by Bethany-Kris
“What did you just say?” Alberto asked, each word coming out more forceful than the last.
Caesar didn’t even blink. “Ask your daughter.”
Violet stiffened, her back straightening in the chair as she gave Caesar a look from the side. She needed to know what in the hell he was doing or playing at before she could join in.
She hoped he wasn’t doing what she thought he was doing …
Caesar was a bastard—he’d said it himself—but was he so much of a bastard that he’d sacrifice her for his own gain?
“Ask her what?” Alberto barked. “She isn’t the one barging into my home and rescinding on a deal—”
“There was no deal to begin with,” Caesar interjected calmly. “Don’t you understand, Alberto? This never existed in the first place—it would have never happened. Ask. Her.”
Alberto’s face reddened in his anger, but he turned on Violet, looking like he was ready to make war. “What is he going on about?”
“I don’t know,” Violet said.
Her heart thumped hard in her chest, the panic making her throat thick. Even still, her words came out clear and confident. She was far too good at this lying thing.
“She does know,” Caesar replied, sighing. “She knows exactly what I’m talking about. She’s too precious to the Russian, Alberto. And when you have precious things that others want to take, the best thing you can do is give them over to someone else who thinks they’re precious, too. Even if it’s only for a little while.”
Violet’s head snapped to the side, and she glared hard at Caesar.
“Tell him,” Caesar said, still smiling in that cold way of his. “Tell him why the Russian sent you away, Violet.”
She swallowed hard, her teeth grinding in an effort to keep quiet.
“You’re a bastard,” she told Caesar.
His expression didn’t change a bit. “Let’s see how much of one, though, huh?”
“Violet.” Alberto’s snarl of her name felt like a whip of ice cracking over her skin. What was she supposed to do now? Lie? It seemed if she did lie, Caesar was going to tell her secret anyway. But who was there to help her now? “What is he talking about?”
That panic and the small swell of fear that had swept over Violet earlier began to slowly bleed away as she stared at her father.
She didn’t know why, and even knowing what she did about Alberto Gallucci, she found it hard to be truly afraid of him.
And she wasn’t ashamed.
Not of herself, or the baby she was carrying.
Concerned for her safety, yes.
Not ashamed.
“Violet,” Caesar said quietly, “tell him or I will.”
She closed her eyes for a brief second, needing the darkness and the calm it provided. It was just enough for her to think but not much more.
“Tell me wh—”
Violet’s eyes snapped open, and she found her father staring at her, his brows furrowing and his features darkening. As though maybe he was starting to realize what Caesar had been alluding to where Kaz was concerned, and why he would really send Violet back.
“I’m …” Violet took a breath, calmer than ever and surprised about that fact. “I’m pregnant.”
From the side, Violet could see Caesar’s smile growing.
He was a bastard.
He honestly was.
But there was something in his smile—pride, maybe?
Violet thought it looked more like assurance as Caesar pushed up from the table as if he was done with the entire conversation and day.
What had he done?
What was he planning?
Alberto was frozen, stiff like a statue and staring at Violet as though she was an alien who didn’t belong at his table or in his house.
Truthfully, she didn’t belong there.
She was always meant to be with someone else.
“And that,” Caesar said with a laugh, “is why this sham will never happen.”
Alberto’s mouth opened; he tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
Violet wasn’t sure how to take that.
Carmine, on the other hand, didn’t look the least bit surprised. In fact, that asshole just seemed smug. “I told you. I fucking told you that the Russian wouldn’t just send her back because he was done with her. It was too much effort, Dad. He did too much for—”
“Cazzo, be quiet!” Alberto roared.
Her brother flinched at their father’s rage.
Violet didn’t even twitch.
She was too calm for fear, as strange as that was.
She only felt the faintest flicker of fear when Alberto moved around the table slowly, coming toward her. Violet stood from her seat and took a couple of steps back, just enough to move away from the table and not much more.
“Say it again,” her father demanded.
Violet didn’t hesitate. “I’m pregnant. Eight weeks when he sent me here. Almost twelve weeks now.”
Alberto’s lips curled at the edges in a sneer, but a sound thick with disbelief escaped him all the same. Violet didn’t think she had ever seen her father look so … entirely out of control.
He didn’t know what to do or say, she realized.
He’d never considered this.
Violet had another realization that came on much heavier and faster than the first. It kicked her in the stomach at the same time her father came to stand in front of her.
He couldn’t hide this.
Alberto could do many things where Violet was concerned. He could wipe away the things she had done, set her up in a good marriage that would eventually mask her behavior and actions.
What he could never do, though, was fix a pregnancy.
He couldn’t kill the baby, or force her to do it, not being a God-fearing man like he was. He was a bad man, to be sure, but was he that horrible?
She was already three months along, and whatever plans he had for the marriage wouldn’t have happened for at least another month or more. There would be no passing the child off as someone else’s.
Alberto was backed into a corner.
Nothing he could do would correct this.
Maybe it was that understanding—more than anything—that finally scared Violet.
As fast as lightning, Alberto’s hand came up from his side and grabbed Violet’s face in a stinging, hard grip. His fingers dug into her jaw, holding her in place as he forced her to look up at him.
There was hatred there …
In his gaze, the same hue as hers, she saw hatred.
She had never seen that before.
Not from her father.
“You lied to me—tricked me.” Alberto squeezed her harder, shaking her face just a bit. “Why?”
Violet focused on her father’s rage fueled expression and his words instead of the pain blooming in her face from his rough handling.
She didn’t have a good answer for him.
She had nothing.
“You little … bitch,” Alberto hissed.
Violet stumbled back as her father’s hand shoved against her face, pushing her back into the chair and table. She caught herself in time to keep her from hitting the floor, and she straightened right back up again, refusing to be under her father in any way.
She was not going to give him the chance to hit her when she was down.
Alberto came closer again, but Violet didn’t move.
“You’re a lying, useless fucking whore.”
His words barely stung.
She let them bounce off her.
His fists tightened into balls at his sides, and it was only then that Violet chose to speak again, carefully picking each word she said to make sure her father heard what mattered the most.
“Please don’t hurt my child, Daddy,” Violet said softly.
Alberto hesitated.
Barely.
But he did.
She saw it.
Violet kept going, knowing damn well that if she gave h
er father the chance to think about his anger for too long, it might not end well for her. “You can hate me forever—you can hate him, too. We did this, I know. But please don’t hurt my baby. What good will it do—what good will punishing me do? You already know what Kaz would do for me. Imagine the hell he will cause you if you hurt his child, too.”
She probably should have stopped at asking him not to hurt the child.
Her intention was not to taunt her father but to warn him.
Violet knew far better than that.
And there was a small part—so very small—that did love him.
Alberto only heard what he wanted to.
She should have expected that, too.
Violet only saw the flash of her father’s hand coming at her fast before it cracked across her cheek. She didn’t get the chance to blink before he hit her again—then again.
The action was profound.
It made her ache.
Not because it hurt, no, but because no matter how much she knew her father was capable of doing, she never truly believed he would physically hurt her. He’d never hit her before. Never even threatened to, really.
Alberto grabbed the collar of the dress she wore, pulling hard and he attempted to drag her away from the table. She felt the fabric bite into her skin before she heard it rip loudly, and then another slap snapped onto her right cheek.
Violet tasted the blood seeping onto her tongue.
A ring thrummed in her ears.
Alberto only stopped long enough to grab her face again as he had earlier, and he clouded her vision, hateful, angry … and sad.
Violet found in that second, she didn’t care.
She didn’t care how her father felt or how much she hurt him.
He’d done this to himself.
“He’s already killed his father,” Violet said, a breathless laugh following right behind her words. “Who do you fucking think he’s coming for next?”
Alberto hesitated.
Again.
Once could be dismissed as a mistake.
Twice might be a saving grace.
Alberto’s grip on Violet loosened. “Why?”
She didn’t know what he was asking. He must have seen the confusion in her eyes.
“All I have ever done was love you—why have you done this to me?”
“It’s not about you,” Violet whispered. “That’s the thing, Daddy. It’s never been about you. You’re the only one who wants it all to be for you.”
Violet had forgotten about the other two people in the room who watched the entire scene unfold without so much as a word. They hadn’t tried to step in, and maybe that was for the better. Who knew what would have happened if they had tried to help.
Not that she thought they would.
Violet was coming to learn that no one was out to help someone else.
No hand would help her up.
She had to do this shit herself.
Alberto’s voice wavered as he said, “We didn’t know you were going to be a girl until you came out into the world screaming in the middle of the night. Your mother was feeling strange—the doctors said she had the baby blues, and it would pass eventually. It never really did with you. So there I was, left to pick your name, and I wanted it to be perfect for you, dolcezza. I wanted you to know how beautiful and loved you were all of your life.”
“And you called me Violet.”
“Because you were beautiful, so precious.”
“Fragile,” Violet replied just as fast. “Dependent; at the mercy of someone else. Easily broken. Forgotten and dying.”
Alberto blinked, silenced.
“I’m none of those things, Daddy, not now.”
“I loved you,” he forced out.
Violet nodded. “With strings. So many strings. Don’t hate me for cutting them when I had the chance.”
Alberto’s hold on her tightened briefly before he let go altogether, shoving her away and pointing a finger at her. “It seems I’ve wasted my effort on the wrong person—my mistake, Violet. It won’t happen again, sweetheart. You’ll understand soon enough what it feels like to have your entire soul ripped away from you while you’re laughed at. You’ll understand how much this hurts and what it feels like to lose your heart. Soon—I don’t need to teach your Russian a lesson, I only need to teach you.”
He turned his back on her when he finished. Violet fixed her ripped dress as best she could, bracing herself for the chance that her father might turn back on her again.
He didn’t.
He kept walking.
Right out of the dining room, around the corner, and out of her sight.
Violet sucked in a shaky breath.
Then she heard his shout, ringing loud and cutting deep.
“Ottenere la cagna fuori,” he had said.
Get the bitch out.
She had heard his threats—veiled as they were—loud and clear just a second ago.
However, she didn’t think she had heard him right at that moment.
“Come on—move,” Caesar ordered.
Violet felt his hand pushing on her lower back, but she was still staring dumbly in the direction her father had gone.
“I don’t …” She struggled to find the words to say.
Caesar was still pushing her forward. “We need to move before he changes his mind, Violet.”
Changes his mind.
Right.
Violet caught sight of Carmine over her shoulder as she was led out of the dining room, still holding her torn dress together to keep some sense of modesty. Her brother hadn’t moved, not once. He still sat at the table, arms crossed and a scowl etched on his face.
It was as if he didn’t give a fuck.
Not about her.
Not about his father.
None of it.
He only cared for himself.
Violet had come to learn that was just the Gallucci way.
It was the only way someone could survive in their family.
“Stop pushing me,” Violet snapped at Caesar as he shoved her harder down the hallway toward the front door. “I’m walking just fine on my own.”
“Walk faster. I didn’t lie. I actually do have a fucking plane to catch.”
“You’re still a bastard.”
Caesar smiled. “This isn’t news.”
“Here.”
A blazer landed on Violet’s lap in a heap. Caesar never took his gaze off the road as he drove through Amityville, heading toward the city.
“Put it on and cover up,” Caesar said.
Violet had done her best to keep her ruined dress together over her front, but it hadn’t helped all that much. It had been nothing short of humiliating to walk the long length of the driveway to get inside Caesar’s waiting car looking a mess like she was.
“Thanks,” Violet mumbled.
She pulled the navy blazer on and buttoned it down the front. At least, she was covered.
“Your Russian, tell me about him,” Caesar said.
Violet wasn’t sure that was a good idea. “Uh …”
Caesar surprised her when he started talking again. He named Kaz’s family members, his affiliation to the Chicago Boykovs, and even the date they were married.
It was information she knew that Kaz wouldn’t be pleased Caesar knew.
“Seems you already know quite a bit,” she told him.
Caesar shrugged. “I had to know something, didn’t I? I needed something to go on for who your father was dealing with. I was already looking before I stumbled upon your little secret there.”
He pointed toward her stomach.
Violet just glared right back.
“And you couldn’t do this whole thing without making me out the fact I was pregnant?”
“I could have,” Caesar argued, “but this was a more viable option.”
Violet’s eyes turned into slits as she stared at the man across from her. “Viable? How so?”
“You could cut out the at
titude, Violet. I could have done all of this without giving a shit about you. Philly is calling my name—I could have gone back anytime and left you to fend for yourself until your Russian showed back up, if he got the chance to do that before your father killed you. Because for the record, with the way Alberto goes on sometimes, that was likely.”
Anger bubbled up hard and swift in Violet’s gut. “I don’t know if you missed what happened, but he almost did kill me today!”
“But he didn’t,” Caesar replied quietly. “And I counted on that. There’s one other thing you and I have in common that I didn’t mention before.”
“God, you’re an asshole.”
Caesar ignored her. “We’re both our father’s favorites. It’s a flaw they have—a weakness to manipulate. I thought—maybe—you wouldn’t be dirty enough to play on that flaw of your father’s as I’ve done to mine. I underestimated you, Violet.”
She swallowed thickly. “I didn’t—”
“You did. Don’t bother to lie. You used him once, and then you did it again. But here’s the thing—because if I don’t tell you, fucking nobody will. Sometimes, we can only push them so far. We can only use that once, maybe twice, if we’re lucky, and then we’re screwed. You did that today—Alberto gave you your one time to use him today, Violet. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Violet thought she might. “He looked like he hated me.”
Caesar nodded, his gaze sliding toward her before going back to the road. “Because now he does.”
She squeezed her hands tightly together, wishing she wasn’t there at all and that this whole day hadn’t happened.
“I just want to go home,” Violet said to herself.
“Yeah, me too. We’re working on that. Now, your Russian. Tell me about him.”
Violet sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Is he typically easygoing?”
She laughed.
With her? Yes.
With someone else?
“He’s bearable to people he likes,” Violet said.
Caesar drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Wonderful. I am sure he’ll be incredibly pleasant to the Italian bringing you into Russian territory. They say I like to find trouble for myself. Clearly, they do not understand the mess the New York family is.”
