“Shh. No.”
“I’m weak,” she said quietly, looking up at me, her hands on my cheeks now.
“Killing doesn’t make you strong, Gia.” I wiped the tears from her eyes and held her sweet face.
“I won’t be weak.”
“Maybe it’s time you let someone take the weight. Maybe it’s time to let go, and let me carry it. Let me carry you.”
She pushed wet hair from my face and looked like she was about to say something, but then stood on tiptoe and covered my mouth with hers, her kiss soft and testing. I liked kissing her like this. Kissing her like we weren’t battling as her hands fumbled with the wet buttons of my shirt until she pushed it off my shoulders, halfway down my arms. We kissed like we couldn’t stand to separate, as if we needed to be touching while I lifted her and carried her into the bedroom, laying her dripping wet on my bed as I tore off the rest of my clothes and climbed between her thighs, her legs and arms wrapping around me, drawing me down to her, her mouth locking on mine again as I thrust intoher, never letting her go, not once, not until we lay spent on the bed.
She knew who I was now. What I was capable of. And she didn’t cringe away from me. She didn’t fear me. It was the opposite. She clung to me. We clung to each other as if for life. As if for breath. As if without the other, it would no longer be possible to breathe, to live, to be.
22
GIA
The following morning, I woke alone in Dominic’s bed. The sight of his uncle kneeling before him, cowering, begging, pleading for his life as Dominic coolly cocked and fired the gun, haunted me. I thought about Mateo. About how he’d died. Dominic wanted me in that room yesterday. He wanted me to see one of the men responsible for Mateo’s murder on his knees, being brought to a different kind of justice—mafia justice—paying back what he owed: a life for a life.
I didn’t feel sorry for his uncle. He deserved what he got, and not only for Mateo, but for all the rest. Dominic had told me the story, the whole story, after we’d made love last night. He told me what the old man, Henderson, had told him. Told me about the reading of the will, of the provision his father had made to have each of the families renew their pledge of allegiance to Dominic as head of the family. He told me of his uncle’s betrayal. Told how his father—and Dominic now called Franco Benedetti father—sealed Roman’s fate and had left it for his sons to mete out justice. And he told me why he wanted me in that room. Not only for Mateo, not only for me to see that Mateo’s death wouldbe avenged, but to see him. To see Dominic step so naturally, so easily, into this new role as head of a bloody family.
Dominic Benedetti now owned the Benedettis.
I touched the scar on my hip.
I guess it fit. He owned me too. Would he let me go once this was over? What we’d discussed that day in the dining room, that day I’d learned the truth of the brand, the truth of who he was, the day he’d fucked me in that bloodsoaked room when I’d been out of my mind. When he’d been out of his. The day he’d promised me he’d make sure my brother was avenged, and I’d promised him I’d kill him once it was over.
But it all had changed now. His father had left him everything in his final act of contrition. Dominic got what he had always wanted.
I wouldn’t have been able to keep my promise and kill him anyway, but now I even wondered if he wanted me to.
Everything was different now.
Throwing the covers back, I got out of bed and went to the bathroom to have a shower.
Ironic, that.Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.James would say that to me way back when I thought the mafia life glamorous. When I hadn’t yet witnessed its dark, gruesome side. When I hadn’t yet seen death.
Dominic’s words came back to me.“Killing doesn’t make you strong.”He was right, I knew that. But to hold the gun that brings your enemies to their knees, it was heady stuff. The thought made my heart pump harder, made my blood run hotter. It made me feel powerful.
But then the image of the bleeding man impressed itself upon my brain, as if branding itself onto the insides of my eyelids, and I bowed my head. He’d looked much like Mateo had when Victor had brought him to his knees. Weakened and powerless and afraid. Mateo was no saint. I knew that. No one inthis world could be. Not a single one. I did not have illusions on that note. I wondered if before it was through, once all was said and done, would I have blood on my hands too? Didn’t I already, even if it wasn’t me who’d pulled the trigger yesterday?
I switched off the water, shuddering at the memory of Dominic standing there so cool, so unaffected as the condemned man knelt before him.
He’d wanted me to see him like that.
I went back into the bedroom to get dressed and heard a car door closing outside. Dominic’s room overlooked the front of the property, and I could see Salvatore loading a suitcase into the back of an SUV. Lucia stood beside him, one hand on her belly, the other on the door. She wanted out. She wanted to be gone. I understood it. But she and I were different. She was the mafia princess who’d been locked away in a tower and had never wanted any of this. Me, I was the daughter of a foot soldier, someone no one gave a shit about, and I was the one who ended up in the bed of the new king.
Question was, where did I want to be?
Who did I want to be?
Salvatore and Dominic spoke, hands clasped together like two powerful men making an alliance. They then hugged briefly, almost awkwardly. Dominic turned his attention to Lucia, who must have said good-bye before Salvatore opened her door, and she climbed in. No hug from her. To say she did not like Dominic would be an understatement.
Dominic stood on the front steps and watched the car drive off. He remained there until it disappeared down the thickly wooded road. He then glanced up at the window as if he knew I stood there. Our gazes locked, and my heart momentarily lost a beat. He turned to one of the men flanking him—of which there stood two, bodyguards I realized—and I stepped away from the window to dress and then went downstairs.
The door to the study stood open, and I heard Dominic speaking inside. I forced myself to walk into it, wondering if it would smell like it had yesterday—the metallic scent of blood mixed with fear and hate. But the desk had been moved, and the carpet was gone. Only bare floorboards remained.
Dominic looked up at me and told whoever he spoke with he had to go. After hanging up, he stood.
