Emma gasped.
“They had been ambushed as they were leaving their private wedding dinner. Their car was shot sixteen times. My father was shot in the thigh and in his chest, puncturing his right lung. Charisse was shot twice in the chest and twice in the head. She was killed immediately.”
Emma bit her lower lip as she thought of this poor woman who had been gunned down. “Did they ever find out who did it?” she asked. She had a good idea though.
Antonio confirmed her hunch. “The Cavalli Family,” he said, naming the notorious east coast mafia that rivaled the Del Marcos in size and reach. “At the time, my father had been trying to edge into the New York market and the Cavallis were not happy about it.” Antonio pressed his lips. “So they sent a message about their displeasure.”
Emma couldn’t believe it. She felt like a movie was unfolding before her. The two largest crime syndicates in the country fighting over territory, a woman in love caught in the middle, and all of it ending in murder—it was beyond surreal.
“My father recovered but he was never the same. I think he was too broken to lead. He managed to keep the organization together for another fifteen years or so. We never lost territory but we didn’t grow either.” Emma noticed his jaw tighten again. “I think he held on just long enough for me to take over. After his sixtieth birthday, he shot himself in the head.”
Emma had known about Gabe Del Marco’s death. It had been in the papers everywhere. People were predicting that it would be the end of the Del Marco Clan. No one thought the group could continue without their leader.
Until Antonio had stepped in.
Emma shook her head. None of this made sense. “But what—”
Antonio interrupted her. He straightened his legs and began to talk more briskly, having now passed the more emotional part of his story. “And then from here, I think you’re more aware of the history. Once I took over, I realized that times were changing and the money wasn’t in drug smuggling anymore. It was in real estate, bonds, and overseas development. In other words, it was in what was commonly considered “legitimate” businesses. While my father had been falling apart, the Cavallis had nearly tripled their wealth and power by becoming real estate moguls and funding the right super PACs and lobby groups. So I began to quickly change our interests, building up a huge empire for the Del Marcos that could now be taxed.”
Emma quirked an eyebrow and Antonio lips twitched. What was seen was taxed maybe but she was damn sure the Del Marcos weren’t that quick to be so transparent with the IRS. Not with their checkered background.
She shook her head. “I still don’t understand why I’m here,” she said. “Why would any of this be related to me in any way?”
Antonio paused. He rested his chin on his fingers and regarded her with a steady silence that made Emma’s blood hum. “Aren’t you curious as to what happened to Charisse’s daughter?”
So caught up in the details of Charisse’s gruesome and tragic murder, Emma had completely forgotten about the woman’s child. “Oh!” she said, a little surprised. “Of course. What happened to her?”
Keeping his eyes pinned on her, as if carefully studying her, Antonio continued, “My father had failed to keep his promise to Charisse in keeping her safe. He swore he wouldn’t fail her daughter. So he swept the entire murder under the rug so no one would know about Charisse and her daughter and then sent the little girl away.”
A funny feeling of uneasiness began to creep into Emma’s bones. “Away? Where did he send her?”
“He wanted her away from danger but close enough to keep an eye on. Initially, he sent her away, leaving her in the care of the state. No one would ever think a Del Marco would be in state care. That meant she was safe. She had anonymity. She was in the foster care system for a few years until my father finally was able to find suitable adoptive parents.”
Emma could hear something akin to a rushing river in her ears. She felt hot and numb and prickly all at the same time. “Foster care,” she echoed softly.
Antonio nodded. “My father eventually was able to locate Charisse’s parents, her daughter’s maternal grandparents. He convinced them to adopt Charisse’s daughter but only under the condition that they never reveal their connection to her. The more distance my father could put between himself and Charisse’s child, the better. And until they died, the Grants were given money to help raise and care for Charisse’s daughter.”
A ringing sound echoed in her head. “The Grants,” she whispered. Oh god, this wasn’t really happening.
“Yes, you’re probably familiar with them,” he said in slow measured tones. “Doug and Ethel Grant.”
Emma didn’t know if she wanted to faint or throw up. Probably both.
“Charisse,” she whispered, almost gasping. “Charisse is…was….She….”
Antonio nodded. “Charisse Grant was your mother. And Gabe Del Marco your adoptive father.”
Emma gripped the leather seat, her knuckles white and her palms sweaty. She looked down at her feet. Doug and Ethel Grant. Her wonderful adoptive parents. They had rescued her from a nightmare of jumping homes and various foster guardians. How she had longed to be their actual daughter, to share their same blood and to know she truly belonged to them.
Doug and Ethel Grant. Her…grandparents?
And all because Gabe Del Marco had provided and funded it to be possible.
Gabe Del Marco.
Her stepfather.
With an electric bolt of realization, Emma sat up as if zapped. She gaped as she stared at the cool and powerful man before her. She stared at his large hands as they calmly rested on his knee.
Antonio Del Marco was not only the head of the most notorious and brutal crime syndicate in the country.
He was also her stepbrother.
Chapter Five
“This…This can’t be right,” Emma said slowly, trying to remember to breathe so she didn’t faint. “This isn’t right.”
Antonio kept his eyes pinned on her, watching her sway. He reminded Emma of a panther just before he pounced. “It is right. I can show you your birth certificate, your mother’s and my father’s marriage certificate, and even your grandparents’ birth and marriage certificate, if you’d like.”
Emma’s head spun. This was insane. She was just an orphan. A nobody! Spots flashed around the edges of her vision.
“Put your head between your knees, if you’re going to faint,” Antonio said calmly.
It was his voice of unconcerned coolness that snapped Emma back. She sat up and glared at the man who had literally turned her world upside down. In one day, he had completely destroyed everything she knew about herself.
“So why now?” she demanded, her voice stronger. “Why are you telling me this all now?”
Antonio nodded, clearly glad to be getting back on track. “The Cavalli Family and the Del Marco Clan have been at war for a long time. And even as our businesses change into something more representable, we have had a lot of blood lost between us. But Frank Cavalli, head of the Family, has reached out to me.” Antonio paused. “He wants to create an alliance.”
Although she was still reeling from all the recent revelations, it wasn’t lost on Emma how huge an alliance like that would be. It could mean less gang wars, less violence, less battles over territories.
“This is something that I would like very much to happen. It’ll help bring the Del Marco Clan forward into the future and away from the old days of our past.” Antonio leaned back a little in his seat. “But old organizations such as ours are all still quite traditional and can only see an agreement as truly solidified through old rituals.”
Rituals? “What the hell are you talking about?” Emma asked, feeling reckless and brave. It didn’t matter if this was Antonio Del Marco, head of the Del Marco Clan. In one fell swoop, she had learned about her long lost mother and her death all in the same conversation.
Antonio’s lips twitched, his eyes gleaming like steel. “Marriage,” he
said simply. “We like to see big alliances consummated with marriages between the two families.”
Emma stared at him. “You’re going to marry someone,” she said.
“Well, the Cavalli Family has three children, all sons,” Antonio explained. “They want marriage but not just any kind. They are traditional, as I said.” His lips twitched again.
How can the man even think of being amused when he had shaken her entire past like an etch-a-sketch? Emma quietly began to fume.
“So what?” Emma said before realization smacked her across the face. “You want me to marry someone?”
“Not just someone,” Antonio corrected. “David Cavalli, second son and heir to the Cavalli Family.”
Emma stood up. “I want to go back home.”
Antonio stared at her from his seat, not a bit unperturbed by her sudden rise. “No,” he said simply.
Emma glared at him, biting back a frustrated scream. “You said after you told me your story, I could go home!”
“No,” Antonio said again in that irritatingly calm voice. “I said that we could talk. And we’re not finished talking.”
“Well I am!” Emma cried out. “You think you can just call me up after twenty years and drop this kind of bomb on me and then expect me to marry some stranger? Some mob stranger who you’re saying is responsible for my mother’s death! You think I’ll do it all because you just tell me to? Who do you think you are? Who the fuck do you think you are!”
Antonio slowly rose from his seat. Emma felt her pulse speed up as the man stood at his full towering height. He was immense. Not just in size but in presence. He filled up the entire room till Emma felt like she was being squeezed by his aura of lethal power.
All trace of humor and detached coolness was gone now. His expression darkened. His face, certainly handsome under most circumstances, looked positively dangerous at the moment. Silver hooded eyes turned a charcoal gray as he slowly approached her.
“I am Antonio Del Marco,” he said in a quiet voice that demanded she listen to him with every fiber of her being. “I am the head of one of the most brutal mafias in west coast history and now you know that I also happen to be your older stepbrother.” Antonio took another step, closing the small distance between the two of them. Emma tried her best not to flinch as he neared.
“So yes, I do expect you to do as I say and marry someone, even a ‘mob stranger,’ just because I say so.” He stood only mere inches away from her. Looking down he pierced her with his fiery gaze. “Because you are now Emma Del Marco, daughter of the Del Marco Clan, and that means you fall under my rule, my command.”
Without thinking, Emma swung her hand back and aimed for his face. He caught her wrist with ease, his large hand wrapping completely around her arm and holding her captive. Ignoring her pulls to get away, he leaned down and added, “So as my younger sister and a member of the Del Marco Clan, I suggest you recognize the responsibilities you have to your family and learn to accept your position.”
Emma felt tears prickling her eyes but damn him if she’d cry in front of him. “I want. To go. Home,” she said slowly, making sure to not let her voice shake.
Antonio yanked her arm so that she fell against his chest. “Sweetheart, you are home.”
Emma felt her breath coming fast, as if she had just run a marathon. “You want me to marry into the family that is responsible for my mother’s murder.” She looked at him as if he had taken complete leave of his senses.
Antonio’s grip felt like a steel shackle against her wrist. “That is how business is conducted in these families.”
“Not my family,” Emma countered.
“This is your family,” Antonio said evenly.
Emma jerked back and this time he let her. Releasing her, he walked swiftly towards the door. “But I will let you go back to your room. You need time to process everything that has been said.” Opening the door, he murmured something to a guard standing outside. Another nameless burly man in black stepped in.
Antonio motioned Emma to come towards the door. Feeling numb, she did. With a hand on her lower back, he pushed her out of the office with the guard, clearly there to make sure she didn’t do something foolish like run away.
“And do be smart,” he whispered into her ear at the door. “Take this time to really accept the truth of your life, Emma. Because no matter what, it is real and the marriage will happen. The only thing that you have control over if whether you will choose to be happy or not.”
And with that, Emma was led out of the office and back out into the spacious hallway. She followed the guard back up the stairs, barely hearing the heavy office door thud behind her. With every step she took, she left behind everything she had thought she had known about herself.
Chapter Six
Standing alone in the large bedroom she had woken up in, Emma felt like screaming.
She felt like crying.
She felt like cursing.
But mostly, she felt alone.
Although she had just found out how much family she actually had had in her life, Emma felt incredibly alone. No one had told her any of this. Whatever reasons the Del Marcos or even the Grants had to hold the information back from her, Emma had lived a good portion of her life in foster care dreaming, aching, for a mother. For a family.
Emma stood in the middle of the luxurious room, looking around the expensive furnishings. But no matter how much she had ached for family, she wasn’t sure she could accept being a part of the Del Marco family.
She remembered her children at the counseling center. Clenching her fists, she resolved to herself that she would not let herself sink into the Del Marco filth. No matter what Antonio said, she refused to acknowledge him as her stepbrother and she refused to be his stepsister.
And she most certainly would not be married off to some stranger just so the Del Marcos could increase their profit margins.
Feeling rage boiling through her, Emma walked over to the far side of the room, wanting something to distract her and help her cool off. A large frosted glass sliding door stood next to the vanity. Sliding it back, Emma gasped.
It was the biggest closet she had ever seen. It was the size of her entire studio apartment. Perhaps even bigger! And it was completely full.
Emma hesitantly walked in and stared at the racks of clothes that were neatly hung. Different colored dresses, blouses, skirts—everything she could possibly need in terms of clothing was here. With ginger fingers, she looked inside a dress.
Perfect size.
All the clothes were exactly her size.
In the back, there was a floor length mirror bracketed by enormous shoe racks that held every kind of imaginable shoe possible. And although she knew it would fit, Emma still pulled down a pair of blue pumps and tried them on.
Perfect match.
Clearly Antonio Del Marco was a man who did his homework. Just thinking of the man made Emma’s pulse race and her ears steam again.
Working so intimately with people who had been so tragically affected by the crimes of the Del Marcos, Emma had seen many pictures and read many articles about Antonio. Only when she was alone in her apartment with a glass of wine, could she admit to herself that it was a shame such a gorgeous face was wasted on such a corrupt and evil man.
But now having met him, his looks only seemed to add to his cold and domineering nature. Pictures couldn’t do his steely silver eyes justice. They watched her every move, her every facial tic, studying her with a quiet competence that made her feel as if she stood naked and exposed. And no article or report had ever quite captured the cut of his stubbled jaw or the broadness of his shoulders, both of which make him a formidable presence to deal with.
Emma rubbed her wrist where Antonio had grabbed her, midslap. He had held her with an easy strength that spoke volumes of what he could physically do to her.
Walking out of the dream closet, Emma curled up on the bed. Your room, Antonio had called this place. Was he insane? She had a
job, classes, an apartment! She couldn’t just disappear like this.
But she knew that was exactly what he expected. Antonio Del Marco clearly could care less what happened to her life as long as she made his easier.
Years ago, when Antonio had taken over the Del Marco Clan, journalists had written about how Antonio would not have the same ruthlessness Gabe Del Marco had when founding the organization.
God, how wrong they were.
It just made her wonder how terrible Gabe Del Marco must’ve been. Before the Del Marco Clan, Los Angeles had been overrun with horrible crime rates from competing gangs. Gabe had put a stop to that by either destroying or adopting the competing gangs.
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