Sitting at the bar never happened.
Sitting next to a woman never happened.
I couldn't get a good look at her, no matter how I tried, her back stayed to the VIP level. But there was no mistaking the way she radiated pure class in a pencil skirt and blouse, with raven hair that slid down to her waist. Scar bought her a drink, turning his undivided attention to the woman.
"Who do you think that is?" Enzo asked me.
I shrugged, even if something about her slender build seemed familiar. I couldn't place her, try as I might. Not without the face.
"Maybe she's one of the girls?" I asked. Enzo pursed his lip in thought, shaking his head after a minute.
"I'd remember that hair," he said. I didn't doubt he would, such was Enzo's memory about little details like that.
I watched for a moment, and when she finally turned her head to the side to face the bartender, I got a good look. "Fuck," I hissed. "Doesn't matter."
"Who is she?"
"No one that Scar will ever let himself touch if he finds out who she is. She's too clean for him. He'll think he doesn't deserve her." I shook my head, wishing I could get through to the stubborn man who had dedicated himself to protecting Ivory. Who'd given his life for hers without hesitation, and then somehow miraculously survived.
"I don't know man; do you see the way he's looking at her?"
"I don't blame him. She's one Hell of a woman. Only an idiot would let her walk away," I grunted, tapping the bar at the edge of the VIP area twice and heading for my office. I needed a drink if I had to watch Scar sabotage the best thing that would ever happen to him. Enzo followed, though he seemed hesitant to leave the show.
He didn't know Scar like I did, didn't know the history he had and all the ways it had left a mark on him. He'd watch all of us find our women, believing that we deserved it. In his mind, we'd given him everything. Given him a second chance at life. Pulled him off the streets and away from the mother who couldn't be bothered to care about him.
Matteo had already started trying to arrange a match for him, as his status as Ivory's bodyguard earned him a wife. But nothing would work, nothing would convince the man that he could have a woman by his side and not stain her with the things he'd done.
The things he'd survived on the streets.
Maybe the woman downstairs would be enough to pull his head out of his ass.
But more likely he'd hightail it without touching her.
Within minutes he'd come up the steps, joining Enzo and me. The look on his face confirmed everything I would ever need to know.
"Who was that?" Enzo asked, grinning at him like he'd found a juicy piece of gossip.
He sighed, looking down at the floor below and undoubtedly staring at her where even from my desk I could see she sat with her head hanging and dejected. "Someone who deserves far better than me."
Enzo's eyes glanced to me, but I shook my head.
One day, I'd force him to see that he wasn't tainted by his childhood. That he could have a life of his own and not give up his loyalty to the Bellandi's.
It was just not that day.
“Why don’t you go ahead and give Ryker a call?” I asked him, putting a stop to whatever prying Enzo might have been ready to unleash on Scar. “I need an update on Connor. See what he’s found.” I did need the update, in all fairness. I’d intended to make the call myself, so that Ryker could hear the frustration in my voice again and know exactly what was at stake.
My sanity.
I needed him to be found. The threat he posed to Samara was just too much for me to tolerate. Any threat to her was too much, but the piece of shit who’d hurt her would have a special place in Hell waiting for him when I finally let him die.
Scar cleared his throat, brushing off the lingering melancholy that the woman he so clearly wanted had prompted in favor of going back into business mode for my sake. “You got it, Lino. Mia Romano just walked in. I know you were looking to have a word with her and maybe string her up in the warehouse,” Scar said with an uneasy chuckle. There wasn’t much that we drew the line at, but hurting women was generally one of them.
But sometimes it was unavoidable for the ones who really deserved to suffer.
Mia’s crimes hadn’t warranted her death, but they did warrant her getting out of my fucking club. “Send her up and then call Ryker from Enzo’s office while I deal with her bullshit,” I ordered, pouring myself a drink.
I didn’t bother sitting, lingering at the window of my office and staring down into the club to watch as Scar approached Mia. She flinched when he barked at her and pointed up to my office, and her eyes were big when she followed his finger up. She couldn’t see me, but from the look on her face I would have guessed that she knew damn well I was watching.
She heaved out a heavy breath and nodded before making her way to the staircase. I didn’t move from my spot at the window as I sipped my whiskey. The sound of her heels thumping against the floor told me the moment she stepped up to the door.
“Lino—” she sighed, anxiety in her voice.
“I think Mr. Bellandi will do just fine. Let’s not pretend that we’re friends.” I spun to face her, setting my drink down on the corner of my desk and leveling her with a glare that I knew would make Matteo proud—all cold intensity and not a trace of any emotion. My temper normally ran hot. I usually lost myself to the fire of it and showed too much of myself, but I’d worked to school my features.
I’d learned, and I tossed all of that effort in her face.
“I just worried about her. I wanted her to understand—”
“That you think I’m the type to fuck around on my wife? Please Ms. Romano, explain to me how my sex life has ever been any of your business? Fucking my father does not make you my mother.” I sneered at her, daring her to deny the accusation.
She’d long ago thought she might have a relationship with my father, that she might be wife number three. Instead, he’d married Trista and kept Mia as one of his regular side pieces. Somehow, she tolerated that place in his life, but blamed Trista for it.
I imagined she hated Samara purely on principle for being the wife that she had never had the opportunity to be.
A Bellandi wife.
“Your father broke Trista. I thought to save Samara from the same fate when you inevitably go back to the girls and the ease of your no-strings relationships. She should be prepared for what you’ll do to her—”
“Don’t speak like you know the first thing about me or my relationship with Samara. I wouldn’t have married her if I didn’t have every intention of staying loyal to her. I married her because she’s the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
Her eyes widened as I stepped around the desk to approach her. “But your father said that you only married her to protect her! He said that it wasn’t a real marriage.”
I smiled. The fact that she still trusted my father after all her years with him and his lies was incredible. “He played you. Used you to toy with Samara and hope that he could drive a wedge between us, but he can’t. You can’t. So, you’ve thrown yourself on the cross for nothing. Samara is still my wife. In fact, we’re closer than ever thanks to you.”
I leaned back on my desk, perching on the edge and crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m glad that she was strong enough to handle what I said. If what you say is true, I really hope you manage to be happy together. I’ll believe it when I see it, but maybe you’ll surprise me.” She turned, striding for the door like the conversation was done.
Like there wouldn’t be consequences for interfering in my marriage. “You won’t have the opportunity to see it,” I said, and her body flinched like I’d struck her. “You’re fired. I highly suggest you leave Chicago before my father finds another way to use you in what’s coming if he doesn’t learn to shut his mouth. I want you out of my club, and if I ever see you again, I won’t be so lenient. My wife does not exist to you. I do not exist to you. Understood?” I growled, and the tears in her
eyes as she turned to look back at me weren’t fake.
She’d invested years into the club, helping build it from the ground up.
“I understand,” she mumbled, hurrying out the door and disappearing down the hall.
With a sigh, I followed. But my destination wasn’t to leave.
I went for Enzo’s office, and the sound of Scar’s pissed off voice didn’t bode well for news of Connor’s whereabouts.
When we found him, I was going to cut him for every day he made me and my family hunt him down.
I just hoped he survived long enough to really, truly suffer.
Forty-Five
Samara
"Hey mommy," I murmured, leaning up to kiss her cheek as she strolled into the kitchen with Lino at her back. My body winced with soreness as I stretched up onto my toes. Sadie had kicked my ass at our last session, and I would swear the muscles in my toes hurt.
I didn’t even know toes had muscles before her.
"Hey, pretty girl. I'm so happy Sunday dinner is a thing again now that you two are settled. You have no idea how much I look forward to Lino's cooking during the week." She slipped onto a stool next to me, and I eyed her brightly colored skirt curiously. The tribal pattern was stunning and suited her bohemian look well.
"You're welcome anytime, Hattie," Lino murmured.
"Don't tell her that." I scowled at him. "She'll be here every night. When she tells you she loves your cooking, she really means, move me into the spare bedroom and call me mommy if it means you'll feed me."
My mother howled with laughter at my side, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and tugging me into her side dramatically.
Like it wasn't true.
"She's right," she agreed, giving Lino a beaming smile. "I best stick to once a week. I wouldn't want to intrude on the newlyweds." The buzzer sounded at the front, alerting us to the fact that our other guest had arrived at the gate. The guard was under instructions to let him through, so I knew he'd follow soon after. My stomach knotted with tension, because while the last interaction with him hadn't been hostile, it also hadn't had mom present to poke at it and Yavin and Lino still needed to have a conversation.
I hadn't been sure he'd come at all.
"That will be Yavin," Lino said, going to the door. He waited for the bell to ring at the front door.
"What's got you all twisted up?" Mom asked, and I looked at her out of the corner of my eye.
"Yavin wasn't exactly supportive of Lino and I becoming a thing."
"Oh, pish posh, I'll grab that boy around the ears and knock some sense into him. I swear, all the people in the damn world, and that boy was the only one who couldn't see you two were crazy about each other. Aside from you two, anyway." Mom's swinging arm almost caught me in the face, her enthusiasm so intense that I feared for my life. I slid off the stool, deciding it would probably be safer to put some distance between us.
If Yavin pissed her off, I'd lose my head when the arms got going.
I did not feel like being collateral damage.
When the bell rang, Lino yanked the door open. For once, I wished he would have let me answer it, but I understood his need to present himself as a barrier. As much as it infuriated me, the man needed to stake a claim, even with my brother.
I was a sister and daughter second now.
A wife first.
Soon enough, a mother first.
I swallowed down my apprehension, listening for Yavin to greet Lino. "Hey," he said simply.
"Hey," Lino grunted, stepping aside to let him in. Yavin went for Mom first, always respectful and pressing a kiss to her cheek before he turned his attention to me. By the time he got there, Lino had taken up residence in the kitchen, checking the dinner he'd put in the oven.
"Sis," Yavin murmured, kissing my cheek like he had Mom's. "We good?"
I rolled my eyes at the typical male show of making up without ever talking about the problem. "Sure." Even if I wanted to nag at him and rage that he’d betrayed me for calling Lino, he’d done it for the best reasons, and it had worked out just fine.
Lino loved me. I couldn’t be mad about any of the circumstances that brought that knowledge to my life. I knew that a conversation still had to happen between the boys, but as far as I was concerned, I could move on if he did. "You good with them, Mom?" he asked, and I sighed before dropping into my seat.
"Don't be stupid," she spat. "Of course I'm good with them together. Only one who didn't see it coming is you." Lino snorted as he stood from checking the chicken in the oven.
"Do you need help?" I asked, looking for something to do with my hands.
"I'd like dinner to be edible, vita mia," he teased. "Why don't you grab a wine? White." I nodded moving to the wine fridge and picking the first white I saw. Lino smiled down at me as he popped the cork, and I knew he wondered if I'd ever put any thought into what wine we drank.
I wouldn't.
"If you wanted a domestic wife, you chose way wrong," I laughed, leaning up to kiss him briefly. I felt Yavin's eyes on us but chose to ignore it. I wouldn't pretend Lino wasn't my husband, wouldn't pretend we were all just friends still to make him more comfortable. I needed to settle into a normal and force him to be comfortable.
I didn't anticipate the way Lino wrapped his arms around me, staring down at me like I'd hung the moon and stars. "There was never a choice, Little Dove." The softness in his voice made me blush, knowing that he referred to the fact that we'd both known we were it for each other when we were too young to understand.
Circumstances had kept us apart.
But fuck the circumstances. We'd found our way to each other eventually.
With a blush still on my cheeks, I turned away from Lino and gathered the wine glasses from the cupboard. I poured out four glasses. When I lifted my glass to take a sip, Lino surprised me by clearing his throat. He lifted his own glass, biting his lip briefly before his eyes landed on mine and he let out a breath. "May everyone be lucky enough to hold their dreams in their arms."
I stared up at him, my throat closing with the need to cry as tears stung my eyes. Mom's sniffle beside me almost tore my attention away from Lino, but when Lino's thumb stroked away the tear that slid down my cheek, I couldn't have looked away if I'd wanted to. "You're my dream," I whispered up at him. His broad grin stole my breath, and then he sealed his lips over mine in a kiss that lingered more than Yavin would deem appropriate.
I couldn't be bothered to care. Not when I turned away to face them and saw nothing but pure joy in my mother's face as she dabbed at her nose. I took my sip of wine, resisting the urge to melt into a puddle on the floor. Yavin gave me a hesitant smile and nod, but his eyes hardened when he turned his attention to Lino.
He didn't say a word, but let Mom guide the conversation to safer topics while I set the table in the dining room.
I just had to hope that when he finally talked to Lino, that he could stop being such a brat.
For a full-grown man, he was still ridiculously talented as a brat.
Forty-Six
Lino
I waited for it all night. We all knew it was coming, and no matter how much Hattie tried to distract from it, there would never be any chance of any of us not noticing the way Yavin seemed impatient.
"Can we talk?" he finally asked after we'd brought all the dishes to the kitchen. I hated him for making Samara have to clean, because I didn't usually let her lift a finger.
"We've got it," Hattie murmured, giving me a shove to go chat with Yavin. I tried to calm down, because the man had never shown any inclination of loving a woman. He didn't understand what it was to want to give a woman an easy life.
One day he would, I hoped.
Else I'd have to kick his ass for mistreating his wife.
"Yeah," I agreed, guiding him to my office at the end of the hall. It felt like I never spent any time there now that Samara was in my life, because I preferred working in the living room where I could reach out and touch her. I turned o
n the light when I stepped into the room, turning to lean my ass against my desk and cross my arms over my chest while I stared at him. He ran a hand through his dark, copper-tinted hair, grimacing at me.
"Is this real for you? Or are you just playing games?" His voice was full of disbelief as if he still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that I'd married his sister. Hopefully my baby in her belly would make it feel real, real fast.
I glared at him. "When have you ever known me to play games?"
He nodded but pursed his lips in frustration. "She's been in love with you as long as I can remember," he admitted, and it surprised me that he'd noticed. Yavin wasn't the most observant, and his mind had always been so wrapped up in trying to prove himself to Matteo and I that he neglected his family too much.
It had always been the one point of contention between us. Him wanting success more than anything, and me wishing I had his family. We'd been at odds, without ever really addressing it. "The feeling is mutual, Vin," I announced. "It always has been."
"Your father?" he asked, because where Samara thought she knew what kind of man Gabriele Bellandi was, Yavin actually knew. He'd seen him in action, seen him shoot a man point blank in cold blood, seen him slit a man's throat, seen him willing to gun down entire families if it meant he got the revenge he wanted. Matteo had put a stop to it when his father died, but the years before Matteo had been brutal.
Ugly.
War.
I hoped we never had to defend ourselves against enemies like that again, but I knew it was probably a pipe dream. The life of a Bellandi wasn't a peaceful one. "Said he'd kill her or sell her if I touched her."
"Shit," Yavin groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Why didn't you ever say anything? I could have helped protect her."
"He had no reason to go near her. I didn't touch her until after I moved her in here. We both know Gabriele likes to posture, but he doesn't have any power now. Matteo stripped him of what little he had left the minute he pulled a gun on Ivory." He stepped over to my bookcase, pulling a little trinket Samara had given me off the shelf. A butterfly encased in amber, it took my breath away every time I looked at it and remembered the Christmas she'd given it to me. I didn't know what it was about it that had drawn her to it, but I knew what it meant to me.
Forgivable Sins: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 2) Page 31
