I’m seeing red.Fire and blood.I fought them for her once and I’d do it again right now.I’m surprised I’m not.
“But be warned,” Angelo says.“She’s called cursed Gianna for a reason.Any man who gets too close to her dies soon after.”
I’ve gotten closer to her than any man before me and I’m still just fine.
Or am I?
Angelo turns back to the rest of the room and finally starts laying out his plan for the takeover.Which will begin at midnight on Sunday night.“Give them the day to confess their sins before they meet God,” as he put it.
I haven’t been to confession in over seven years.Too many vile thoughts to confess, too little faith that God has my best interests in mind.But maybe I should go this Sunday too.In preparation for all the vile things I’m about to do.
I’d lost my faith the day my father died, and I haven’t even considered changing my mind on that.Until now.And it would be to ask forgiveness for the way I’m about to destroy the life of a woman who’s been a ray of golden sunshine after a decade long winter for me.Never mind that she’s too young, too naive, not my type at all, she’s still the only person who made me remember my past without pain and gave me a glimpse of a future worth walking towards.Not to mention her soft lips, sweet kisses and that body that has my cock half hard just thinking about it.
Try as I might to focus only on Angelo’s words, listen to his plan, commit it to memory, her face keeps intruding, her nakedness, her lips, her golden sheen.
Good thing I only have a very small part to play.Get the women away from the house.Separate the old man from them so the security will also be divided and then let Angelo’s forces do the rest.Such a small part to play I wonder if he even trusts me as much as I’d begun to think he might.
But that’s not a very big concern anymore.I notice it and don’t really care.
What I do care about is giving Goldie at least a glimpse of what she could’ve had, at least a taste of what she desires, before I help turn her into a slave, a servant, a shadow of her former self.
Maybe it’s selfish too.Maybe I want to taste, to feel, to have her too.Now, while she’s still innocent and pure and completely devoted to me.Before she starts to hate me.Which she will after Angelo’s plan succeeds.
It will succeed.He has five times the numbers he’s up against.He has disloyal men on the inside with all five families.His plan is rock solid.He will be thecapo di tutti capiof the New York Mob.Until someone even more ambitions comes for his crown.But that’s a later problem.One I don’t plan to be around for solving.
But I can give Gianna the sendoff she desires.
And it will be the last human thing I do for myself.The last farewell to a better past.The only nod at a future not blackened by betrayal, revenge, and blood.After this one last taste of good and light, I will surrender to the darkness completely.But first I will pray at the altar of gold and light one last time.Fuck confession.This will be better.
Chapter39
GIANNA
We bought so muchthat you could hardly see our five security guards as they lugged all the bags and parcels up to the apartment for us.The light was fading in a gorgeous display of lilac and grey as we ate a family dinner of chicken nuggets and French fries in the kitchen, not the formal dining room, of our parents’ penthouse.It was just the five of us, all the staff let go for the night.
Dad made his jokes about how we’ll soon need two more penthouses just to store all our clothes and how none of the department stores within a thirty-mile radius have any chance of going out of business while we’re around.
Mom countered that he wouldn’t want us any other way to which he said he just wants us all to be happy.Which I believed, because I felt the words in the bottom of my heart.Even Chiara didn’t feel the need to voice any of her usual objections regarding duty and such to the family.She laughed with the rest of us.
It was a night like we hadn’t shared for a very long time.Not since my sisters and I were much younger, before any talk of marriage, and before family duty was even something we were aware of.Definitely before blood was shed and we lost our brother.
Back before we were still just Daddy’s little princesses and all the ugliness of our family business wasn’t even a hint of darkness.
We even watched a movie together, eating popcorn and laughing some more.
I fell asleep as easily as I used to when I was still a carefree young girl.
But I woke up just after midnight, my heart racing from a nightmare I couldn’t fully remember.All I know is that it left me feeling unbearably trapped.My hands were shaking and still are, even though I’ve been sitting up in bed for fifteen minutes at least, breathing deeply and trying to chase away the dark thoughts.They have no shape, no substance, and yet they’re like the heavy concrete blocks they tie to a man’s feet when they drop him in the river.I’m that drowning man, unable to swim to the surface, unable to breathe, unable to face my fears.Because facing them will only make them worse, make them real, make them as hard and heavy as those concrete blocks.
I am trapped.I will always be trapped.I will never swim to the surface.I will forever be just an inconsequential pretty princess, playing with her toys, while others play with her and decide her fate from sunrise to sundown.
I hear the creaking of floorboards outside my room.Steady, soft, getting closer.But I am sure that’s all just my mind playing another cruel joke on me.My memory of a time when I saw my escape from my cage in Matteo becoming audible.Tormenting me like my dreams torment me.
And then the door opens.
Matteo walks in.Shrouded in darkness, glowing as bright as the sun.
My memory torturing me with visions because I ignored the sounds.
