by Sam Mariano
“I don’t know,” I mutter, frowning and taking a seat on my lounger.
Since I don’t know, he decides for all of us. “I think it’s fine. I won’t boss you around when Mateo is here, how’s that?”
Instead of answering him, I change the subject. “What kind of business are you in town for?”
Apparently amused, he takes a seat back on the lounger beside mine and looks out at the pool. “Aw, come on, you know I can’t tell you that.”
“I’m married to the Chicago boss; you could probably tell me.”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
I offer him a thin smile. “The last Morelli who planned to kill me married me instead.”
Rafe nods, like he understands that progression. “And you probably don’t need another husband.”
“Definitely not,” I readily agree. “I’m crazy about the one I have.”
“You struggle to get me a drink without fear of disrespecting him; I don’t even want to think what a struggle it would be to get my dick in your mouth.”
My jaw drops at his gall. “You can’t say things like that.”
“Like I can’t grab your ass?” he tosses back. “Did you not tell him? Because he sure as shit didn’t say anything to me about it.”
Rafe is so going to get himself killed. “You really need to leave,” I tell him, honestly.
My discomfort seems to amuse him. He decides to drop back to his scenario from a moment ago. “Of course, you could like the struggle. Maybe you’d get off on it.”
“Stop,” I say, seriously.
He doesn’t. “Maybe you’d like if I came over there and pinned you to that lounger, held you down, shoved my hand down inside those tiny bikini bottoms you’ve been prancing around in today.”
“Stop it,” I say again, with more force. “Too far. Stop it.”
Shrugging casually, he winks at me before remarking, “Nothing I haven’t done before.”
“I’m sober this time,” I inform him, unamused. “Your flirting is way over the line.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not Adrian,” he informs me.
Despite my righteous irritation, the steel in his tone causes my heart to slide down my throat. He’s absolutely right. He’s not Adrian. Adrian is safe and loyal. Adrian cares about me and Mateo.
Rafe is a relative stranger. A potentially dangerous, threatening, disrespectful stranger. I realize this behavior isn’t new, and it shouldn’t surprise me. I was out of my element in Vegas and behaving differently, but he wasn’t. He was right at home, behaving exactly the way he likes to behave.
In Vegas, he got off on embarrassing Vince and taking control of me. Since I was angry at Vince, we were on the same side, but if he thinks to play the same game with Mateo, that obviously changes.
Rafe was never a nice man. When our interests aligned and I needed him, sure, he was a lifeline. But now I don’t need him, and he remains the same man he was in Vegas. A man so sure of himself and his own position—whatever that even is—that after spending time with me on only two separate occasions, he made the decision on his own to undermine his boss’ son and bring me back to Chicago.
This is not a man who plays well with other men.
I know one other man like that, and no, it is certainly not Adrian.
I want to flee, but I don’t. Fleeing will only make it clear he gets under my skin. “Are you always this aggressive?” I ask him.
He smiles easily. “Not always. I play the hand that needs playing.”
“Well… why don’t we call a truce? I don’t want to play games.”
“I heard you like games,” he says, mildly.
“I do—safe games. Fun games. Not dangerous games. I am blissfully happy here. This isn’t like Vegas, I’m not…”
“In need,” he supplies.
Even though it’s unflattering, it’s true. “Yes. I’m not in need. I didn’t think I was using you, but maybe I was. I’m sorry.”
This makes him smile again. He doesn’t respond, just sips his drink, then places it on the ground beside him. “That’s better. I like when you’re sweet.”
“I like when you don’t make me nervous,” I return.
“Remember when I made you comfortable?” he asks, easily. “Why do you think that’s different now?”
Uncomfortable isn’t even adequate terminology for the way he’s making me feel. I don’t want to talk about it, I just want him to stop, so I don’t answer.
His smile widens. “How is it you’ve lived this life for five years and you’re still so sheltered? Does Mateo keep you locked away like he did Beth?”
“He keeps us safe,” I reply, hearing my own defensiveness. “There are threats outside these walls, so naturally he feels better when we’re inside.”
“I think that’s an excuse,” Rafe decides, so cavalier in the way he judges our life. “I think he keeps you locked up so you can’t cause more trouble than you already do. Beth was a troublemaker too, you know.”
“I am not a troublemaker.”
“Mateo’s lucky Adrian was born with loyalty in his bones. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t taken Mateo out and replaced him already.”
I scowl. “He would never.”
Rafe shrugs, unimpressed by my vehemence. “His mistake. Should’ve pounced as soon as Mateo started showing weakness.”
I want to get up and demand he stop saying things like this—as if stopping him from saying it can stop him from thinking it—but I manage to keep my blood from boiling over. Adrian told me to listen, so I will.
I’m still going to defend my husband; I’ll just have to do it without stabbing Rafe in the face. “Mateo has never shown weakness. Mateo is a brilliant leader and he has issued plenty of unpleasant calls. He’s had to eliminate his own siblings, for fuck’s sake.”
“Sure, and that was right,” Rafe states. “That’s what you do to a threat—you eliminate it. You’ve declawed him, though. You get in his way when he tries to deal with people who would hurt him.”
“That is not true. I would never try to save someone who is harming Mateo.”
Rafe’s eyebrows rise. “You already have—on more than one occasion.”
“I meant a threat. Like, an actual threat, not…”
He gives me a minute to finish that sentence, and when I don’t, he nods. “So did I.”
“Vince was just… he was young and it was a long time ago. Mateo had done some things to me that hurt Vince—”
He holds up a hand. “Let me stop you right there. I don’t care.”
I frown. “What?”
“Reasons don’t matter. Actions do. Did he collude to have Mateo killed?”
My spirits droop a little. “Yes.”
“Then he should be dead.”
“It’s not always that black and white,” I insist.
“Yes, it is,” he disagrees. “It absolutely is. You have feelings—congratulations. Your feelings don’t matter. If you want your family to be safe, your husband to be feared and respected, you let him deal with things the way he knows works. Otherwise, you’re inviting stronger predators who smell blood in the water and know they can do a better job. You’re putting your own family at risk for the benefit of people who hurt you. There’s a reason kind-hearted people don’t make it to the top in this business, Mia.”
I can’t take it anymore. He’s making me itch with anxiety. I sit up on the lounger, grabbing my phone from the ground and standing. “Mateo already told me if Vince fucks up again, he’s dead. I won’t get in his way again. I just wanted Vince to have a chance at a better life. If he throws this one away, I’ve already told Mateo I will respect his decision.”
I feel his eyes on me, so I glance his way as I walk around the lounger and head for the path back to the house. “And Meg?” he asks, meeting my gaze.
“Mateo already told me I have no say now in how he deals with Meg,” I state.
“But did he mean it? Or is he going easier on her to
keep you happy?”
The tension in my shoulders is no joke. I need to go schedule a massage or something. “Enjoy the pool. I’m going inside. I’ll see you at dinner.”
Chapter Ten
Meg
“What were you like as a child?”
I cut Rafe a dirty look. He sits in his chair outside my cell, watching me like the way I peel this orange will shine light on some hidden corner of my soul. “What were you like as a child?” I shoot back.
He doesn’t hesitate to respond. “Observant. Curious. I’d say I was born that way, but I think I just learned young. My mother and father had a volatile relationship. Had to pay close attention if I wanted to know what kind of day we were going to have. As time went on and I got better at figuring people out, I realized I liked the power it gave me, so I kept honing it. Now here we are.” He nods his head at me. “Your turn.”
I ignore his request and use my nail to cut into the skin at the top of my fruit. “When are we going to circle back to what matters?”
“Doesn’t your past matter?”
I roll my eyes. “No. And to be honest, I’d strongly prefer we spend less time talking about the bad haircut I had in fifth grade and much more time discussing Dante and your dealings with him. If I’m going to be part of this, clue me in.”
After I gave Rafe the phone and invested every last hope I had in him, I waited. I waited and waited and waited. If I thought the hours passed by slowly when I was bored, I learned the actual meaning of slow when every minute that passed held the possibility of Mateo coming downstairs, telling me I failed his test and it was time to die.
Only, that didn’t happen.
Rafe came back.
He gave me my cell phone and an orange. It wasn’t as well-received as the cookie, but he told me it would do more to preserve my girlish figure than a cookie.
He’s such an asshole.
But he’s an asshole who is, for whatever reason, helping me, and I need to know what that reason is. I’m still having some difficulty trusting this, but it’s the only option I have left at this point.
“You’re on a need-to-know basis at this point,” he informs me. “Dante is sure your sense of self-preservation is adequate incentive for you to turn on Mateo, but I like to hedge my bets.”
“And what do you hope to accomplish by playing ’20 Questions’ and feeding me?” I ask him, peeling off a slice of orange and popping it in my mouth.
He shrugs. “Gotta pass the time somehow. Mia’s mad at me. I got bored drinking alone.”
My eyebrows rise and I cut him a look of surprise. “Mia’s mad at you? Why?”
“I keep telling her things she doesn’t want to hear. Gotta get her ready for her new life.”
“Her new life?”
“How loyal is the nanny?” he asks, flicking a piece of lint off his shoulder. “Is she loyal to Mateo, or the kids? Would you keep her on or replace her?”
“What are you talking about?”
He sighs, sparing me an impatient look. “You’ve lived in this house for five years. If you don’t know the way of things, you’re useless to me.”
“I know the way of things,” I say, defensively.
“The housekeeper’s going to have to go. I don’t know why, given her position here, but she’s clearly loyal to him.”
“Maria?”
“The nanny, though, I hadn’t thought much about. I’m not too keen on keeping all these kids, to be honest, but I want to keep Mia and Dante wants to keep you, so I guess we’ll have to for the time being. At least the older ones are girls. Even if Mia has a boy, it’s just a baby. As long as we raise him right, he won’t grow up with dreams of vengeance. Ordinarily,” he advises me, “you don’t leave the kids alive. Opens you up to problems later on.”
My mind races as it takes in everything he’s saying.
He isn’t talking about a rescue mission.
He’s talking about a takeover.
“What do you mean, Dante wants to keep me? What does that entail, exactly?”
“There may be a few bumps during the transition,” he tells me. “Mia doesn’t know shit, but seems like Mateo may have talked to you more. We’ll keep you on to ease the transition. Once everyone is settled in, you’re free to go if you want to. Personally, that’s my preference; I’ll feel better with fewer of Mateo’s kids on our roster. Take the baby and the two girls, we’ll give you a little cash to get yourself started, and you can make a new life, far away from all this.”
Regardless of good and common sense, my hopes cling to this image he presents. This is exactly what I need. Sure, it’s lacking the opulence and excessive security of life as a Morelli baby mama, but it includes the most crucial detail. Even after I deliver Roman, there will be no bullets in my head. Maybe I won’t have a large sum to work with, but I’ll be able take all my babies and leave the hell of Chicago behind, to escape the Morelli family and live a completely normal life somewhere else.
“What about Mia?” I ask.
“Hm?”
“What happens to Mia once you’re all settled in? Do you give her money and she gets to leave with her baby, too? What about Bella? She’s really the only parent Bella would have left, and you don’t need girls, right? Does Bella get to go with Mia?”
I should be watching him more carefully, but I’m trying to sort through the flood of new information that’s just rained down on me. Had I been a little less overwhelmed and a little more organized in my processing up to now, I would probably be less surprised when he states, “Mia isn’t going anywhere. Like I said, I’m keeping Mia.”
“For what?”
His eyebrows rise in mild disbelief, and I flush, realizing I’m a fucking idiot.
“Oh.”
“I think she’ll make a good pet,” he tells me. “And who knows? With the stress of losing Mateo, maybe she’ll miscarry and I won’t have to deal with Mateo’s spawn after all.”
My blood runs cold. “It’s not Mateo’s baby.” I don’t know if that helps, I don’t know if anything I say actually alters his plans, but I look up at him, sort of hoping it does. The circumstances surrounding Mia’s pregnancy may have been awful, but she wouldn’t be able to handle all this. Losing Mateo and then losing her baby? She would probably literally kill herself. Another woman in a long line, taken down by the machinations of the Morelli men.
Rafe frowns, briefly showing his confusion. “What?”
“The baby isn’t…” My stomach roils. I can’t eat this orange. Why do people have to bring me food and then ruin my appetite? Seriously. “Vince raped her in Vegas. Mateo isn’t the one who got her pregnant. It isn’t Mateo’s baby.”
Now his gaze drops. His eyes are hooded, his face not terribly expressive. I don’t have the mental capacity for this anyway, but this is definitely news to him. Given the heinousness of his own plans, it’s probably nothing that horrifies him, but I should at least tell him. If he’s planning to keep Mia as his pet, I could at least try to convince him the baby isn’t a problem, even if it is a boy.
Jesus Christ, is this really where we’re at?
What a fucking mess.
Rafe suddenly stands and my gaze jumps to him.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yeah. I have to go have pre-dinner drinks with my dickhead cousin,” he states.
“Well, wait. When is all this happening? I’m due in just over a week and I still have no monitor down here. Who do I reach out to if I go into labor?”
“My number’s in the phone,” he tells me. “If you feel it coming on, shoot me a text and I’ll find a reason to come down and visit so I can ‘discover’ you’re in labor.”
He still didn’t tell me when to expect this, but he’s clearly done giving me information. Now he has to go above stairs and play the happy houseguest.
This is un-fucking-believable.
This is not what I wanted at all.
Once Rafe is gone, I sit down on the bench and finish eating my ora
nge while I ponder my new future. If Mateo didn’t find the money I stashed when I wasn’t sure what our break-up meant, I’ll have more money than whatever Rafe and Dante plan to give me.
Still, there’s part of me that doesn’t want to do this. Mateo hasn’t exactly left me with many other choices, but as I finish my orange, I check to make sure Maria hasn’t come, then I go dig my hidden phone out. It’s sort of funny, all these years later, that I have a secret phone. Francesca framed my ass with a fake secret phone the first time; now I have a real one.
Actually, it kind of bums me out. The first time I got relegated to this dungeon, I would never have had a secret phone I used to betray Mateo. Now here I am, near to bursting with his baby, and I’m going to sit down here by myself while Mateo’s fucking cousin and treacherous brother plot to overthrow him and take his power. To kill him.
I don’t want him dead. I can’t even imagine that reality. I know I had a life before Mateo, but it’s difficult to imagine it now. What does that look like? What does it feel like? When I’ve escaped Chicago with my life and my kids, when I have to assemble a whole new life for myself somewhere else on my own, will I lie awake at night, haunted by these memories? Will every cup of black coffee I pour at the restaurant I will inevitably work at remind me of Mateo? Every time I see a less impressive man in a suit, will I think of the overwhelming presence that was Mateo Morelli? How do I go back to a normal life and act like none of this ever happened?
And what happens to Mia? She always manages to land on her feet, but what about the baby? Rafe wants to fuck her—he doesn’t want to raise her baby.
Everything sucks.
All of this sucks.
At least it gives me something else to think about, something to focus on other than the loneliness. I picture a little house in a little town, somewhere thousands of miles away from any Morellis. Lily will miss Isabella. She’ll miss Mateo. When Rodney died, she was little. She’s never missed him, but she’ll miss Mateo. Rosalie will miss Mia and Mateo. Life with a single mom is going to be a real shock to her system—she’s spoiled rotten with her monstrous playroom, her nanny, two moms. She’ll miss Bella and West. She’ll adjust, but how will I explain what happened to all of them?
