“But that was five years ago,” Luka said, frowning. “What happened?” His expression immediately changed after he said it.
He’d answered his own question.
Cris was the one who said it out loud. “His wife and son died.”
More somber silence followed that statement.
“He was convinced the Gabbianos were behind the car accident,” I continued. “They’d discovered the offshore account and knew he was planning to run. They couldn’t afford to lose him and the taxes he paid to the organization from his business, so they threatened him. I guess he assumed if they took action, it would only be against him. He never dreamed they would go after his wife or children.”
“Does he have proof?” Rome asked.
I shook my head. “No. Nothing conclusive. They were clever about it, but Vinnie knew. That’s when he sent Roxy off to boarding school in Connecticut. He was too afraid they would come after her, too.”
“Then why did he stay inside for all these years?” Nico asked. “Why didn’t he just take Roxy and run?”
“Because he didn’t want that life for her,” I replied simply. “He didn’t want her always looking over her shoulder. Not to mention, any grandchildren he had would be put in the same amount of danger.”
My body was slammed with a surge of irrational jealousy at the idea that Roxy would ever have had children with anyone but me. Getting angry over something that had yet to happen—and never will if I have anything to say about it—was ridiculous, so I did my best to ignore the asinine part of my brain.
“Plus,” I pushed on, “he wanted payback against the Gabbianos. The plan he devised was, unfortunately, one that has taken the past five years to come to fruition.”
“And this is where you factor in, I’m assuming?” Luka asked.
I rubbed the back of my neck, right over the same spot where a tension knot had formed ever since Vinnie had first put this task to me three weeks ago.
“I’ve been essentially doing the same thing he was doing five years ago,” I said. “Only instead of siphoning off money from his account into an offshore one, I’ve been secretly taking money out of Santi Gabbiano’s numerous accounts, putting it into Vinnie’s, and adjusting the numbers in Santi’s so there are no discrepancies. Like ghost money.”
I winced at the four loud shouts that immediately echoed off my kitchen walls.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“That’s the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever heard!”
“There’s no way Dad approved that,” Cris snapped. “We don’t work alongside the families. Any of the families.”
“Vinnie practically begged for our help,” I shot back. “He told Dad he never wanted to sever their friendship years ago, but Santi had demanded it as a show of faith to the families, since Vinnie’s loyalty had been questioned. Vinnie agreed mostly out of fear for Roxy’s safety. She was all he had left at that point.”
“So, what, then?” Nico said heatedly. “Vinnie’s plan is to bleed Santi dry just before he bows out? Why does he think that’s enough to prevent Santi from coming after him and Roxy this time?”
“He doesn’t,” I said. “There was more to his request when he spoke to me and Dad. He knows how close we are to Bryce Connelly, that he’s practically family. He asked us if we could have Connelly pull the old case file from the car accident and look into it further. Coincidentally, I had already asked Connelly to do just that. If we could get proof that Santi had tampered with the vehicle somehow or caused the accident, he could finally be charged for it. He has dual citizenship, so he could even be tried and convicted in the U.S.”
“And did Connelly find proof?” Rome spoke up.
This was quite possibly the most infuriating part of this whole fucked up story. If only I could have rewound time and gone back to that day. The day that Santi Gabbiano had totally and completely devastated my girl’s life and broken her heart.
I would have broken his neck the second I’d gotten my hands on him.
I looked each one of my brothers in the eye before I dropped the bomb.
“The brake lines were definitely cut. The cops investigating the case had most likely been paid off or threatened to keep quiet. Connelly said there’s a witness who worked at the auto detailing shop where Cordelia D’Angelo had dropped off her car earlier in the day to be worked on. The witness said Santi had come in at one point and explained that Vinnie thought he’d left his cell phone in the car and asked Santi to stop by and grab it for him. The shop was one used by a lot of family members, so the witness knew who Santi was. Gabbiano had access to the vehicle before Mrs. D’Angelo came to pick it up the day she and Filip were killed.”
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Cris said. “Anyone from the shop could have tampered with it after Santi left.”
I opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. My mouth had gone dry during the telling of this story.
“The witness swears on a stack of Bibles that no one did. The car had already been worked on at that point and was ready for pickup. The employees apparently kept time-stamped records for every job they did. The last job performed on the car was twenty minutes before Santi arrived at the shop. By all accounts, he was the last person to have touched the car before Mrs. D’Angelo got in it.”
Luka waved his hand around. “And the witness is speaking up about it now because…?”
I shrugged. “Guilt, I guess. He knew exactly what would have happened to him and his family if he’d talked back then. But Connelly said the guy was all broken up about it once he’d heard a woman and her son had died in that car. Said he felt responsible.”
“Okay, wait,” Cris said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “So, Vinnie wants out of the organization and wants to take Santi down in the process. He knows he needs help in order to do that, so he enlists you and Connelly. If all goes according to his plan, Santi would get locked up for the rest of his life. And if it doesn’t, he’s putting everyone’s lives at risk.”
That about summed it up.
“What I don’t get is, where does Roxy fit in?” Cris watched my expression closely. “Why did Vinnie bring her back now and put her in the middle of all this? Is your relationship with her just a big fucking coincidence?”
And here was the most ironic part of all this bullshit.
“Vinnie wouldn’t have acted on any of this without painstakingly planning every step out first,” I said, hedging the question before I had to get to the hardest reveal. “Our families were once close, and he knew what a friendship with Dad would mean in the event that the Gabbianos came after him. Santi would hesitate before declaring war on us because he’s always been intimidated by Dad. Vinnie knew this, so he took advantage of his former connection with our father.”
Rome scowled. “You mean he used his old friend.”
“And his friend’s son,” Nico added. “He put both of your lives in danger just to protect his own ass.”
I narrowed my eyes at each of them. “You’re all acting like he forced us. Do you forget we’re talking about Enzo Rossetti? The man who bows before no one but Mom? Dad and I both had our reasons for agreeing to help Vinnie, and I wouldn’t have lifted a finger if he hadn’t been doing all of it in order to protect Roxy.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Cris asked. “How was he protecting Roxy?”
I honestly didn’t know how they were going to react to this next piece of information.
No going back now.
“Vinnie knew about Roxy’s crush on me when we were younger. He brought her back in the hopes of pushing us together, that I would develop feelings for her. He thought that if I cared for her, too, and things got serious between us that I would then be motivated to protect her no matter what. And he was right.”
“But what about the engagement to Dominic?” Luka asked. “Vinnie was right there at the summit handing her over to the Gabbianos in front of everyone!”
I laughed wryly. “Another on
e of Vinnie’s ploys. He thought he might have needed to hurry things along with the two of us by making me jealous. He never intended to allow the marriage to actually happen. He figured I’d put a stop to it first, anyway. Again, he was right.”
The D’Angelo boss was too perceptive and conniving and quite frankly, too devious for his own damn good.
I actually had more respect for him now.
After hearing him explain everything to me first-hand, the way he’d braved Roxy’s wrath by bringing her back and pushing her toward Dominic, I begrudgingly had to give the man credit. He knew how much she’d hate him for what he thought he had to do, but he’d faced her fury and risked their entire relationship out of fatherly love. He had a lot bigger balls than I’d ever expected. I wasn’t sure I could have willingly made Roxy hate me like that.
My four brothers looked astonished by these revelations.
I could still hardly believe them myself.
“Vinnie had arranged for Roxy and I to get together all along,” I summarized. “That was his strategy from the beginning. His way of ensuring her safety. To get her hooked up with a Rossetti so he would protect her. And after he explained it to me that night at Mom and Dad’s, I agreed it was the right thing to do. For Roxy’s sake.”
“So, you’re taking up your shield for her and putting yourself directly in Gabbiano’s path?” Nico exclaimed. “You’re going to bring war down on this family in order to save Vinnie D’Angelo’s ass?”
“No, I’m doing it to save Roxy’s ass,” I blurted out. “That’s the only goddamn reason I agreed to it in the first place. You know she doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her. You know it’s our fucking duty as Rossettis to protect her, mafia or not.”
“She’s living in your fucking house, Ace!” Luka shouted. “For Christ’s sake, she’s been in love with you ever since she was a kid. Don’t you think it’s a little cruel to take things this far? Unless the reason you’re going above and beyond here is because you love her, too.”
It was more of a question than a statement.
And one I silently answered by simply raising my eyebrow.
They all blew out simultaneous breaths of relief, knowing what that gesture meant.
I was head over heels gone for Roxy.
So stupidly in love with her I didn’t know how my heart hadn’t burst from emotion overcapacity yet.
“Vinnie’s plan worked, then,” Cris concluded, looking more satisfied now. “He wanted to get you and Roxy together and now you are. So, what’s next—”
His words cut off as his gaze shifted to something behind me. One by one, the other three also looked in the same direction, their eyes widening.
A black hole began to form in the pit of my stomach, even before I turned around to find Roxy standing in the doorway of the kitchen, with Gia right behind her.
Roxy’s eyes were filled with devastated tears.
She looked like she was close to completely breaking down.
But she found her voice enough to whisper, “Yes, Ace, please tell us. What did you and my father have planned next?”
Fuck. Me.
I used to think I wanted to be in love.
Once upon a time, I had all those girlish notions of how dreamy it would be to fall in love with the perfect man. Like that would be the most magical experience in the world. Usually, every time I envisioned the perfect man, Ace’s face would pop up in my mind’s eye. I’d fall asleep at night imagining what it would be like to feel him love me back.
Now, I knew the truth.
Falling in love was just a joke with no punchline.
The fact that it almost always led to heartbreak was something they never told you in those fairytales you grow up hearing. It was the best kept worst secret on the planet.
I felt those last vestiges of childhood slip away as I stared at Ace’s panicked face. He was responsible for not only taking my physical innocence, but for ripping away my emotional innocence, too, just now. Or maybe that had just been naïveté.
Looks like I’m officially an adult now.
Ace took the tiniest step toward me, clearly afraid of spooking me. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t afraid of him. I wasn’t going to jump in fear if he got too close.
I was far too fucking angry for that nonsense. Too angry and too hurt.
But right now, I was allowing the anger to fill me up and take over so I didn’t have to focus on the hurt yet. There would be time for crying later in the privacy of my own dark misery.
“Roxy…” he said slowly. “I can explain.”
I huffed in mirthless laughter. “Oh, I think you just explained plenty.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounded,” he insisted. “You heard everything completely out of context.”
“So, it was out of context when I heard you say that you and my father basically plotted to get me to sleep with you?” Ace winced while everyone else in the room shifted uncomfortably. I ignored them all. “He obviously wanted you to feel a sense of obligation so you would become my bodyguard, but what was your purpose here?” I snapped my fingers. “Oh, that’s right. I’m just your fucking duty as a Rossetti. Isn’t that what you said?”
He put his hands up in a placating gesture. “Rox, please—”
“That the only goddamn reason you agreed to pursue me was just so I would be protected. Am I remembering that correctly?”
“You didn’t hear everything,” he said forcefully, rushing his words. “I only agreed to help your father with the Gabbiano situation after the fact. He didn’t come to me and explain his whole plan until three weeks ago, and I only agreed to go along with it in order to keep you safe. But he had nothing to do with us getting together in the first place. His plan isn’t responsible for our relationship. That was all you and me. Just us.”
I narrowed my eyes, unable to believe a single word from his deceiving mouth. “You’re telling me that you suddenly talking and paying attention to me, that our ‘bumping into each other’ had nothing at all to do with the Gabbianos being in town? That it didn’t start because you were just protecting me?”
His silence said it all. Even more than when he’d tried to offer a plausible answer.
His expression shuttered. “I can’t truthfully say that, no.”
I ground my molars together so hard I was giving myself a headache.
When I couldn’t look at him anymore—or face the fact that most of his family were bearing witness to this humiliating event—I spun around and ran for the stairs. I needed to get as much of my shit out of our—his—bedroom as I could and get the hell out of here.
He was right on my heels. “But that was only in the beginning!” he yelled. “I wanted to look out for you, but then things changed.”
Bullshit.
I didn’t look back as I raced up the stairs, though his booming voice still reached me on the second level.
“They changed when I started having feelings for you, Rox!” he shouted from downstairs.
Why he hadn’t followed me up, I wasn’t sure. I also wasn’t sure why I kept the bedroom door open so I could hear him while I shoved my belongings inside my bag.
What I was sure about was that he was lying.
Luka had basically asked him downstairs if he loved me, and he hadn’t said a word.
Maybe that was what made all of this so hard. I’d fallen hopelessly in love with him, and he felt nothing more toward me than a sense of familial protection—and maybe physical attraction on some level. He was a man, after all. The lust that blazed in his eyes for me was probably real.
But lust was a far cry away from love.
“Once I realized how I felt, I wanted to follow you around because I cared about you, not because I felt obligated,” he shouted from below. “I wanted to make sure you were safe because I fucking care, Rox! Not because it was my goddamn duty. Your father may have wanted a bodyguard, but I wanted you! And he sure as hell had nothing to do with you moving in with me. That happened becaus
e I couldn’t stand being apart from you so much. I needed to be around you. It was like I couldn’t breathe when you weren’t near me.”
That was when the tears started.
I hadn’t thought it possible, but he was actually making this worse. He couldn’t backtrack what I’d heard in the kitchen when he hadn’t known I was listening. The fact that he was trying to and lying in the process hurt unbearably worse.
But why would he bother to continue lying after I found out the truth?
What was in it for him?
I shook my head, ridding it of those irrelevant thoughts. He didn’t love me. He’d only been honoring his family principles by looking after me and helping an old friend of his father’s.
Barely aware of my movements, I threw the bag strap over my shoulder and ran back down the stairs. Luka and Rome were both forcibly holding Ace back as he struggled in their grip. That was why he hadn’t followed me upstairs. I appreciated their assistance because I didn’t know how much more I could take of his so-called confessions.
What threw me for a loop, though, was his ferocious expression.
He looked sincere. Desperate even.
Hell, he looked scared.
His eyes begged me to stay even before his lips did. “Please don’t go, Rox. Just listen to me. We can work through this.”
I flung open the door, sparing him one final glance over my shoulder. Luka and Rome were the ones now struggling against his strength.
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell Papà that you’ve fulfilled your duty. You’re relieved of your obligation.”
I slammed the door behind me.
“Don’t leave me! You and I aren’t over, goddammit!”
More shouting and a loud crash came from inside as I ran down the stairs of the front stoop.
I jogged and sobbed all the way to the subway station.
Just in case he actually broke free of his brothers’ hold, I needed to get my ass on that train as fast as humanly possible. It was one thing to make a scene like that in front of his family. It was another to lay out the tawdry details of our doomed romance in front of dozens of strangers with cell phones.
Scars and Sins (Brooklyn Brothers Book 2) Page 21
