fuck while hiding in the shadows, dodging my family?”
He ground his teeth together, his head tipped to the ceiling, refusing to answer.
I jammed my feet into my shoes and headed to the door. “I can’t wait around for you to figure this out. My family won’t wait. Dominick won’t back down.”
“What about you? You’re doing the same damn thing to me. You’re giving me an ultimatum, telling me you plan to marry another man unless I commit right here and right now. What is that about?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think. I’m so confused, Kon.” I gulped hard. “And I’m scared. So fucking scared and confused, I can’t think straight. Dominick threatened to kill you, Kon, and I’m freaking out. I want to fight for us. I really do, but I’d die if something happened to you because of me.”
He strode across the room and pulled me into his arms in a matter of seconds. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself, and I’m not demanding you fight for us. You need to fight for yourself and what you want first.”
“You have to see how hard I’m trying.”
“You’ve lost a lot over the last few years. I get it, but I know you’re strong enough. I remember the first time I saw you. That woman would stand up for herself. She wouldn’t marry a man she didn’t love.”
“You mean when you came to my parents’ house with your dad to talk about Evie?”
“No.” His hands framed my face so I couldn’t look away. “I saw you at a restaurant with Rocco, and that version of Carmela had fire. You laughed too loud. You smiled too big. I loved it. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you, and my ex lost her mind.”
“Oh,” I whispered, my heart breaking a little. I missed that version of me too. Sure, I caught glimpses of her once in a while, more since being with Kon, but for the most part, she was a stranger to me.
“After Rocco died I saw you every once in a while when I was keeping tabs on Evie. You still had that fire then. It had dimmed a little, but it was still in there somewhere. You put a shit-eating grin on my face for a solid twenty-four hours the time I overheard you sticking up for my sister when her ex berated her. Right then, I knew I wanted you. I wanted to taste that fire. That passion. When my dad came up with that bullshit plan, I agreed to it because without it, I’d never get a chance to touch you or be near you. Your family held you too close.”
“Wow.” I dipped my head, my heart banging like a pogo stick against my chest. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t get it. Why’d it take you thirteen months to come after me? And then when you did you acted like you didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Fuck, Carmela. What was I supposed to say?”
“The truth.”
“I couldn’t explain what I felt. I was attracted to you. I had been for a long time, although I had no interest in a relationship. I suck at ’em. The one woman I let in ripped apart my life. By the time I’d had enough, she was addicted to drugs and pregnant.” He pressed a finger to my lips when I opened my mouth to respond. “The baby wasn’t mine.”
“God, Kon. That must’ve hurt. I’m sorry.”
“I’m over it. I’m better without her. I thought I loved her, but looking back, I didn’t. She was addi
cted to drugs, and I was addicted to saving her. It was a toxic, co-dependent disaster. I focused so much of my energy into making her happy, fixing the holes in her life, that I overlooked how miserable I was the entire time.”
I turned his words around in my head, analyzing them, dissecting them. Then it hit me. Kon wanted to save me from myself exactly like he wanted to save that girl. I was his new project, and I didn’t know if I was redeemable. I only felt like my old self when I was with him. She used him as a crutch to fix her problems. I couldn’t do the same thing to him.
I needed to be strong. Fuck being the pathetic woman who was waiting for my life to end and blowing whatever direction the wind sent me. I was a Trassato, and we fought hard for what we wanted. Somehow over the past three years, I’d forgotten who I was. Not anymore.
I believed in myself. I believed in Kon. I believed in us. The enormity of what I felt for this man made me so damn happy. Even supposing we fell apart someday, I wouldn’t regret him. Being with him helped me find myself, and that was worth any future heartache. Never loving anyone again was a far worse fate than losing love again. I had this one life, and I intended to make the most of it, which meant taking a chance on Kon.
“You’re right.”
“I am? About what?”
“I’m fed up with being pushed around. I won’t marry Nico.”
He eyed me skeptically. “Your engagement party is in two days. We need to do something fast.”
“No, I need to do something. I need to fight my own battles.” I snagged my purse from his dresser and tucked it under my arm. “I’ll call you in the morning.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but don’t give up on me yet.”
“I’m never giving up on you. Come here. I have something for you.” He opened his nightstand drawer and pulled out a light brown box.
“What’s that?”
He flipped open the box. “Take a look.”
A thick black lace band was tucked into the box. “A garter?”
“Kind of.” Kon grinned. “It’s a gun holster and a Smith & Wesson M&P Model 340 revolver. You can slide it up your leg and wear it under your dress or you can tuck it into your purse.” He popped open the gunmetal gray cylinder. “It’s already loaded with five rounds of .357 Magnum and the safety is engaged. Do you know how to shoot?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, my throat suddenly dry. “Gian taught me.”
Kon’s light blue eyes burned into mine, studying me for some unknown reason. “Good. This gun is small and light, which means you’ll get a lot of recoil. And unlike other guns with a short barrel, it doesn’t have big shot deviations.”
“Can I put it on now?” I asked.
He kissed the corner of my mouth. “I didn’t plan on letting my solnyshka walk around without any way to defend herself.”
“Thanks, Kon. I love it.” I always carried a can of mace, but I’d been skittish since the whole incident outside the restaurant. This would go a long way toward giving me back some of my self-assurance that I could take care of myself. “By the way, are you ever going to tell me what solnyshka means?”
Lips twitching and his blue eyes vibrant with laughter, he said, “Sunshine.”
“Huh? I don’t get it.”
“It’s a Russian term of affection. When I first saw you, I noticed your eyes. They’re gold like the sun.”
“My eyes?” I said dumbly, my stomach fluttering.
“Not only your eyes, but everything. You’re like a ball of sunshine, making life a little brighter, and I’m not living without you. Okay? So go fight for yourself, and I’ll keep fighting for us.”
He tilted my face up, making sure I was looking at him. Then he kissed me. God, I was a sucker for this man.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
“This is stupid, Carmela. You’re making a huge mistake.” Emilia drummed her black fingernails on the vinyl seat of the cab.
“I have to try. If Nico backs off, Dominick can’t do anything about it. He’s not going to force Nico to marry me.”
She snorted. “Nico doesn’t care if you hate him or if you’re in love with somebody else. For him, it’s all about power. Marrying you solidifies his connection to Dominick and his rank in the family. The only thing better would be marrying me, and we both know that’ll never happen. I’m soiled goods, and my dad knows I’d slit my wrists before I’d let him marry me off to anyone involved in the family.”
“You never know. Nico might want a way out of this.”
“Careful. Your naïveté is showing.”
When the cab stopped next to the curb in front of Nico’s building, I paid the driver and jumped out of the car. Nico hadn’t answered any of the texts I sent him from Emilia’s phone, but all the lights were on in his apartment, which was a good sign. If he didn’t answer, I’d use my key and wait for him. We needed to talk.
“You can go home. You don’t have to wait for me,” I said when Emilia followed me out of the cab.
“Trust me. Anything is better than sitting in that house with my dad. He doesn’t talk to me, and I don’t talk to him. We hate each other and neither of us cares enough to pretend otherwise.”
I winced at her description. My family had imploded more than a little after my dad died. I yelled at Gian last night for not supporting me. More often than not, I didn’t recognize my mom. She used to be a source of strength and resiliency. Lately, she couldn’t bow down fast enough to my uncle’s demands, completely dismissing what I wanted with my life.
“I’m sorry. That sucks.”
She shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t care. I’ll be down the street in that coffee shop. Come find me when you’re done.”
“If Gian or my mom call you—”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll tell them you’re safely ensconced in your loving fiancé’s home and far away from that evil whatever his name is. I know the drill.”
“Kon. Konstantin.”
“Yeah. Whatever. I think Sal’s tracking us today, and I know how to shake him.”
“What’s the deal with you and Sal?”
She whirled around, her face scrunched up in anger, and the tips of her dainty ears bright red. “He’s a two-faced piece of shit who pretended to care about me only to screw me over the second he got the chance.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I stared at her, waiting for her to offer more of an explanation. She didn’t.
“You need to wrap this visit up within a half hour or less. I’m tired and people are going to get suspicious if we’re gone much longer.” She spun on her heel with her hand raised in a halfhearted wave.
Less than a minute later, I rapped my knuckles against the door of Nico’s third floor apartment. One knock and nothing happened. Two knocks and I heard a few hushed voices. “Nico, it’s Carmela. Answer the door.” I paused for a second. “Please. We need to talk.”
The deadbolt clicked, and Nico opened the door without inviting me inside. His dress shirt was unbuttoned and untucked, his suit jacket and tie long since abandoned. I’d never seen Nico like this.
“Hi,” I said, my voice crackling with uncertainty.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was slightly slurred.
“Like I said, I want to talk. Can I come in?”
He stepped back, letting me into his home. “Fine. Come in. You can join our little party.”
I stepped inside and came to an abrupt halt. Ava sat on the black leather sofa, half-dressed and very intoxicated. His sister Gemma was slumped over in a checkered chair with her legs stretched out in front of her.
“Do you want a drink?” Nico asked, dropping a hand on my shoulder.
“No. I’m good. Thanks. What are they doing here?”
Ava burst out laughing, her breasts jiggling in her bright pink bra. Dark makeup ringed her eyes and her red lipstick was smeared across her cheek. “Exactly what it looks like. Nico was bored so I offered to entertain him
since you’re always busy.”
“Nico?” I turned to face, my stomach churning with acid. “You’re with her?”
Nico shrugged, swaying a little. “It’s not a big deal. Ava knows her place. She realizes I need to marry you. She won’t interfere.”
“Not a big deal? You’re screwing my cousin and you don’t think it’s a big deal?”
Nico grabbed Ava’s shirt off the arm of the sofa and tossed it at her. “Get your clothes on and get outta here. Carmela and I need to talk.”
“What about Gemma? She’s passed out.”
“Wake her up. I’m sure your ride is here by now.”
“Fuck you, Nico. Why don’t you tell her about us? Tell her how we’ve been together off and on for years.”
“We fuck. So what? We’ve never been together. You’re just another piece of ass!” Nico roared, and Gemma lifted her head, rubbing her hand over her face.
“I hate you Nico DeAngelo. This is over for real this time.”
“Good. Perfect timing. I’m getting married in a month anyway.”
Ava pulled her shirt over her head, her hands trembling and her face white. “Let’s go, Gemma. Your brother’s an asshole.”
Gemma pushed herself from the chair and whispered, “This whole thing with Carmela is a mistake. She’s not good for you. You know she’s been sneaking around with—”
“Get the fuck outta here! Both of you.”
“Fine.” Gemma squared her shoulders. “Be my guest. Fuck up your life.”
Gemma and Ava stomped across the room, and the door slammed with a heavy thud.
“I won’t marry you,” I announced, finally feeling like I had enough leverage to get out of this marriage. My brother would never make me marry Nico after hearing about this.
“We’ve already had this discussion, Carmela, and we came to an agreement. As far as I’m concerned, everything is settled.”
“Not anymore. I won’t go through with it. You’re sleeping with my cousin, and I-I am in love with someone else.”
He lifted and dropped a shoulder, the expression on his face calm and bored, but his eyes glittered with undisguised rage. “I don’t care. I don’t want or need your love. And this man you claim to love, I’ll take care of him.”