Chapter 41
Gina
It’sbeenthreedays,and if I thought I felt isolated at Tommaso’s fortified estate, that has nothing on here.
I haven’t left this bedroom. It’s beautiful with honey-colored marble floors, fresco-touched ceilings, and carved antique furniture. There are white linens on the bed with a turquoise-blue cashmere blanket, and French doors that open to a balcony where you can see the ocean. But it’s still a cage.
My nausea hasn’t eased the entire time I’ve been here. I’m not sure if it’s due to my pregnancy or the stress of being so close to my father and worrying that something could happen to my child.
I place my hand over my still-flat stomach and close my eyes, trying to dispel the panic that rises whenever I think of losing my child.
The unlocking of the bedroom door does nothing to ease it, and I turn in my chair out on the balcony to see Vincenzo enter my room. Salvo comes in with him; anytime Vincenzo enters, either Salvo, Tomas, or Zeus comes in with him. Either he wantsto put me at ease, or it’s an order from Tommaso that I’m not to be alone with him.
Vincenzo is a large man—a bit burlier compared to Tommaso’s muscular frame. He’s handsome, but he doesn’t hold a candle to my husband. He smiles as he walks into the room, the heels of his shoes sounding on the marble floor.
Salvo closes the door behind him and nods to me as I stand from the chair. Knowing that Vincenzo doesn’t want to risk our conversation being overheard out on the balcony, I come into the bedroom and close the doors.
“How are you today, Gina?” He motions to the small table with an etched glass top, swirled in blue.
Taking a steadying breath to ease my stress, I sit in the chair Vincenzo pulls out for me. “I’m fine. How are things on your end?”
He sits across from me and folds his hands over his stomach. I notice his hands are immaculate and smooth, not rough or scarred. Vincenzo and Tommaso are very different men and leaders, but I know he’s as ruthless as Tommaso. The man secretly killed his own father to stop a plan to allow human trafficking…a plan my own father is neck-deep in.
Nausea hits me, hard and fast.
“Gina?” he asks, concerned.
I grip the table, swallowing rapidly to keep the bile down. Salvo brings me a glass of water from a table in the corner, and I take a sip.
“Are you okay?” Vincenzo studies me, worried.
I nod, taking another sip.
“You aren’t eating much.” He glances toward the terrace, where my mostly untouched breakfast sits. “Tommaso won’t be happy with either of us about that.”
That gets a small smile out of me. “How is everything going?” I ask again.
“Slow,” he admits. “But we’re making progress.”
They’re trying to discover which other ‘Ndrangheta Don would vote in favor of this plan, along with other matters they haven’t shared with me.
“Your father is demanding to see you.”
“You promised Tommaso he wouldn’t have access to me, Vincenzo.” I’m surprised at how steady and strong my voice is.
“I said your father is demanding to see you, not that I would allow it.” He smiles, and I see the shark underneath. “He now understands that he’s a prisoner here, not a guest. He and Leandro have been relocated to more…suitablequarters in the basement.”
The young girl in me cries at the thought of herBabbobeing put in a cell, knowing he won’t be walking out of it. But the man he’s become is not the man I remember and loved as a child.
“Have more of your memories come back?” Vincenzo asks.
“Some. Mostly of going to school at Santa Elisabetta; I think seeing the ocean and countryside is maybe spurring that.” I set the glass down, staring at it. “I’m remembering Rosa more than anything from school.”
How she was the perfect mafia princess. Excelled at what our etiquette teachers hammered into us at the school I never should’ve been able to attend because I’m a nobody. The school I was only able to attend because my father made copious amounts of money selling people.
Bile pushes into my throat with that reminder.
“Word is, Rosa is on the warpath.” Vincenzo cocks his head. “Wants your blood for taking her man.”
