by Lisa Cardiff
With a precision I had learned from snooping in my father’s office as a teenager, I combed through paper after paper, looking for anything the police might have missed, including the letters from my grandfather’s estate and Gavin’s simple gold wedding ring.
Two hours later, darkness closed in on me, and I felt more lost than I did when I left the police station. I flipped on the single bulb lamp on top of the dented gray file cabinet in the corner and cracked open a bottle of Gavin’s Johnny Walker Blue Label. A Google search revealed it set him back over one hundred and fifty dollars a bottle, so I figured I might as well make use of it. Mentally, I added a penchant for expensive whiskey to the long list of things I didn’t know about my dead husband.
Hefting the bottle to my lips, I poured the fiery liquid into my mouth. Hints of hazelnut and honey swirled in my mouth, or at least that was what the website told me I should taste so I convinced myself I could. After too many swigs to count, my belly was warm and life didn’t seem quite so bad.
I fumbled with the cap, and it fell on the floor, rolling underneath the desk. Dropping to my knees, I crawled under the small cavity, blindly searching for it. The muted light combined with the alcohol impaired my vision, so I blindly swatted at the cold concrete, finally giving up after a few minutes.
As I popped up, my head banged against the bottom of the desk.
“Fuckin’ cocksucker!” I shouted, jamming my fist into underside of the center drawer. Instead of hitting wood, my knuckles collided with paper. Curious, I tugged on the corner and pried loose a small stack of papers folded in thirds from the support beam of the drawer.
By the time I sat back in my chair, my mind cleared more than I would have imagined possible given my alcohol intake. The minute I unfolded the papers, I saw the letterhead, and I realized Gavin had been lying to me about more than his affair with Vicki. I scanned the contents of the duplicate letters from my grandfather’s estate informing me of my inheritance.
I had no clue why Gavin had hidden this from me. Before I learned about his affair and his intention to divorce me, I would have chalked it up to him wanting to protect me from my past. Now I wasn’t sure of anything. Nothing made sense.
I blinked a few times to clear my vision, and a tear tumbled from my chin, splashing onto the letter, smearing the estate representative’s bold black signature. Until that second, I hadn’t realized I was crying. Fitting. I was always the last to know everything about myself.
I stared at the words until they blurred into a jumble of incomprehensible symbols. The only thing I knew with any certainty was that I was cursed. I had to be. There was no other explanation. Every single time I attempted to start over, fate smashed me over the head and showed me I was a complete idiot. I had to be the worst judge of character. I mean, I couldn’t imagine anyone being worse at it than me. Somehow, I managed to turn everyone against me, and I couldn’t find it in me to blame them. I couldn’t strand myself right now either.
I pulled out my phone to email Ron when a voice interrupted me.
“Emilia?”
A chill resembling a finger down my spine rippled through me. I froze, my eyes wide and alarmed, scanning the shadows outside the door. Stupid as it sounded, my intoxicated mind convinced me Gavin decided to visit me from the other side.
“Emilia, are you in here?” Footsteps echoed over the floor. A couple of the horses neighed and shifted restlessly in their stalls. I said nothing. I didn’t even breathe for fear of alerting whoever it was to my presence. I silently begged the light bulb on the lamp to burn out. It didn’t comply. Seconds ticked by like hours as the footsteps became louder and louder until they sounded like drumfire in my ears.
A shadowed figure crossed the threshold to Gavin’s office, and a scream erupted from my lips before I could process the situation. I hurled the open Johnny Walker bottle through the air. A loud grunt punctuated the explosion of the bottle against the doorframe.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Che cazzo,” Marcello blurted out as he flipped on the overhead light.
“Oh crap. I’m sorry. I thought you were, ah, a—”
He lifted one eyebrow with more than a little arrogance. “An intruder? Bear? Mountain lion?” When I didn’t respond, he said, “I’m waiting.”
“A ghost?” I said like it was a question instead of an answer because I wasn’t drunk enough not to be embarrassed for acting like a jumpy lunatic.
“A ghost. I wasn’t expecting that answer.” He kicked the shards of glass away from his feet. “I’m curious. What did you think a bottle of whiskey would do to a ghost?”
“Scare him?”
I studied his impenetrable features for a silent beat. He stood with his shoulder propped against the doorframe, his arms folded across his torso, and his eyebrows pulled together. Other than on this trip, I rarely saw him dressed casually. Usually he was in some custom-tailored suit complete with a tie. Tonight he wore fitted dark jeans and a black long sleeve t-shirt that had a nasty habit of highlighting all of his well-sculpted muscles. He was more resistible when he was all buttoned up and aloof with calm self-assurance and sophistication.
“You look tired.”
“Thanks for pointing out the obvious.” Angling to the side, I covertly rubbed at the mascara that surely ringed my eyes as a result of my prolonged crying jag. “What are you doing out here?”
He strolled into the office, his shoes crunching over the glass, looking completely in command despite the fact that I nearly decapitated him with a bottle of whiskey. “Don’t be an asshole. It’s almost midnight. You never showed up for dinner, and your truck was parked outside the garage. Someone killed your husband not too long ago, and for all I know, you could be next. I was concerned.”
My stomach knotted in alarm. Although I hadn’t considered that possibility, I didn’t want Marcello thinking he had to babysit me. “Well, as you can see, I’m just fine, thank you very much, so go back to bed or whatever you were doing. I’m not your problem. In fact, I’ve been on my own for a long time. I don’t need anybody.”
“Is that so?”
I scooped up the letters from the estate attorney, crumpling them in my fist. I had no clue what I intended to accomplish except possibly hiding them from Marcello. The ugly details of my life felt like a festering wound, and I didn’t need him or anyone else laughing at my stupidity.
“Please leave. I don’t have the energy to go in circles with you tonight.”
Ignoring my plea, he rounded the desk and pulled me into his arms. Goddamnit! As much as I wanted to push him away, I didn’t have the strength to do it. I buried my face in his spicy-scented shirt, and all the tears I’d only let out in measured amounts rushed out of my eyes like a freakin’ faucet.
My body shook, and my knees threatened to buckle. Marcello only held me tighter, mumbling little phrases in Italian I couldn’t understand. I didn’t know much of the language before I ran away. Now it seemed like a whole different lifetime when I was the sullen mafia princess with a bad attitude and a plan to take on the world by myself without the baggage of being affiliated with the Trassatos. Apparently, I didn’t know shit, because I only managed to mess up my life even more than if I had walked the family line and done what they had asked of me.
“The police interrogation couldn’t have been that bad. Ron didn’t think so anyway.”
“No.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek, struggling to bring myself back into control while purposely ignoring the fact that Ron talked to him about the meeting. What happened to attorney client privilege? I guess it went out the window when you represented people affiliated with criminal organizations, which currently included me. I was firmly under my father’s umbrella right now, and I didn’t care all that much. I didn’t have anyone else to lean on right now anyway. “It wasn’t the interrogation. Well, it was, but it was more than that.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” His warm breath brushed the strands of hair on the crown of my head, and I m
elted into him a little more. Common sense told me not to trust him or to get caught up in his orbit again. Sadly, I was too weak to resist him or anything he was offering. I desperately needed someone else to shoulder the weight of all of my messes and worries for a little while, even if it hurt worse in the long run.
“What do you know about this?” I wedged the balled-up letters from my grandfather’s estate attorney between us.
He sat in the chair, never releasing his hold on me so I ended up perched on his thighs, my back tight to his chest. With one hand, he smoothed the papers on the desktop. He glanced at it for less than thirty seconds.
“You inherited a significant chunk of your grandfather’s estate when he died. That shouldn’t cause any tears.”
Needing to see his reaction, I turned to face him. “Did you know about this?”
“Of course. Was it a secret?”
“From me, yes.”
“This letter is dated months ago.”
“Gavin hid it from me, and I can’t figure out why. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Men are dumb as fuck most of the time. Maybe he was afraid you’d leave him. Maybe he had plans to tell you and the timing never worked out.”
I scoffed. “He wouldn’t have taped the letters to the underside of drawer if he intended to share it with me.”
“You can’t get the truth out of a dead man.”
“What about you?”
He frowned. “Me?”
“Yeah. How long have you known about this?” I jabbed my finger into the letter. The conversation I’d overheard between Sal and Lettie before I left led me to believe the possible inheritance was the only reason Marcello had any interest in me. That assertion, coupled with Sal’s apparent relationship with Lettie and his interest in the money to clear his debt, spurred my flight from New York. In retrospect, I should have stayed and confronted them all. I could only chalk my cowardly behavior up to being young and inexperienced.
“It was part of the negotiations for our engagement.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” I said, facing forward again, unable to look at him another second.
I rubbed a hand over the ache growing inside my chest, willing it away. None of this was news. I’d mulled over these details many times in the last few years. I knew the money that was supposed to come my way someday motivated both Sal and Marcello to pursue me. And yet…a fanciful part of me wanted to believe Marcello loved me a little bit the night I gave myself to him.
On the bright side, at least I could stop deluding myself. He essentially confirmed he wanted to get his hands on whatever my grandfather left me. A man I never knew existed before Sal laughingly joked about how my inheritance would benefit him. A man whose death guaranteed my financial security, or so my attorney implied. It was strange how he gave me money most people only dreamed about having while simultaneously dooming me to a life of men pursuing me for greed instead of love.
I hunched forward, wishing I was alone again. Instead of cheering me up, Marcello somehow managed to highlight my baggage. No matter how many miles I put between my former life and me, I couldn’t shake its grip. I was my ancestors’ unwilling captive.
Ignoring Marcello, I tapped on my phone and continued to draft an email to my attorney.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Hey.” Marcello tightened his arms around my waist and drew my back against the firm planes of his chest. “Where are you going? We’re still talking.”
“No.” I jabbed my elbow in his side to no avail. “I’m done, actually, so you can let me go now.”
He snatched my phone from my hand, and I used the opportunity to remove myself from his lap.
“What’s this?” he asked, coming to his feet and turning my phone toward me.
“An email to my attorney.”
“Hmm. You can do that in the morning when you’re thinking clearly.” He closed the window and pulled up the photo app. He could snoop all he wanted. I literally had nothing on there. His brows knitted. “Is this a new phone?”
“No,” I snapped.
“Where are your pictures?”
I rolled my eyes. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t have any.”
“Why?”
“Maybe I’m not sentimental, or maybe I never had anything or anyone to take a picture of.”
“Not even your husband?”
“Especially not my husband.”
He grunted and kissed the corner of my mouth. It should have been a simple, meaningless gesture, only it felt like more. I tensed, not wanting to fall into the trap of begging him for something he already refused. Not tonight when I was already so vulnerable.
“You don’t have to pretend with me anymore. Just come out and tell me what the plan is this time around. You tried to seduce me last time. What’s next? Are you going to offer me a deal I can’t refuse? All my dreams on the platter in exchange for access to that stupid money I don’t give a shit about?”
He barked out a husky laugh, and I thought my head was going to explode. “You’re mad about the money? That deals were made concerning your future long before you could speak your first word? Well, wake up, little girl. That’s how our world works. Deals are made, money is exchanged. Life goes on. Get over it.”
My already swimming vision morphed into a crimson haze. I swung my arms and legs through the air, connecting with anything in the vicinity. The desk, his shin, the underside of his jaw, his rock-hard chest. Seconds later, Marcello catapulted me off my feet onto the top of the desk, lying flat on my back. He pinned my hands above my head and wedged his body against my thighs, incapacitating me.
“Emilia,” he cautioned in a steely, ruthless voice, “grow up. If you can’t say what you mean without acting like a child, then do us both a favor and table this conversation until you’re more rational.”
“Fuck you.” I jerked my arms, testing his grip once again. He held firm, his lips curling up at the corners as if he enjoyed my frustration. He always treated me like an amusing child before I ran away, and today it looked as if we had fallen back into our old patterns. “God, I hate you!”
“Wrong answer,” Marcello said.
I closed my eyes briefly, sucking air in through my nose, struggling to calm my reaction to him before I spoke again and focused on the truth. Yes, I wanted the truth for once in my godforsaken life. I was damn sick of men jerking my chain, swatting at me like an insignificant fly buzzing around their head. I pried open my eyes and faced my concerns because I was taking back my life. Nobody could turn me into a victim except myself.
“You want my inheritance? Is that why you’re sticking around even though we’ve only managed to hurt each other since the moment we met? Fine. What will it take for you to leave me alone? I don’t know exactly how much I have, so how about twenty percent for all your trouble?”
From this angle, I had a clear line to his face. He clenched his teeth together, the muscles in his jaw ticking like a bomb. Dark stubble covered his jaw, making him look menacing. Trepidation clogged my throat, and I wasn’t sure I should push him. Maybe I’d gone too far this time.
“You want to know the entire ugly history of our fucked-up engagement?” I nodded, not even sure if the gesture registered in his mind. “Your father asked that you be kept in the dark, and against my better judgment, I honored his wishes. He didn’t want you to think poorly of your mom, but I’m getting sick of being the bad guy in this story.”
His lips contorted in disgust, and he released my hands, hedging back a few steps. I rose onto my elbows, taking in a huge mouthful of air to regain my wits and diminish the anger building like a tornado inside my chest.
“Ava, your mother was engaged to my father. Their marriage was supposed to be a big deal—the union of two major families; lots of money and other investments was involved. There was a huge engagement party. Our families invited every connected man and their family in the U.S. and the old world. Ava had moved into our guesthouse about six mon
ths earlier to get to know us and make sure it was a good fit. Everything was perfect, or at least from my perspective, but I was a kid, so what did I know? My dad seemed happier than I’d ever seen him since my mom died. Ava filled a hole in our home life. Everything was perfect until the engagement party.”
“What happened?” I whispered, even though I had a sneaking suspicion where this story was headed, and it wouldn’t paint either of my parents in a respectable light. It was like watching a car crash. I couldn’t look away, or in this case walk away and let the past die. I needed to know what deal my parents made that put me on this path.
“Ava gave a short performance at the party, and like everyone in the room, your father was enchanted. When she slipped out the back door of our house to grab something from her bedroom in the guesthouse, your dad followed her. I don’t know what happened after that except that my father caught them in a compromising situation. You can imagine the shit that went down between the families over the next few months. Your grandfather negotiated some sort of peace deal. Your mother could marry your dad, and their child would either marry Mila or me, depending on whether you were a boy or girl. Ava’s inheritance would bypass her and go to her child. So you see, the minute you were born, our marriage was cemented.”
“And you were just supposed to come and what? Collect me one day and we’d live happily ever after?”
“We were supposed to spend one week every summer together from the time you were three, with your mom and your Aunt Helena acting as chaperones.”
He cocked his head to the side. “You don’t remember meeting me when we were kids, do you? I thought you were playing games because you were hung up on Sal.”
“Remember?” I sat up, my feet dangling off the desk and my attention glued to the scuffs on my black lace-up flats. “I have no clue what you’re talking about. I saw you that one time outside my dad’s study, and that was it until you showed up for our engagement party.”
