Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
“You have,” Dario says.
“You sound like a gossiping kid.”
“Am I wrong?”
I stab the letter opener into the desk, spin on him, and stare. He’s my baby brother and never needs to be afraid of me, but I can tell even he feels some instinctive fear, just a flicker.
“No,” I say after a moment.
I don’t want to scare my brother.
“Who is she?” he asks.
I sigh darkly. “You have to swear.”
“I’ll tell nobody. The Russians could torture me for a year straight, and I wouldn’t say a word.”
He’s telling the truth. I’d do the same for him.
“Emma.”
His eyes narrow as his face crumples into a confused expression. I can tell he’s trying to place the name, cycling through all our friends and acquaintances. He’s not connecting her to the woman in the basement because he can’t imagine it. It won’t enter his head, but then it does. His eyes snap open.
“You’re joking.”
“I wish I was.”
I’m not sure this is true. If I were joking, it would mean this certainty I feel would drain away. The visions of the future are only bad because of what it would mean for Rosa. Otherwise, I cherish them. More family. More love. More babies. More happiness.
Dario laughs, but knowing him, it’s an awkward expulsion more than anything. He shakes his head, strides over to the desk, picks up my glass, and knocks back the whiskey. Then he pours himself another glass. He spins and stares at me, his face slightly red from the booze.
“Jesus.” He knocks back the second glass and slams it on the table. “Christ.”
I say nothing.
“When did it start?”
“Yesterday.”
“Have you…”
“Don’t ask about stuff like that,” I snarl.
He holds his hands up. “I didn’t realize it was so serious.”
“It is. It’s the most serious thing I’ve ever done. She’s going to be my wife one day, so when you talk about her, remember that.”
“I’ll show the proper respect. Don’t worry, but Leo…”
“Say it. Tell me she’s too young. Tell me it’s wrong to be already considering having kids with her. Tell me she’s Rosa’s best friend, and I’m the worst goddamn dad who ever lived for even thinking about this. Tell me it’s ten shades of fucked-up because she’s locked in my basement, and I’ll never let her go.”
I’m trembling far more than when I killed a man.
“It seems like I don’t have to say it,” Dario sighs. “Rosa would take it hard, and thinking of kids, family, at this stage, I can’t imagine that.”
“You could have once.”
He flinches and clenches his jaws.
“But she’s not too young for you,” Dario says. “Who the hell told you that? If two people want each other, two consenting adults, and if they want to be together… If one person isn’t using the other, what’s the issue?”
His words settle one of the quieter storms raging inside of me.
“But everything else,” I say.
“If you’re going to do this, you’d have to be sure it would work. You’d have to know you’ll be together and have a family.”
“Even then, could Rosa forgive me?”
Dario always gives me the truth. Other men might try to figure out what I want to hear, but never my brother.
He stares at me bleakly. “I don’t know. Maybe not.”
I swallow, taking his response as calmly as I can.
He’s been around Rosa for her entire life, the best uncle a girl could ask for. He knows her as well as I do. In some ways, he knows her better because he could be her friend during her testy teenage years, and I was always her dad first.
“I can’t imagine that,” I say, voice dull. “Rosa hating me. Us not being able to laugh together. Her not wanting to see me.”
She would already hate me if she knew the truth.
“I’ll have to fight it.”
“It?”
“This.” I almost thump my chest. “The feeling. The attraction. I have to ignore it and not let it rule me.”
“Can you do that? I’ve never seen you like this.”
It’s true. Not with Angelica. I don’t answer his question.
Soon, the club starts to fill up. I send a messenger with a reply for Fyodor, telling him I’ll need time to consider his request. If I seriously thought he wanted peace, I’d meet him immediately, but only a bad leader rushes in.
When I get home, Edoardo approaches me. “Boss.”
“What’s wrong?”
Edoardo sighs. “Not sure if this is my place, but the girls haven’t spoken to each other since breakfast.”
My chest suddenly cramps. Am I having a heart attack? That’s dramatic. Far too dramatic for a man like me, a boss, a Don. As I stare at Edoardo, I honestly consider it.
“Do you know why?” I ask.
“No,” Edoardo says, looking at me oddly.
I nod, walk past him, and head up the stairs to Rosa’s room. When I knock on the door, and she tells me to come in, I swallow, knowing this could be the last moment I exist in a world where she doesn’t hate me.