I’ve never heard him sound like this and now I can see why grown men shit themselves when he goes into Mafia crime lord mode.
“Let’s start our deep and abiding friendship on the right foot. You don’t deserve a daughter like Cora. She’s worth ten of you.”
He grinds his teeth for a moment before controlling himself. “I know just how instrumental you’ve been in bringing the Santos drug pipeline through the border. I know you relaxed regulations that had allowed the Coast Guard to search suspicious vessels. I know that you’ve invested heavily in his steakhouses - and his beef tastes like shit, by the way - and that you know he sells the women he’s stolen after holding them at his properties.”
Carlton and Claire are both dead silent, and I see my father reach for a security button under the table.
“Don’t bother,” Dario said sharply. “My security team already disabled the alarm and they are likely staring down your guard in the hallway right now.”
“You’re playing with the wrong man,boy,”my father says coldly. “You must be joking to throw out such ridiculous accusations. Do you think you’re the first piece of shit in organized crime who’s tried to control me? Did you think marrying my daughter would give you some kind of an advantage?”
My husband merely listens with a look of polite inquiry, one leg crossed over the other and casually sipping his scotch.
“Crawl back to whatever hole you came out of and takeherwith you,” my father hissed, “and I won’t alert the Department of Homeland Security to your never-ending list of illegal and moral violations. I can have you run out of the country and your assets seized within the week. You do not want to test me.”
Sighing, Dario reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out an envelope filled with photos, carelessly scattering them across the table. After seeing one of my father naked, with Santos, several young women, and white powder ringing the Senator’s nose, I make a choked sound and rise, leaving the room.
“Mrs. Toscano? Ma’am, can I ask you to wait so we can bring you and Mr. Toscano out together?” Mattia is chasing after me and I ignore him, striding through the magnificent entryway of the country club and out to the valet stand.
“Gerald,” I try to force my quivering lips to smile, “could you get my husband’s car, please?”
He looks between me and Mattia, who’s stepping up next to me. My new bodyguard listens to something in his earpiece and nods at Gerald. An older couple, friends of my parents, swan by and look like they’re about to say something. Mattia steps slightly in front of me and glares at them until they scurry by.
“Thanks,” I whisper, staring at the ground. I’m not going to cry here. Not because ofthem.
By the time Gerald is pulling up in the Maserati, Dario is next to me, taking my elbow and helping me into the car. I notice he presses several one-hundred-dollar bills into Gerald’s hand and it makes me smile.
We’re out the gates of the country club and heading home when Dario finally speaks. “You okay,Bellissima?”
I give out a wet-sounding chuckle. “Yeah. I guess- I don’t know, I somehow thought that when you leveled the accusations about giving me to Santos, they would somehow rise to their feet and shout, ‘Never! Never would we do such a thing to any living being, much less our only child!’”
He looks at me, gently squeezing my thigh. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said bitterly, “you’re not the monster here.”
Driving in silence for a moment, I finally ask, “So how did you wrap up your big sales presentation?”
“Eh,” he shrugged, “I told him to keep the photos, that I had plenty more, and that as fast as he tries to hide his sleazy bullshit we’ll just be digging up more dirt. I mentioned I’m sending over our Consigliere with a list of action items in a week or two.”
I’m staring at my husband, this gorgeous, infuriating, cunning man, and I raise my hips, pulling down my undies. “Pull the car over.”
“Right now, baby?” Dario’s teasing and I am not in the mood.
“Pull over!”
Chapter Twenty
In which Dario pulls over.
Cora…
“Pull over!”
“Your wish is my command,” he says pleasantly and pulls onto an empty street. There are expensive cottages by the ocean about a quarter mile away, but this stretch is barren. He grabs his phone and punches in a number. “Carlo? We’re going to need a minute and a bit of space.”
He’s barely disconnected and tossed his phone on the dashboard when I straddle him, taking his face in my hands and kissing him soundly.
“Hmmm…” he growls, “remind me to threaten your parents more often.”
