“We have to,” Mattia cut in impatiently.
She whipped her stare to him. “No. You don’t. I don’t care that he kidnapped me – all of you would have done the same thing for the same gain if you’d thought it worth it. He treated me well, and if you kill him, it will be for a vengeance I want no part in.” Warming to her theme, she straightened. “Save him and put me to work. That was going to be my other condition – put me to work and let me play my part in our family.”
“No!” That came from her father.
Francesca eyed him. “Siena says this isn’t my real world, but it is. Events over the past few weeks only prove that.”
“Our world is dangerous,” Siena said.
She raised an eyebrow. “No shit.” And then she laughed. “What else is there for me? Hiding away here for the rest of my life, waiting for the next kidnapping? That’s not who I am or who I’ve ever wanted to be. I don’t mean that I want to carry a gun and throw myself into the shadowy stuff, but I have a good brain and I speak fluent English. I want to get out in the world and experiencelife. I can be an asset to the family, and then thenext time you need me to step up and do something for it, I’ll be ready.”
Mattia looked at his sister and Francesca’s parents before looking back at her. There was a hardness in his stare. “The answer is no. That you are seeking mercy for our enemy means you have developed feelings for him, and your loyalties have been split. You can’t be trusted.”
“My feelings are irrelevant, and he doesn’t have to be your enemy.”
He slammed his fist on the table, making everyone except Francesca jump. “It is only that you’re my cousin stopping me from making you our enemy too.”
She didn’t flinch or drop her stare. “The only way I would ever be your enemy is if you take Gino out against my wishes. I might be the youngest member of this family, but I still belong to it, and I would never do anything that brings harm to it. I have talents. Use them or don’t, but know that I’m not staying here.”
Now she turned to her parents. They loved her. She knew that. And she loved them. But this was her life, and she couldn’t keep living it for them.
“If I have to hitchhike my way to a city and live off the streets, then I’ll do it,” she told them. “I want a life, a real life, and I will create one with or without your help and with or without your blessing.”
It was Siena who broke the silence that followed. Speaking slowly, her eyes narrowed, she said, “I need an assistant.”
Mattia’s glare lasered to his sister.
Siena shrugged. “My workload is enormous. I need to bring someone in that I trust to help me manage it.”
“She has developed feelings for our enemy. We can’t trust her.”
“How can you say that when she spent a week living as a hostage for the reason that she shares our blood? That bitchGabriella was actively working to take us down, and now she’s our sister-in-law.” Gabriella was Tommaso’s wife. “Francesca is one of our own and wants only to work with us. Sure, she’s asking for mercy, but maybe weshouldbe reconsidering our plans for Vicario – we both know that if his clubs close or someone else takes them over, running our world will be made harder.”
“You want me to let himwin?”
“I wantusto win. He’s a powerful ally, you cannot deny that, and you cannot deny our little cousin here has balls. I’m saying let’s give them both a chance.”
“Letting him live shows weakness.”
“No, letting him live shows strength. It shows that you think with your head.” Siena’s whole demeanour suddenly changed. “But, of course, you are the head of our family, so it is for you to decide.”
He nodded slowly. After a long while, said, “Okay. Francesca can work for you on a trial basis. As for Vicario…” He turned his cold stare to Francesca. “I will decide his fate at a later point.”
Francesca’s heart had been racing from the moment she woke. Today, she would see Gino.
It had been three weeks and four days since she’d been released as his hostage. The nightmares of him being shot dead had stopped; her dreams now a different form of torture. They were always of Gino and the blonde woman from his club who’d kissed him so proprietarily. Not even moving in with Siena and starting work as her assistant had worked as a cure for that dream. Not even being plunged into a new world where she wasoften on the go for sixteen hours at a time had cured her longing for him.
And today she would have to face him again.
“You’re up early.”
So lost in her thoughts had she been that she hadn’t heard Siena slip into the kitchen. Wrapped in a silk robe, her blonde hair tousled from sleep, Francesca didn’t think her cousin could ever look anything but chic and beautiful.
“So are you,” she responded with a sad smile. Siena’s marriage to Elio Ranieri was only days away. Guilt over her cousin making a marriage with the man Francesca had refused weighed on her. That she’d volunteered herself for Francesca’s sake as well as for the sake of peace only added to the guilt. It was a guilt Siena had no time for, reminding her just two nights ago that it should have been her in the first place.
Siena shrugged and poured herself a coffee before fixing her beautiful blue eyes on her. “Nervous about seeing him again?”
“A little,” she admitted. While she would never tell what had happened between herself and Gino during her week in captivity, she had the feeling Siena had guessed. “But I’ll be okay.”
