Blood & Marriage (Dark Mafia Romance) (13 page)

Santo nodded as our gazes locked. “Dino Villani is dead
though. Things will change with my father and Vincenzo taking over.”

“I understand. Will you help me through it?” I asked,
savoring the warmth of his jacket. It was almost as if he was embracing me in
public.

“I will do everything I can. Get only the most basic things,
and please, be quick.” Despite him being so protective, there was a barrier
between us since that night weeks ago when I’d tried to run away. I had such
tender feelings for him that I needed to force myself to remember how he’d
grabbed me, that no matter how much he liked me, he was also part of the
machine that was crushing me.

But when I turned around to go, he was right behind me.

“I’ll go with you. Fuck knows what Carlo is up to.”

I looked back at him and nodded, feeling better already. Now
that the house was as dead as Dino Villani, it felt so good to have someone
like him at my back. “Thank you for the jacket. He pulled me out of my room
without even explaining what was going on.”

“Everything is on thin ice right now. He needed a lesson
about the consequences of misusing his status as a friend of Vincenzo’s. My
cousin can only do the shit he does because of his position within the
organization.”

I saw Santo behind me in a mirror as we walked down the
corridors that I knew by heart now. Tall, strong, elegant in the white shirt,
and yet the gun holster was visible—a projection of how deadly he could be. He
was so much better than Federico Villani, Seth, or Vincenzo for that matter.

He had the strength, endurance, and cool to lead, not like
those clowns. So why was he dancing to his father’s tune? I didn’t know
Federico Villani well, but if his decisions were so hurtful to Santo, then why
was he blindly following when he had such poise about him. I saw it from the
start.

“Is a weak leader not the start of a downfall?”

“Huh?” I must have pulled him out of his thoughts, but he
followed me into my room, and I was embarrassed about the mess, even though it
should have been the last thing for me to worry about.

I cleared my throat, pretending all the clothes were not
arranged into an outfit, as if I were styling a mannequin. “If he is a weak
leader, how long can Vincenzo last in the position he wants. Why him?”

Annoyance crossed Santo’s face. “It’s really none of your
concern. He will improve with the right help. I need you to pack quick.”

I turned toward him and pulled off his jacket, remaining in
my bra and short flared skirt. Of course it wasn’t my concern. I was just there
to look pretty. Well, I wanted to let him see what he wasn’t getting, if that
was his attitude. “Thank you for the jacket.”

“You’re welcome,” Santo said with no change in intonation,
but his nostrils flared, and he followed my every move.

I opened my closet and put on a simple top with beads along
the neckline before quickly packing several of my standard favorite outfits.
There was just one problem. Seth was in New York, it was winter, and I didn’t
have the right coat. Maybe I could buy one at one of the airports. “I really
hope things become more stable soon. Being caught up in all this is
nerve-wrecking.”

“I know. You didn’t choose this.” He watched me as if he was
touching me all over already. His phantom fingers felt too good, and I was
quick to put my clothes into the travel case. My gaze swept over the floor, and
I noticed his foot shifting, almost nervously. My face flushed with heat, and I
opened my bedside drawer, pulling out the little grey box that contained the
vibrator he gave me.

I couldn’t tell why exactly I wanted to show him that I was
using it, but it wasn’t only to tease him. I couldn’t be with him, but I wanted
him to know that I did think of him sometimes.

All he did was straighten up and close his suit jacket. “Is
that something you
need
?”

I stifled a moan and quickly covered the box with my
thickest cardigan. “It won’t hurt to have it with me,” I said, without looking
back. I was packing while trying to pretend he wasn’t there, watching me with
those eyes like a burning jungle, but no matter how long I ignored his
presence, I could even smell him in the air.

The soft clinking of cutlery and glass wove itself
seamlessly into the fabric of voices and the classical tune played by the
pianist on the other end of the restaurant. From our table by the large window,
a vast sea of bright lamps and illuminated buildings stretched all the way to
the dark horizon. The subdued light inside was in perfect harmony with the
cream and gold hues of the decor, and the vases of white roses peppered around
the room gave it an air of elegance.

Santo watched me from above his plate, looking so
sophisticated in his immaculate suit and with the glass of red wine in hand I
could fall for him all over again.

“We can go shopping for winter clothes in New York, if it’s
necessary,” he said as if this was a dinner date and I wasn’t being taken
hostage.

I laughed, playing with the straw in my cocktail. The last
time I’d been to a place that had snow, I hadn’t had breasts yet, so there was
nothing in my wardrobe that could possibly protect me from cold temperatures.
“I think that will be necessary, unless you want me to freeze.”

“Maybe we can get something at the airport.” He took his
time cutting into his steak.

We were stuck in Rome for the night, since we didn’t make it
for the flight to New York that evening, so there was no need to rush. I
wondered though what was really happening on the other side of the ocean. Did
people die trying to entrap Seth? Was he wounded? Running away through dark
alleys somewhere when I was in a luxurious hotel with an expensive cut of beef
on my plate?

My main was quite exquisite. Just like the starter had been,
and everything else.

“Do you travel to the US often?” I asked, hoping I could get
some more information out of Santo.

“Not really. Only when I accompany my father. I go to Asia
much more often. Have you been?”

I leaned in, already jealous of his freedom to go wherever
he pleased. Of course, he didn’t need to be escorted anywhere. If he wished to,
he could disappear. It wasn’t his fault that he had this advantage over me, but
it irked me to no end. “No. What’s your favorite place there?”

“Shanghai,” Santo said without hesitation, and a little
smile crossed his lips. “It’s massive, it’s varied, colorful, and a little
crazy, but I go there every now and then and always come across something new.”

I sighed, watching the meat on my fork. “It must be
nice...to melt into the crowd.”

“It is. But I’d have to wear a disguise to blend in there.
I’m too tall. What about you? You have a favorite place?”

I smiled, and my mind rushed back to our first kiss, when I
stretched along his tall frame, reaching his lips only when I got to my toes
and he leaned down. “There is this tiny village close to my home. It’s on a
tall hill, not immediately by the sea, but it’s high enough you can see the
shore very well. It has been abandoned since the last person who lived there
died. Whenever I was there, I felt like the world around me stopped. I could
walk around without anyone watching me. I’d sometimes spend whole days there,
just reading.”

Only now I realized, as Santo listened to me, that he and
Mona were the only ones to know this. I had no idea what it was about him that
made me feel like I could open up to him. Was it because despite him going
along with his father’s bloodthirsty plans, he was always there for me when it
mattered?

“Sounds serene.”

“It is. It was...mine,” I said softly and ate some more,
suddenly hit by the thought that I wasn’t likely to visit it ever again.

He watched me, chewing slowly as if he were assessing me.
“What do you want to do when all this blows over?”

I wanted to ask if by ‘all this’ he meant a kidnapping, the
murder of my father-in-law, and the hunt for my husband, but I decided that
much was obvious already. “I don’t know. So far, my freedom has been limited to
choosing furniture, Christmas decorations, and clothes.”

“You do have an eye for clothes.” Santo looked into his wine
glass with a little smirk.

“Are you laughing at me?” I frowned, tapping my nails on the
table.

“No. But you would laugh at me if you knew I follow you on
Instagram.”

I looked up, and I quickly sipped some of the cocktail to
mask how flustered that admission made me. “You do?”

Oh, God, he was stalking me online as well? I couldn’t help
but be flattered, because I kind of wanted him to stalk me. Well, as long as he
stayed so gallant and actually listened to what I said.

He nodded. “And you will never know which account is mine.”

“I bet it’s the one that likes all my most revealing
outfits,” I said and couldn’t help being excited by the idea of him looking
through my photos in secret.

His full lips widened into a smile he was trying to
suppress, and in the end he hid it by drinking some wine. “There must be many
accounts like that.”

“I don’t know, is there?” I asked, eating as elegantly as I
could. Something was telling me he was trying to impress me as much as I wanted
to appeal to him, even if nothing would come out of it. I shouldn’t be flirting
with him, I really shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself when he watched me
with so much attention.

“Don’t you notice how men look your way when you walk into a
room? How the waiter almost spilled my wine because he was too focused on you?”

I chewed on my lip and sipped my drink. “Maybe. I just
didn’t expect you to be the type of guy who uses Instagram.”

He gave me an amused look. “There are two options. Either I
got one just so I can check you out every day, or I have an account no one
knows about where I post travel photos and selfies of my abs. Your guess.”

I would follow that account so hard if it existed. I needed
to look through the followers that had joined my network since I’d met Santo.
Would I recognize his abs in pictures? Surely, most of my followers were women.

“Is that what you’d do in life if you didn’t work in the
family business? Be a travel blogger?”

Santo shook his head, and we kept silent for a moment when
the waiter took away our empty plates. “I don’t know what I would have done.
I’d have been a completely different person. If you knew what I studied at
University, you would think I was the most boring man on the planet.”

I pulled on that thread right away. “What did you study?”

“You think I threw that bait in the water just to give you
an answer for free?”

I flushed, but it was true that it had been too easy to pick
on. “I can’t believe your audacity sometimes. What do you have in mind?”

“You have to answer one question. But it
has
to be
honest.” He leaned forward, and I could get lost in his eyes, green and
mysterious like the depths of a lake in the woods.

“Okay.”

“When you use that vibrator, do you think about me?” He
raised his eyebrows.

I stopped breathing and quickly grabbed my cocktail, but
heat was already climbing up my thighs, just like his hands in my most secret
fantasies. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re trying to avoid the question.”

I looked into his eyes, fighting the tightness in my chest.
“Yes. What did you study?”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen his smile so wide and
satisfied. “Accounting.”

Despite my embarrassment, I snorted so rapidly I almost spat
out some of my drink. “You’re an accountant? No way.”

“I didn’t want to do it at first. My father pushed me into
it, but I learned to appreciate it. Finance is a bit like Tetris.”

“So you’re out to game the system?” I asked, but couldn’t
keep my face straight.

He looked so smug when he took another sip of wine. “I
already game the system. What about you? If you could do anything?”

I licked my lips and tapped the cool glass after I put it
down on the table. “If you follow me on Instagram, you surely saw my designs. I
would love to be involved in fashion. Maybe more as a stylist than a designer,
but putting things together to create this wow-effect is something that really
excites me.”

“Maybe you’ll need an accountant one day.” And the way he looked
at me was somehow different, softer. Made butterflies flutter in my stomach
until I felt they would raise me all the way to the ceiling.

*

The room Santo had booked for us was actually a small
apartment. High up on the top floor of the hotel, with a king size bed that
invited me to fall right in, with its white sheets, and a lounge area with
sofas and a TV in another part of the vast space we now had to ourselves. A
panorama of Rome spread out behind the floor-length windows, only reinforcing
the sense of being isolated in a safe bubble.

I sat on the bed, slightly nervous with the situation
between me and Santo being a constant blur. I had been angry with him after
overhearing his conversation with Federico Villani, but resentment melted away
with each conversation we shared. There had been so few, and yet I felt like he
has been in my life forever.

Santo walked up to the bed, and only now it hit me that
there was only one, but just as I thought he’d sit down next to me, kiss me,
slide his hand between my legs and help me forget all my troubles, he grabbed a
pillow, a blanket, and took them over to the sofa.

I squeezed my legs tighter and smoothed out the front of my
skirt. I couldn’t stop the sense of disappointment trailing through my veins,
but it was for the best. I was still Seth’s wife, and he could still return
home to take his rightful place. Nothing good would come out of having an
affair. Not when Santo’s father was so deeply against him having anything to do
with me.

The awkward silence was broken by the buzzing of Santo’s
phone, and he picked it up quickly.

“I’ve already told you that we didn’t make it for the
flight.”

I flinched, wondering if it was even true. Maybe he secretly
wanted to spend this evening with me, undisturbed in the safety of the hotel
room. Did he expect me to approach him this time if I wanted to?

Santo scratched the back of his head, pacing in front of the
sofa.

“I know where they might be getting passports if they
haven’t yet gotten them. I’ll go there as soon as I’m in New York. What? Of
course she’s here. Why would I lie about that?” Santo’s frown deepened. “Carlo
had it coming. Fine.”

Santo came up to Lucrezia and put the phone on speaker mode.

“Hey there, baby girl. My boy Santo treating you good?”
Vincenzo laughed, and despite him being on the other side of the ocean, it made
my skin crawl.

I couldn’t have stopped the scowl on my face even if
Vincenzo stood right in front of me. Hearing his voice felt like having his
tongue lick its way into my ear. “Good evening, brother-in-law. I’m very well.
Thank you for letting me know something bad is going on,” I said sternly.

“You know me, always looking out for you. And you’re
practically a widow, so you don’t have to be so coy with me.”

Santo’s sneer deepened.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean,” I
said, even though my stomach was slowly filling with hot coals.

“‘Course you do! You knew I had the hots for you since we
first met. I can’t wait to get a grab of that a—”

Santo lost his patience. “She’s a Villani woman now,
Vincenzo. You’re forgetting yourself. She’s not some slut you picked up at a
club!”

I exhaled, glancing up at him, staying silent while the men
argued. This was the safest way to dodge a bullet.

Vincenzo gave a loud sigh, blowing into the speaker. “Still
such a good boy. Women might act all offended when you’re forward, but that’s
exactly what they want. You learn that, and maybe you’ll finally get some. But
fine. We’ll talk in person.”

“Glad to hear you’re in such a good mood, anyway,” Santo
said in a much calmer voice, but the tension was still visible on his face. I
couldn’t believe he was able to ignore the mocking, but maybe it was because
nothing about Vincenzo’s comments was true. “We will arrive soon enough, and we
can deal with the mess together.”

“Ring me up once you land,” said Vincenzo, before adding in
a much lower tone, “See you soon,
Sister-in-Law
.”

I shuddered, rolling the bottom of my skirt in my hands even
as the connection ended. That was the last thing I wanted.

“Motherfucker!” Santo lashed out unexpectedly, and I yelped
when he turned around and kicked a little side table so hard it fell over. The
vase that had stood on it crashed to the floor, shattering into a million
pieces. He was heaving and loosened his tie.

I leaned down and covered half my face in my palms, watching
him grow more tense with each second. Did he only now realize the danger of
blindly following Federico’s plan?

He paced around for a moment, but then looked back at me,
and rushed over. He scooted by my knees and glanced into my eyes. “I’m sorry, I
didn’t mean to scare you.”

My shoulders sagged, and I stretched my fingers, trying to
loosen the tension in their joints. “You don’t scare me,” I said, looking back
at him. If anything scared me, it was the disgusting pig of a man I was forced
to interact with over and over.

“Vincenzo won’t hurt you either, okay?” He squeezed my hand,
but then quickly pulled away and got back to his feet.

“How do you know? He keeps bothering me. He even tried to molest
me back at home. And it’s not like I can chase
him
away by suggesting
who my father is,” I whispered, increasingly nervous.

“He did what?” Santo groaned and took off his suit jacket.
The turtleneck sweater made him look sophisticated, as if he walked out of the
set of a black and white movie.

I flinched, crossing my arms on my chest. “He was touching
my buttocks and being overall disgusting. He just won’t listen to a no.”

He sat on the back of the sofa, frowning at the beige
carpet. “We’ll find Seth,” he said in the end.