“It’s my job as your husband to keep you safe. To keepmy family safe. You. Mia. My heart.” I set my hand against her womb. “My son. My soul. I’ll protect all of you from physical threats and even worded ones. That ismyhonor.”
“It is.” The words came out in a breath of air against my mouth. I breathed her in, since she’d stolen mine. Getting too near something that brought her closer to giving in, she turned her head, staring at the floor. “We should get going.”
She slipped past me. I stopped her when she moved too far by saying her name.
Resting my hands against the rough, wooden barn walls, I closed my eyes to even my breathing. The mixture of anger and despair that I felt closed in. I didn’t know how to heal this. For any of us.
“You’ll wait for me,” I said in Italian. “Only a foolish man would risk the woman who has his rib, Scarlett. Call me what you want, but you’ll never be able to call me a fool.”
* * *
Hours later, after we’d put Mia to bed together so that the little monkey wouldn’t give me the cold shoulder again, effectively ripping out my heart and stomping on it, I left her mother in our bed reading a romance book.
I sat at the karaoke bar/restaurant, my brothers next to me on barstools, downing whiskey.
Even here, the tension hovered thick. I couldn’t seem to escape it. It followed me around like the scent of fire and brimstone. Romeo sat to the left of me, Rocco to my right, and Dario to the right of him.
Neither man had forgiven the other for what had happened outside.
Romeo felt Carmen owed Juliette an apology. Dario felt Juliette should have stayed out of the disagreement.
If there weren’t two boulders separating the islands, it would have been all out war over the land in between.
It was a poetic way of looking at the situation, but whiskey was noted for making a man see the world in a different light.
Hell, I could have been a poet. Whiskey fucking told me so.
Mitch wasted no time stepping on stage, and I had no clue what his fucking deal was tonight. The songs he continued to sing sounded more country than his usual tastes. He’d lost his wife, who he’d just found, his dog was dead after being run over by a truck the day before, and a new man was living in his house, the one he paid for.
It was hard to surge over the mood I was in when this music was fucking reminding me that not everyone got a happy ending.
In general, I hardly ever paid attention to lyrics, but I found myself following along, narrowly staring into my amber, comparing my life to the ones being lamented through sad songs.
“What is this he is singing?” Dario turned, whiskey in his hand, his gaze ending on the tiny stage, where a few people had gathered to listen closer.
He seemed to speak my thoughts straight from his mouth.
“This is country music,” Romeo said, nodding toward the small wooden sign announcing the night’s theme. “Lo stupido.”
Dario took offense to being called stupid, or something relative. Both men reacted in swift moves toward each other, and Rocco and I stood, blocking their way.
“Sedere.” The order came loud and clear over the music, though it wasn’t spoken loudly.
Luca strolled in, followed by Tito, Niccolo, Osvaldo, Everett, Rosaria’s father, and Juliette’s father. Juliette’s parents had just arrived.
Juliette’s parents were divorced, and it didn’t end amicably, so Romeo had his share of issues at home too.
At the direct order to take a seat, all of us did. We relaxed into our spots once more, picking up our drinks and carrying on.
Luca spent the next couple of minutes ordering more drinks and making small talk with the owners and the bartenders before he took a seat next to us.
We all clanked when the drinks were served.
Luca took a sip of his bourbon, his teeth sliding over his bottom lip after he’d downed it. “I have been to your place, son. Scarlett is in bed reading.”
The mention of my wife’s name and what she was doing in bed brought me up short. I sat my glass down without a sound, giving him my full attention.
Earlier, he had given Scarlett gifts he knew she would take care of and appreciate, but there was no changing a man like Luca Fausti. From the moment the shackles and chains had been removed, he had been impeding on lines I had drawn regarding my family.
