“OK… it was amazing!”
“Better, baby girl. Better.”
He kisses me, and I close my eyes and I remember a time when I really thought I loved this man. And the strange thing is, I don’t hate him, I don’t. I’m not even scared of him, not really. I don’t think I’m scared of anything now, not even the prospect of running away with a man Vanni would’ve killed, if it hadn’t been for my father. Keep him alive for my sake, that’s what he told Vanni. And then he probably threatened to bring his club down if he didn’t do as he asked, that’s the way my father works, so I guess I have to thank him for something.
“I should probably go see what your daddy wants.”
He lets go of me and I climb off him, pulling my shirt back on as I watch him get dressed.
“You sure you’re OK, working with my dad?”
He looks at me, his mouth twisting up into a smirk. “I got twice the power, darlin’. Twice the fucking power.”
I smile slightly, and the second he leaves the room I let out a heavy sigh, dropping my head to my knees. I’m exhausted, both physically and mentally. Vanni’s demands for sex are constant, meaning my pretense as the doting wife has to remain intact, and it’s only at these times, when he leaves to hold church or have meetings with my father that I feel like I can breathe.
Another tap at the door causes my eyes to spring back open. “Who is it?”
“Della.”
I pause for a second, unsure as to whether I can be bothered with her shit today. Not that there’s been much of it lately, even Della seems a different person now.
“Come in.”
I watch as Bullet’s old lady enters the room. “You OK?”
“Do you care?”
She leans back against the sideboard and flips a cigarette into her mouth, offering the packet to me. “I know we’ve had our differences, Piper, but things have changed now. We need to pull together, all of us. So I’m sorry, for pushing you out. For making you feel unwelcome, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Is that you talking, or Bullet?” I get up off the bed and pull on my jeans and boots, running my fingers through my hair.
“It’s me. I promise.”
I turn to look at her. “OK. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt… Oh, hang on.” The corner of my mouth edges up into a knowing half-smile. “You’re suddenly being polite the second my gangster daddy appears on the scene? Bit convenient, don’t you think?”
“Piper, I swear, I’m not bullshitting you here. Things have changed…”
“Yeah. This club’s now mafia-run.”
“I don’t mean that – well, I do, partly, but we really do need to stick together now. All of us.”
What she’s saying is true, we do, need to stick together. We need to be that family she claims we all are, here in this club. Yet, I’m planning to walk away and cause another wave of shit to descend. Do I care? I don’t know. I guess a part of me feels guilty ‘cause there are people here who don’t deserve any more crap, and Della’s one of them. Just ‘cause she gave me shit doesn’t mean she’s a bad person, I don’t think she is. I just think she likes to get her own way, and when someone stops that from happening, she bears grudges. We’ve all got our faults.
“Yeah. I guess we do.”
“So, can we start again?”
I smile at her. I’m all for burying the hatchet, I’ve got bigger things to worry about. “Sure. We can start again.”
She returns my smile, and she’s about to say something when Bullet appears in the doorway, a confused look on his face when he spots us together.
“You two OK?” he asks, looking from me to Della.
“We’re fine. Do you want something?”
“Yeah. Your dad wants to see you.”
“I thought he was talking to Vanni?”
“He was. Vanni’s gone out now, though. Got a meeting with Richie down the precinct.”
“OK…” I look at Della, who just shrugs and takes a long draw on her cigarette. “Right, well, I’ll see you guys later.”
I head off down the corridor toward the chapel, where I find my father sitting at the head of the table. He looks up as I close the door behind me.
“Your mother and I want you to come over for dinner, tonight. Just you. Vanni’s going to be busy anyway, and he’s fine with you coming alone.”
Only because I’m going to my father’s Bel Air mansion, any other place and he’d be sending me out with bodyguards. I can’t even go to the grocery store without an entourage. Which makes me wonder how the hell me and Logan are going to get away, but I can’t think about that yet. It’s going to take time. Time we don’t really have, but there’s no other option, we’ve just got to be patient. We can’t rush this, it’s too dangerous.
“OK. Any particular reason why?”
“Can’t parents have their only daughter over for dinner without her thinking there’s an ulterior motive?”
I say nothing to that, but he knows what I’m thinking.
“There’s no ulterior motive, Piper. Your mother likes having you around, and I think it would be nice, to have a family dinner, just the three of us. Like the old days, huh?”
The days before he wanted me dead, that’s what I want to say, but I think better of it. The last thing I should be doing is antagonizing him. I need him to think everything’s fine just as much as I need Vanni to believe it. Only then can I really start to believe that Logan and I have a chance.
Yeah… that’d be nice.”
“Good. Around eight. I’ll send a car to pick you up.” He puts down his pen and turns in his chair, steepling his fingers across his stomach as his eyes meet mine. “You got anything planned for the rest of the day?”
“Thought I might go get my hair done, do a bit of shopping… Oh, hang on, I can’t. I forgot, my husband’s keeping me prisoner.”
My father’s eyes crinkle up at the corners slightly, his mouth forming the smallest of smiles. “Vanni’s only doing what he needs to do, to make sure you don’t stray again. He needs to build that trust back up, Piper. Trust you destroyed when you slept with another man. One of his club brothers. And I assumed you knew the etiquette of these places.”
“I do.”
“Yet, you still slept with Logan Sandero.”
“And it’s over now.”
He looks at me, his eyes staring right into mine. And then he turns back to face the table, picks up his pen and gets back to work, silently dismissing me.
“Eight 0’clock, Piper.”
He’s issued his orders, and I have no choice but to obey. For now…
Eighteen
Piper
I didn’t even know my father had a Bel Air mansion, until now. I’d always thought he kept his dealings very much on the east coast, but I was wrong. He’s been doing business as far afield as L.A. for a long time, apparently. Hence this house. Which is stunning, by anyone’s standards. A huge palatial gated villa it just screams Frankie and Ayda Cabbetto – excessive, glamorous, expensive. But it’s just a façade, a front, because behind those doubtlessly bullet-proof doors my mother isn’t happy. She loves the lifestyle, loves being a part of my father’s world, but she doesn’t love him. She’s told me as much, but leaving isn’t an option. Not that she’d go even if it was. She doesn’t want to leave this behind.
“Piper, sweetheart! Let me look at you.”
My mother glides elegantly across the expanse of marble hallway toward me. She’s greeting me like I’ve just returned from vacation, like I haven’t spent the past few months hiding from my father’s hit-man, but that shouldn’t surprise me. This family does a great line in brushing crap under the carpet.
“You look tired.”
“I guess getting caught up in a gunfight does that to you.”
She ignores my flippant sarcasm and guides me toward a room to the right of the hallway. My father stands up as we enter, throws my mother a look I can’t really read, and nods.
“I’l
l just go check on Martha in the kitchen, make sure she’s all ready to serve dinner at nine.”
My mother gives my hand a quick squeeze then leaves the room. I look at my father, eyeing him warily.
“What was that all about?”
“I need to talk to you, Piper.”
“I thought you said there was no ulterior motive.”
“There isn’t. Please, sit down.”
He indicates a large, sage-green suede couch positioned beside an over-sized fireplace, and I hesitate for a second or two before I finally sit.
“OK. What do you want to talk to me about?”
He sits down on a chair opposite me and leans forward, clasping his hands together between his knees, his eyes looking right into mine. “You don’t love Vanni, do you?”
That throws me. I mean, it really throws me. It was the last thing I was expecting him to say, and it kind of puts me slightly on the back foot.
“I… what’s this got to do with anything?”
“I want you to be happy, Piper.”
“You wanted me dead a few days ago.”
“And I will keep saying I’m sorry until you start to believe me, if that’s what you want. But I’d rather we just tried to put all that behind us now.”
I sit back, and I laugh, I can’t help it. “Pretend it never happened, huh?”
“Look, Piper, I know how hard this must be for you. Our family – the way it works, it isn’t like other families. We don’t live in their world, and sometimes things happen that…” He trails off and bows his head, and I frown slightly as I watch him. Is he actually showing signs of regret here? He slowly raises his gaze and his eyes once more meet mine. “I always loved you, Piper. You’re my only daughter, my little girl, and I was wrong, to put you through all of that. I was wrong. I should’ve done something, when I knew Marco was…” He leaves that sentence hanging, and I don’t think either of us needs to finish it. “Vanni looks after you, I see that. And I see that he probably does love you…”
“I loved him, too. In the beginning. In my own way.”
“But somewhere along the line…?”
I lean forward, matching his stance. “Look, why do you suddenly care about how I’m feeling? About the state of my marriage? Why does it suddenly bother you so much? We never really played happy families, even before all that shit kicked off. So why start now, huh?”
“Because I’m trying to make things right, Piper.”
“You can’t do that overnight, Dad. Not after what happened.”
“I know. I know that, but at least let me try. Please.”
I sit back again, keeping my eyes locked on his. “OK… And no, I don’t think I love Vanni. But you know the kind of world I live in now. I’ve made my choice, and I’ve just got to live with it. Besides, I owe Vanni. He was good to me, he cared about me.”
“You don’t owe him your happiness, Piper.”
My frown deepens, I’m not comfortable with this version of my father.
“Have you forgotten your childhood? You were my little princess, remember? I only ever wanted you to be happy…”
“You wanted me to find my prince,” I say quietly, remembering a conversation we’d had when I’d been very young, it’s strange, the things you remember all of a sudden.
“Yes. I wanted you to find your prince. And I don’t think Vanni’s that man.”
I drop my gaze and I turn my head away, looking out of the window instead, onto a secluded terrace filled with bougainvillea and lots of neat, pretty shrubs.
“But Logan is.”
My head shoots back around. “I’m sorry?”
“Logan Sandero. He’s your prince. Right?”
“I… Jesus, this is crazy…”
“I’m trying to put right everything I did wrong, Piper.”
“Because Mom’s making you?”
“I get that you’re defensive, and I deserve every piece of crap you want to throw at me, but I need you to believe that I would never hurt you again. Ever.”
I stare at him as I try to take in everything that’s happened over the past few months. None of it feels real anymore, it’s just a blurred and mixed-up mess and I need to get my head straight, I don’t want this confusion.
“It doesn’t matter how I feel about Logan.” My voice is barely a whisper, because this is a pointless conversation. “You know how it works, I just told you. I made my choice. I chose Vanni. And he forgave me, after what I did, so I owe him for that, too.”
“It matters to me, Piper. How you feel about Logan.”
“This is crazy…”
I stand up and walk over to the French doors, crossing my arms against myself as I look outside.
“I want to help you.”
“How can you help me?” I keep my back to him, keep staring outside.
“If you and Logan really want to be together, I can make that happen.”
I slowly turn around and lean back against the glass, keeping my arms crossed, I need that barrier there because I still don’t feel like I can trust him. “You can make that happen?”
He nods as he stands up and comes over to me, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I said I only want you to be happy, and I mean it. I have a lot of making up to do, Piper.”
“And what about Vanni, huh? You think he’s just going to accept his wife heading off into the sunset with the man she cheated on him with?”
“Leave Vanni to me. Let me handle him.”
“And what if it destroys this new working relationship you have with him?”
“That isn’t going to happen. He’s going to understand that you need to get away from here, and he isn’t going to know that you’ve left with Logan. He doesn’t need to know that. As far as he’s aware Logan’s already left with Reba. Like he was supposed to do.”
The look he gives me tells he knows that Logan didn’t follow the instructions he was given, and I feel my stomach lurch, causing me to clutch at it.
“How did you know?”
“I know more than you think, Piper. And I know the reason why Logan didn’t go anywhere. But what you’re doing is dangerous, and you know that. So does he.”
“What other choice do we have?”
“Let me help you. I’ll make sure you go somewhere safe, a place where you can both start a new life, away from here. It has to be away from here, Piper, you know that. There’s always the possibility that Vanni will find out you and Logan left together, and although I will do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen, there are no guarantees. But believe me, I will do everything in my power to keep you safe this time.”
“I’m finding it so hard to trust you right now. You have to understand that.”
“I do. I just want you to let me help you, Piper. Please.”
I throw my head back and sigh, and I close my eyes and think of Logan and I know I can’t turn this chance down. This is the safest way to leave town, a way in which Vanni can be spared the real truth, because one thing I do know is that my father can spin a good lie. He can make anything sound like the truth, which is why I’m struggling to trust him, struggling to trust that he can deliver what he’s promising me; what he’s offering to do for me here. For me, and Logan. But I really don’t have a choice now. If I want to be with Logan, then I need my father’s help.
“OK.”
He smiles, and a million memories of the days when I was his princess come flooding back, hitting me in the solar plexus like a vicious kick to the gut.
“Come here.”
He pulls me into his arms and kisses my forehead, hugging me tight, and I close my eyes and remember the happy memories, those times when there’d still been a shred of innocence left in my life. Before the shit took over, and I was playing with guns instead of dolls.
“I’ll contact Logan. I’ll bring him here, tomorrow…”
I pull away from him. “Tomorrow?”
“This has to be done now, Piper. We leave it too long and Vanni may start to susp
ect something’s going on. And I need to concentrate on business, so this happens now. Are you ready?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He smiles again, and I feel my stomach twist up into a mess of nerves and excitement.
“All right. Now, let’s go eat. Your mother’s organized quite a spread for you.”
“Dad?”
He’d already started to make his way out of the room but he stops and turns around to face me. “Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Nineteen
Logan
I put down the phone and rest my forehead against the cool glass, closing my eyes as I try to process what I’ve just heard. I need to pack a bag. I need to leave no trace of myself in this house. I need to bring all my weapons. I need to be ready to leave in ten minutes when a car will come and collect me, take me to Frankie Cabbetto’s Bel Air mansion; take me to Piper. Because he’s going to help us get out of here, her gangster father. He’s going to help us, and I’m wary and excited and sick with nerves because it’s still a risk, what we’re doing, even with the weight of the Cabbetto family behind us. It’s still a risk. But one I’m fucking taking. Piper got under my skin, she changed me. She made me wake up and realize who I really am; who I really want to be. She made me want to love again. So, yeah, I’m taking this risk.
I go out into the hall and look at the bag I threw down there just a few days ago, when I was supposed to leave with Reba; when I came to my senses. Whatever’s in there will be enough, I don’t give a crap about material shit, I just care about Piper, and a future I actually want to live now.
I’m just about to slip on my jacket when a knock at the door distracts me, and I check my watch. That was quick, but I’m fine with the car being early. The sooner I get out of here the better, so I pick up the holdall, sling it over my shoulder, and I open the door.
“Going somewhere, Logan…?”
Piper
“What’s happened?”
My father’s face is a mask of thinly veiled anger, and that just panics me.
Protection (Death Knights MC Series Book 1) Page 19
