Mia looked at Luc first before exhaling and moving her eyes to me. “We’re about calculated risks,” she said slowly. “And that means having a clear head. Love doesn’t always allow you to think with a clear head.”
Things would change. I’d known that. I’d always known that. Unlike everyone else, it didn’t surprise me to watch the way Mia took to it all. A baptism by fire, quite literally, had hardened her and made her wary.
“I’ve had time to think. I know what I’m asking of you both and I’ll also understand if the request is declined.” I only ever spoke to Luc like this, but Mia was no longer just my sister. If she gave me a direct order, I’d follow it with the same loyalty I did for Luc.
“You trust her?” Mia asked me. Luc sat quietly, watching the exchange, and I almost wished he would pitch in. I’d spent over a decade with him, nearing two, learning the way he reacted to situations until I knew him better than he knew himself. I didn’t have that luxury with Mia. She was a wild card who kept proving us wrong the moment we thought we knew her.
“I do,” I admitted. “We still have a lot of work to do.” That was an understatement. Vittoria and I would need to start from scratch and build ourselves again but this time I wanted her to know there was an endgame. That if we could rebuild then we would have each other for the rest of our lives. A saner person would have waited to propose but the fear of losing people around me without them knowing how I felt had shaken me and I’d already asked and didn’t plan to move backwards. “I’m not planning to rush anything. We’ll draw out the engagement.” It was a step out of tradition but felt necessary for them and for us. Until I’d voiced my plans, I hadn’t realised just how badly I wanted them to agree.
Mia looked to Luc who cocked his head. “What are you thinking?” he asked her. “Do we allow it?”
“Isn’t that decision yours?” Mia asked.
“Sounds like Dante answers to the both of us,” Luc replied. Then he dropped his voice and told her quietly, “They’ll all answer to the both of us now.”
Luc may have taken up the post. He’d be the one to attend every meeting, to deal with business up front but he had been working with a silent partner for months. If Mia was uncomfortable, Luc took it into consideration, evidenced by the way he iced out Jonah when Katia was spreading rumours.
It wasn’t just that. The news that Mia pulled the trigger spread thick and fast in the family and had shrouded her in yet another scandal but this one didn’t see her outcast. It made her feared, which is what she needed. No one would dare to underestimate her anymore and judging by the number of people who’d asked to see her, people were lining up to get in her favour. Not just women, but the men as well. Mia had done what they’d failed at, whether by accident or not.
“D,” Mia whispered, and I felt the ache in my chest at the impending refusal.
It was okay. I could try again in the future. Vittoria hadn’t seemed completely sold on the idea so there was no certainty that she’d have agreed to marry me anyway.
“You have to be prepared for what happens if she ever lets us down,” Mia told me. “We can’t keep showing mercy to the people who cross us.”
Under the surface, dampened by social etiquette, everyone held something colder and crueller than what they shared with the world. Some of us had been raised to never hide it but people like Mia were still learning how to harness it. Without fail, it always appeared when it came to her family. There would be no survivors if they came for the ones she loved, no matter who they were to her.
“I understand.”
Mia nodded slowly. “Everyone deserves to be happy, D, but I think you deserve it the most.”
My eyes stung at her sudden softness. I sniffed and joked, “You sure you still want to marry, Luc? We could always elope, you know.”
“Before I get her to change her mind,” Luc warned me, not taking the joke. He never would when it came down to her.
“Sorry!” I threw up my hands and strode over, kissing Mia gently on the cheek.
“When are you going to ask her?” Mia asked, as I stepped away from her.
“Soon,” I replied. “Let me recover from this.”
Luc and I exchanged a hug. He clapped me on the back and said, “About time you fucking grew up.”
I laughed and replied, “What would Charlie think of us now?”
Chapter Thirty
Dante
“I’ll be there,” I told Luc. His latest idea was one that had me questioning if they’d checked his head properly. Maybe they’d preformed a partial lobotomy without any of us realising.
“You know as well as I do that won’t mean anything. Mia and I need to be there and it’s not like I can go,” Luc said. The last few days had seen him undergo a battery of tests and have his surgery date set while Mia was discharged from the hospital, came home, and started rebuilding her life.
“Don’t you think she’s been through enough?” As soon as I said the words, I wished I could take them back. Luc hadn’t meant for Mia to be put through the ringer. None of us had. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
“He has a point,” Emilio said, peeling himself from the wall. He’d arrived earlier in the week and had made himself at home at Luc and Mia’s place, completely at ease now that the Moretti family had been pushed from the top spot. “She’ll need to show her face.”
