He arches a brow, probably completely confused by my question. But then he leans forward, uncrossing his legs, and places his elbows on his knees. Something close to guilt crosses his face, but I don’t understand it.
“Rosana, what has happened?” he asks, his voice soft and so caring sounding.
If he knew, if he really knew who and what I was, what I’ve done, he wouldn’t be so gentle, so kind to me right now. He would have left me in the back of that van. He would have let me die. He should have let me die. I should have just ended this life of mine. It would make all of this so much easier.
All of it.
I deserve it, that’s for fucking sure.
“Rosana,” he rasps.
“I did something. It was bad, Valerius,” I whisper.
He arches a brow, waiting for me to tell him, but I really don’t want to. I don’t want to tell anyone. I’ve been trying to avoid it for weeks, hoping that it would just go away, but it’s not. It’s getting worse.
It’s just getting worse.
“I think I did something really bad,” I repeat.
“You’re going to need to give me more than that,” he murmurs.
Shaking my head, I pinch my eyes closed, then press my palm against my stomach. I don’t want to say a fucking thing, not a damn thing. Instead, I inhale a deep breath, letting it out slowly before I open my eyes.
I look directly at him, focusing on his eyes as I do. Licking my lips, I bide a bit more time, then I finally tell him.
“I betrayed the famiglia. I didn’t intend to, I never sought out to do that. It happened and then by the time I realized what was happening, it was so out of control that I couldn’t stop it. So, I just kept hoping it would go away, but it hasn’t.”
“Explain the betrayal,” Valerius breathes, his nostrils flaring.
Pressing my lips together, I try to keep from speaking, but he isn’t going to let me get out of it. He is going to demand to know exactly what I did, and I don’t blame him. I’m a wife now, a Made Man’s wife, and I’ve done something that is punishable by death.
“The men who took me don’t even know what I’ve done, it started before I even met them.”
“You better start talking little bella, your life is on the line and I can’t protect you if I don’t know what the fuck you’ve gotten yourself into.”
I begin. “I met someone my last year of college, a girl…”
Chapter Twenty-One
SALVATORE
Gavino, Arlo, Massimo, and I take a break from our tortures to discuss what we’ve just found out. These three idiots were hired to fuck with Rosana. They pretended to be part of the Libertad’s, but all of this was about Rosana.
But why?
“There is something we are still missing. Something about Rosana,” Gavino murmurs.
I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to think about Rosana being part of any of this. She’s my wife and I’ve been falling for her. Every day I fall deeper into her. If she were to be taken from me, if she betrayed the famiglia, I couldn’t live.
“We need to know what we’re dealing with,” I grunt.
Massimo’s gaze lifts to mine and he holds my eyes with his own for a moment. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. I can see the pity in his eyes.
I should tell him that I pity him too, Rosana is his sister-in-law, but he’s right to look at me the way that he does. I took Rosana one hundred percent at her word. I didn’t question her at all. I allowed her inside of my heart.
“We do,” Massimo agrees. “I’m just not sure that any of us are ready for the answer.”
“Probably not,” Arlo agrees.
Gavino nods his head a couple of times, then he looks behind him at the three men, all bleeding, but still very much breathing and alive as they wait for their fate. It will catch up with them shortly, once we get what we can from them.
“Let’s finish this. Get all the information that we can,” Gavino mutters.
Turning back around, we walk toward them. Gavino is in charge. He takes the lead. I’m still far too fucked up from the new information to even think about the right questions to ask. I’m an attorney, I know how to come up with shit on the fly, but I am not adequately prepared for this at all.
“You claim that this is all about Rosana. Who hired you, then?” Gavino demands.
Juarez jerks his chin in the air, pressing his lips together and narrowing his eyes on Gavino. Miguel looks down at his feet, but it’s the nameless man, Rosana’s boss, that looks around shifty-eyed.
He is the key, he’s been the key. He is going to talk where the others won’t. We need to get him alone. Gavino recognizes it as well, he’s been the only one talking, so it hasn’t been hard.
“Take the other two and put them in the office. Close the door,” Gavino demands.
Juarez and Miguel gasp. They don’t really say anything, but their fear fills the room. They know that this is the end. One by one it’s time to get what we can get and they won’t be talking all together. We need them alone.
I still don’t know the boss’s name. We watch him in silence for a moment while the other two are shoved and locked inside of a windowless office with three men on the only exit door.
Crossing my arms across my chest, I stand with my legs braced slightly apart. I need to not only mentally brace for what is about to be said but physically as well.
I cannot show a reaction at all.
None.
“Tell us, now,” Gavino growls.
The boss shifts his gaze from side to side, his entire body visibly trembling. He nods his head a couple of times, then licks his lips before he speaks.
“At first I thought that it was just a petty college mean girls’ thing, but now I’m thinking it’s not,” he mutters.
“You’re just now thinking that?” I snort. “You mean after you threatened to fuck my wife and cut the baby from her womb?”
His face blanches as I tell him exactly what he’s threatened. He didn’t think that I knew. Didn’t realize that Juarez threw his ass under the bus on that shit. There is a moment of silence, then he gulps what I assume is a large lump in his throat before he begins.
“Girl hired us, promised us there would be a decent payout. All we had to do was keep her in her job. Miguel had to seduce her and knock her up. Her reasoning, I don’t fuckin’ know. Maybe Miguel does. He knew her better. Met with her more often.”
“Who is she?” Gavino demands, his voice gruff.
He looks down, wiggling in his restraints, then lets out a sigh. “Her name is Courtney Ramos.”
“Ramos,” Gavino hisses. “Ramos?” He turns his head to look at me, narrowing his gaze when he does. “What the fuck?” he hisses.
I shrug a shoulder. “I thought they were dead. All the children were accounted for,” I murmur.
There is a long moment of silence, then the man speaks again. “I don’t know who she is or what she knows. All I know is that she told me her name was Courtney when we met. She wanted us to fuck with Rosana. Then when she didn’t pay us, we looked at who Rosana had married. It was easy to try and get money digitally.”
Gavino turns to one of his men and jerks his chin. It’s the signal to end this fuck. I watch, unable to look away as they end this fucker. He dies swiftly, just like I knew that he would. He gave us information that we wanted to know and he did it without causing too much drama.
“Ramos,” Gavino whispers once he’s dead.
“How?” I ask.
“She’s got an American name. She’s got to be a relative,” Gavino mutters.
“Call the Beasts,” I suggest.
There is a moment of silence. Then he takes his phone out of his pocket and calls Dragon. He puts the phone on speaker while the men clean up the body and dispose of it. Dragon answers on the second ring.
“Courtney Ramos?” Gavino demands.
“Do I know who this is?” Dragon asks.
“No clue, but she hi
red some low-level fucks to mess with one of our women. I don’t know why, but then they tried to fuck with us, take some of my money, and had planned on killing Rosana. I want to know how she’s related to that family, to Angel.”
Dragon snorts. “I have no fucking clue. I can ask Eagle, but I doubt he knows shit,” he murmurs.
There is some rustling around and I’m surprised that he’s close to Eagle, but we all wait to hear if this woman is indeed known to him. Perhaps we’ve all overlooked something that we should have seen before.
“I’ve never heard that name before in my life,” a deep voice growls.
“You sure? Young, probably mid-twenties,” Gavino says.
“Would know a woman who shared my last name if I’d ever met her,” Eagle’s voice rumbles.
“Fuck,” I hiss.
Gavino jerks his chin as if he feels the same way. “If you hear anything, let me know.”
“Will do,” Eagle grunts before Gavino ends the call.
ROSANA
Valerius watches me. He’s waiting for an explanation, but I don’t have a real one. “I met her in my last year of college,” I explain softly.
He waits, probably the most patient man I’ve ever met at this point. Clearing my throat, I tell him about the girl I met several years ago. Courtney didn’t go to my school. She worked at a coffee place a few blocks away, where I would study.
She was fun, she was exciting, and she liked to party. I was a bit wild, a bit out of control, so our friendship worked. Then, she started asking me odd questions about my personal life. She knew that I had a sister who lived in Brooklyn. But her questions weren’t about Pippa so much as they were about the men.
That was the first red flag.
Later, she started asking me even more things about Massimo, about Gavino. It struck me as odd. I told her things, though, too many things. We would get drunk and go out dancing, she’d always ask when I was trashed.
When I got my job at the firm, I distanced myself from her. Whatever she was doing, whoever she was, I felt as though it was extremely wrong. Something was wrong, and I was right.
I just figured it all out far too late.
“Well, shit,” Valerius murmurs. “I’m glad it’s not what I was imagining when you mentioned the words betrayal and doing something wrong. You haven’t, bella. You made a poor decision on choosing a friend, but you are not the bad one.”
“Aren’t I? Look what I have done,” I whisper.
Valerius shakes his head a couple of times, chuckling as he does, as if he thinks I’m cute or maybe completely unbelievable. I’m not really sure. I don’t ask him anything else though, instead, I watch and I wait for what he is going to say to me. He has to answer me, he has to admit that I’m fucking horrible.
“You’re young, Rosana. You were younger when this began. She no doubt sought you out, targeted you, and would have done this to someone else had you not taken the bait. She knew you would, though. Women like that, they don’t stop until they get what they want, no matter who they hurt.”
“I don’t understand why, though,” I admit on a whisper.
I don’t either, I don’t understand why she would go after the famiglia, why she would have Miguel purposely get me pregnant, why she would do any of it. There is a moment of silence, then Valerius shrugs a shoulder.
“Who knows why she would do that. You may never fully understand, but know that it wasn’t your fault.”
Licking my lips, I look down at my lap. “Wasn’t it though? I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out earlier. I let it get as far as I did, and then I did exactly what she wanted me to. I ran directly to Gavino, to the famiglia.”
“If you think this was her first rodeo, you are wrong, bella. She was completely calculated in her games. It would not have mattered who you were, she was going to find a way in.”
Nodding, I shift my gaze back up to meet his. “Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
I watch as he digs his phone out of his pocket, then holds it to his ear. I don’t know who he’s calling, but I can assume that it’s Gavino. Bringing my feet up to the cushion of the sofa, I rest my chin against my knees as I stare straight ahead.
I don’t look at anything in particular. Instead, I envision the look on Salvatore’s face when he realizes that all of this is my fault. He will think that it’s my fault, too. All of this. Gavino won’t be able to deny it either.
For all of my avoiding the famiglia, avoiding Made Men, I’ve just plopped myself down in the middle of all their shit. I’ve not just taken it on, I’ve taken it all. I’ve made myself single-handedly involved in all of the shit I wanted nothing to do with.
“Yeah, Boss. She’s right here. Okay.”
Valerius ends the call, then clears his throat. “They want you at the warehouse, get ready.”
“What does that mean?” I ask on a whisper.
There is a moment of silence where Valerius just watches me. It’s obvious by his silence that this is not a good thing. In fact, this is a terrible fucking thing and sweat breaks out over my entire body.
Instead of sitting here and crying about my situation, I stand up and get my shit together. Walking over to the fridge, I grab a bottle of sparkling water, slip on my sandals, and stand in front of him, ready to go.
I showered almost as soon as I got home earlier before the doctor came, and I’m wearing sweatpants and a tank top. My hair is thrown up into a messy bun, but none of it matters. I’m not on my way to a beauty contest. In fact, I’m probably on my way to certain death.
“You want to change first?” Valerius asks.
I’ve been awake for so many hours that I’ve lost count. Blinking at him, I shake my head. “I don’t. I’m too tired to give a shit.” And too terrified, but I don’t tell him that part.
“Go and change, bella. Salvatore would not be happy with me if I let you go down there with all of the men in your sweats.”
“All of the men?” I ask on a whisper.
He dips his chin, his lips curving up into a grin. “A whole warehouse full.”
My eyes widen, then without another word, I turn tail, set my water down, and hurry to the bedroom where I dress in proper mafia wife’s clothes. I try to make myself look as put together as Luciana and the other women always seem to look. I’m sure that I fail, but I try—for Salvi.
Chapter Twenty-Two
SALVATORE
“Rosana will be here shortly. Let’s get these two dealt with. Then we’ll talk to her,” Gavino announces.
My stomach drops at the thought of talking to Rosana, of Gavino specifically talking to her. I don’t know what part in this she has played, but I know that she is involved and that’s enough to have her life ended.
“She will not die by my hand,” Gavino murmurs, obviously sensing my worry.
Clearing my throat, I turn to him. “If it was warranted, and she did, my anger would not lie with you, cugino,” I murmur.
He dips his chin. Though I know that he would not be angry with me over something that Rosana did, I still wouldn’t hold it against him if she had to be dealt with.
This is our world, this is the world that we live in. I feel guilty though. I should have looked into her more. I shouldn’t have blindly trusted her just because of who her sister was.
Miguel is dragged out of the room and strung up. We watch him, our conversation about Rosana dying as soon as he is within earshot. Clearing my throat, I tilt my head to the side as I look at him.
“What are you going to do to me?” he asks with a whimper as tears fill his eyes.
I watch as they fall down his cheeks and can’t help but smirk at what a pussy this previously cocky fuck is.
“What are you going to tell us?” I ask.
He shakes his head, licking his lips and no doubt tasting the salt from his tears, a reminder of what a cunt he is. “I don’t know anything,” he lies.
“Who is Courtney Ramos?” Gavino asks.
Miguel’s eyes widen and
he shifts his gaze to the side, inhaling a deep breath, then back to him. “She just wanted us to fuck with Rosana. She knew the kind of guys she liked. She told me how to act.
“Juarez did some research, found out later who she was involved with. When she ran off and got married. So, then we decided why not get some money from you, it’s not like you could call the cops or nothin’.”
He’s right. It’s not like any of us could call the cops. But he didn’t think it through, they didn’t think it through. None of it. Stealing from the Boss of the Zanetti empire? You have to be a special kind of stupid to do that and think you’ll get away with it.
“What is Courtney’s endgame?” Gavino asks, ignoring all of the money issues.
That doesn’t matter, I doubt it was enough to even put a chip in his finances, and it’s not as important as someone from the Ramos family not only being alive but targeting him and the entire Zanetti famiglia. Right now, getting to the bottom of Courtney’s role in all of this is the only thing that matters.
Miguel’s tears stop. He clears his throat, and I can tell he looks nervous as shit. He should be. The longer he stalls, the more painful I’m going to make his death. It will be me who kills him, too. He is mine.
“She said that the Zanetti’s killed her entire family. She only told me after I figured out who you were,” he says, looking directly at me. “She has a vendetta against the famiglia, I didn’t know when this started.”
“So what? You were just going to get some innocent girl pregnant and kill her based off of something some other little girl told you?” I ask as I reach for the mallet. Without hesitating, I swing it and hit him on the knee. He lets out a howl as I lean in closer.
“What the fuck?” he screams out.
“You’re a fucking liar. You knew that Rosana was a Zanetti before she came to me. She fucking overheard you, so you’re going to need to do better,” I shout.
“Fine,” he whimpers. “I knew. When Courtney came to me, I researched her. I wasn’t going to agree to fuck some ugly troll. I don’t care what Courtney was going to do for me or give me.”
Becoming her Salvation (Zanetti Famiglia Book 7) Page 15
