Rio sighed. “Yeah, he didn’t think it was the time nor the place after he arrived and made a call to your old man.”
“Mamma,” I said. “She got involved.”
“Scarlett Rose Fausti changes the assassin’s winds, as strong as mother nature.”
“Iggy feels he’s the new Lev.”
A slight pause. “He hasn’t done anything to earn that right.”
“Fucking truth,” I said, and I didn’t fucking want him to. I didn’t want a Lev in our lives. I wanted Iggy to stay the fuck away from my wife. “What else?”
“Lev has recruited Iggy as one of his men.”
“We’re at fucking war with Iggy and his crew.”
“The treaty,” Rio said. “The treaty between our family and Lev’s.”
“Iggy started a war with me before he was protected by the treaty.”
“I’m not sure how this is going to play out, Mari. Lev requested a meeting with your grandfather upon your return. He doesn’t want you touching Iggy until he’s had a word with Luca.”
“Lev’s doing this because he feels for fucking Iggy. He knows how Iggy feels about my wife, and he’s sensitive to it.”
“Because of how he feels about your mamma? I’d say that’s fucking right.”
I switched gears, or I was going to tear thebureapart. I didn’t want to fucking wake my wife. She was an oven, and she needed her rest to keep baking. “What the fuck else?”
“This one really might blow your mind. I don’t know how your wife is going to handle it. Remo got Capri pregnant.”
A moment passed. Two. Three.
I exploded with laughter.
Even though I couldn’t see him, I could tell Rio was grinning, as dark as his old man’s Machiavellian grin.
I shook my head, sighing. “You can’t make this fucking shit up.”
“Nah,” he said. “The truth’s sometimes weirder than fiction. Our man Remo’s going to have a fucking time with her.”
That was why I was fucking laughing. All the fucking torture I had been going through when my wife and I separated for fate day, and there he was, attempting to get my wife to fall in love with him at the banquet. I saw it with my own eyes. Had to use all the control I was capable of to keep walking when I saw it.
If it wasn’t for thefate daybeing so important to my wife, I would have disconnected his head from his shoulders. My grandfather intervened after and traded Remo for Oscar.
Rio continued. Apparently, Remo claimed he slept with Capri to keep her away from my wife. He said it was easier for Sistine that way. I’d give him that. Why he didn’t wear a metal condom with that one was beyond me, though. She was a virgin and claimed there could be no other father. Remo didn’t dispute this.
“Mariano?” Sistine’s eyes were narrowed, and she stared in the direction I was sitting in. Her body was covered by one of my shirts. It was oversized on her and fell to her knees.
She looked so small and vulnerable, and I had an insane urge to wrap her up in my arms and protect her from the world. Which was what I did. I hung up with Rio and carried her back to bed, keeping her pressed against me until it was time to leave the island.
Chapter 48
Sistine
We were on the Fausti family’s private plane back to Italy. Mariano had told me his family usually vacationed in the Italian alps, or in Switzerland, specifically Zermatt, sometimes even in Germany for the colder months. He said he and his family, mostly the male members, enjoyed skiing.
I was not used to all the traveling and felt as if I might have whiplash when we jetted from a tropical location to a cold climate. However, since Stella was facing a threatening health issue, the family was staying put in Tuscany, where Brando and Scarlett had a farmhouse. Mia and Rio, and Matteo and Stella, were not far away.
This was where we were headed.
