My gorgeous husband, my dark angel, had always been there to save me. Now, I was entering the nest of vipers, bound to be bitten. Could I ever be saved?
The security guards holding Dobermans opened the formidable gates. The Maserati glided down the long driveway, and I took in the grounds as if I was seeing them for the first time. The fountains, pool, statues and landscape alone cost millions of blood money.
Enzio ushered me and Mario inside the house. I’d only been there a few times in the past couple of years. Cosimo had kept me away from Marta, the Consiglieri and the Capi as much as he could.
No expense was spared and the house was decked out with every luxury imaginable. Cosimo had once told me there were twenty-five bedrooms in here along with several reception rooms. We headed directly to the principal lounge, where Marta and a couple of Cosimo’s uncles, Vincenzo and Alfio, received us.
I took a seat at one of the eighteen-foot-long carved divan sofas, my eyes spying the ornate bar stocked with the most exquisite champagnes, cognacs, whiskeys and the finest Lanza Vineyard wines. I’d need a lot of those to survive life in here.
The old Lanzas, the bastards that organized the hit on Cosimo and were supposed to kill me, too, the sick fucks who wanted to watch me get raped by my husband’s murderer, were looking at me like I had leprosy.
I looked at each devil in the eye, unafraid. Tomorrow, I’d smile in their bloodless faces, knowing they could no longer hurt me. They’d have to keep me alive like their disgusting lives depended on it.
“How was your wedding night? With a baby in the room?” Marta’s lithe figure hunched. She was short and thin like me. Another Lanza pixie. But we were nothing alike. There wasn’t an ounce of stupid, reckless or impulsive in the elegant fifty-year-old. The force in her serpent eyes said it all. She was the mastermind behind every unholy plot weaved in this family. Her word was the law. She was the queen of this realm even if she didn’t wear the crown.
I had a lot to learn from that woman. Before I watch her choke on her last breath.
“Perfect. Enzio had noperformancetrouble whatsoever.” I didn’t take my eyes off hers, the image of her fucked up son staining me with his cum so vivid in my head I could feel the stickiness on my toe and face.
“Vero?” She raised a brow and switched her gaze to Enzio.
He cleared his throat. “Si, si.”
The uncles laughed monstrously and exchanged a few jokes in Italian I barely understood, but I caught enough to know they were dirty.How dare they laugh? How dare they feel any sort of amusement or joy?
Mario cried, the noise disturbing him. I cradled him as I stood. “He’s great with kids, too,” I interrupted the insolent laughter. “I think, despite how hard it is for the both of us to become this kind of family, I mean four days ago my late husband, your son, his twin, was murdered, and Enzio and I were like a brother and sister,” I shuddered in disgust mockingly, “with time we’ll get used to each other just fine.”
That silenced them.
I went to stand next to Enzio. “The boss, his wife and their son. The king, the queen and the sole heir to the kingdom.”
Chapter 15
Bianca
“You can’t keep your mouth shut even if your life depends on it, can you?” Enzio gritted the second we entered the bedroom assigned to us.Ourbedroom. “Was that absolutely necessary?”
What I’d said fell under the stupid, reckless and impulsive umbrella that was my nature, but it felt good. Necessary. I was going to burst if I didn’t do something awful to those lowlifes. Like shoving my heels in their mouths until they came through the other side of their heads. Choosing to only chop their jolly time with some words of mine was me controlling my impulses.
I pushed open the curtains. Sunlight glared in Mario’s face and mine. I shielded his eyes with my hand and squinted at the view. We were at the top floor. The floor to ceiling French doors opened to a huge terrace and boasted the pool garden and the beach stretched in the horizon miles from the mansion.
“I asked you a question,” he barked.
I darted a glare at him. “Your brother died a few days ago, and they were laughing like donkeys. Yes, it was absolutely necessary since neither you nor your mother had the audacity to shut them up.”
His eyes narrowed at me pensively, as if saying, “What fucking audacity did you expect from Cosimo’s killers?”
“Marta might have given the order,” I started, and his eyes flickered, “yes, I know it was her idea in order to makeyouBoss, and you might have pulled the trigger, still, Cosimo was your blood. The least you could do is have some respect.”
“Why do you think it was Marta’s idea and not mine?”
“Guess when it comes to these things, I am smart.”
“Well, enlighten me, girl who’s smart at revealing conspiracies but can’t plot one on her own to saveherass.”
He was right. I had yet to learn how to slay my own demons. I ambled down the capacious room and put Mario in the new crib placed next to the humongous canopy bed. “You won’t like what I have to say. I don’t want to end up gettingpunishedagain.”
His footsteps followed me. “You won’t.” My wary gaze prompted him further. “You have my word.”
