Maybe I am.
Maybe I’m the one who doesn’t know what I really want.
Shouldn’t be feeling these things.
Soren had said that. That he shouldn’t be feeling what he is. Thinking. Wanting. Liking.
Perhaps I’m not alone in the dark desires I feel when I look at him.
“What the hell do you want?” Victoria answers the door and knocks me out of my thoughts.
I push through the doorway with one hand on her shoulder.
“Hey!”
A singular guard rushes over, pulls out his gun, and points it in my direction. “Come any further and?—”
I roll my eyes. “That ain’t the first gun I’ve had pointed at my head today, and it probably won’t be the last, put that thing away.” I turn to Victoria. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”
“All you do is cause trouble,” she insists.
“Last time it was you and Jackson tryin’ to cause it,” I remind her. “Where is he anyway?”
“As if you care,” she accuses me. “He’s…not here right now.”
Good, she’s not admitting he’s missing yet. At least, to outsiders.
“That’s fine, I’m here to talk to Antonio,” I tell her.
The guard still hasn’t put his gun away. “Why should we let you?” he asks.
“One, two of my family is packing more heat than your entire bloodline combined. Two, we’re not enemies. But we do have a common one.”
Victoria scoffs. “The Dresvanni? I thought y’all were helping them out. Getting all buddy buddy.”
“That’s what we want everyone to think, including them,” I tell her. “Eivor has a plan, and…against all rational judgement, he wants you to be a part of it.”
She blinks and a smirk pulls at her face, eyes brightening. “Me?”
“No, Victoria, not you specifically,” I roll my eyes. “Your fuckin’ family. So I need to talk to Antonio.”
“Whatever you want to say to Antonio, you can say to me first,” she insists.
“She’s right. You’re not coming any further before you explain yourself completely,” the guard tells me.
“How’s this for explaining… The Dresvanni have plans to kick your asses outta here,” I say while shoving my hands in my pockets.
Victoria looks at the guard and then waves a hand. He puts the gun away. She looks to me again.
“What exactly do they have planned?”
Talking to Antonio Carvel is like talking to a brick wall. Everything I said seemed to go in one ear and out the other; he’s old, incredibly old, but he’s still alive and therefore he’s still the head of the family.
It’s his younger daughter, Antonia, named after him of course, who really runs the show. She just lets him think he is.
I need all of them to think they’re running this show. The Carvels, the Dresvanni… all of them need to believe that me and the rest of the Fiorellis are on their side and their side alone.
It’s an exhausting process, getting the Carvels to believe me. To look past their inbred stupidity and find some kind of brain cell in there to cling to the information. The idea that one of the most powerful families in Italy wants to wipe them from the map and make like their history never existed, though, that’s enough to get them to work with me whether they trust me or not.
