Page 37 of His to Hold

She pulls free of my grip and rubs her arm dramatically, like I really hurt her. She fixes me with an accusing glare. “You can’t let Leo hurt her. Vinnie’s a good person.”

“Oh, really. You know this from spending what, a couple of hours with her over dinner?”

“I met her more than once and I don’t claim to know everything about her but I know it’s just like you to blame her for this, you misogynist pig.”

I roll my eyes. “I don’t hate women, Olivia.”

“No?” She holds up her hand and counts on her fingers. “Isabella, Vinnie, me. There’s three you can’t stand for a start.”

“I don’t hate you, Olivia, but you are trying my last fucking nerve.”

A sensible person would take my tone as a warning to back away, but Olivia doesn’t budge. I don’t know whether I should admire her tenacity or be pissed at her lack of respect for my position as head of the family.

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“Push me and find out.”

For a while now, I’ve been mulling over the thought of sending her to Italy to stay with our cousins in Tuscany. Damiano has recently assumed control of the mafia in the region. He could watch over Olivia until I find her a suitable husband.

My sister wisely chooses not to say another word. She turns and flounces off, back to our mother’s side. As I dig my cellphone out of my pocket to check for messages, a gray-haired nurse in pale blue scrubs comes into the room.

“Mr. Volante can have a visitor now.”

“You’re the head of the family,” my mother says. “You should go first.”

I shake my head. If I’m the head of the family, my mother is its heart. As much as I want to see Gio for myself, I can’t go ahead of the woman who raised us.

“You go first, Mamma.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course. Go make sure they’re taking proper care of him.”

She doesn’t need to be told twice. My mother practically sprints from the room, the skirt of her evening gown billowing around her ankles.

“That was nice of you,” Olivia says.

Taking her comment at face value, I nod. She’s obviously trying to smooth things over and I can’t allow bad feelings to fester between us. Although Gio has come through surgery, the ominous churning at the pit of my stomach tells me there’s still trouble ahead. It’s important that the family stands united.

Suddenly I wish I’d brought Isabella with me. It turns out, whatever I told myself, I need her by my side.

CHAPTER 14

Isabella

Eating a meal after midnight was a bad idea. Drinking an entire bottle of wine with that meal was an even worse one. I only got a couple of hours’ sleep before indigestion woke me at four a.m. After that, I tossed and turned, worrying about Antonio, nursing the emotional wounds he inflicted on me, and allowing my imagination to run riot.

In the depths of the night, I convinced myself that Antonio and I were finished. I got it into my head he was going to hand me over to the Mancini family and let them get revenge for me killing Rico. As soon as I dismissed that idea, another dreadful thought popped up to torture me. It became a vicious cycle that made it impossible to relax.

When the clock hits seven, I decide to get up, since I’m obviously not going to get back to sleep. Rather than hitting the shower as I probably should, I use the bathroom and then quickly wash my face in the sink. I glimpse myself in the mirror and recoil in shock at the sight that greets me. I’m a total mess. My face is pale, making the dark circles beneath my eyes even more prominent. You’d think I hadn’t slept in a week. My hair is straggly, with half of it still up in a ponytail and the rest hanging loose and limp around my face. I tug the elastic out of my hair, wincing as it gets caught in the tangles.

I go to the closet and find a long, silky robe to put on over my cotton pajamas since the shorts only just cover my ass. Antonio wasn’t happy the last time I risked his men seeing me in my nightwear and I don’t know who else is in the house with me. He told me to behave so he may have ordered someone to stand guard outside the bedroom door and shadow my every move like he did when I was a pampered prisoner back at the beach house.

Tying the belt of the robe around my waist, I open the door. It’s almost disappointing that there isn’t some goon waiting in the corridor to trail after me as I make my way downstairs. I know I’m being silly. I don’t like being closely guarded. But somehow it feels as if Antonio is sending a message by not having someone watching my every move. It feels as if he no longer cares about me. I give myself a mental slap for that thought. What I should feel is happiness that he trusts me enough not to impose a guard on me.

I get to the bottom of the stairs and pad along to the kitchen, the dove gray carpet soft beneath my bare feet. I love how Antonio’s mother, Ava, has decorated this place to create a cozy haven for her family to get away from it all. The house is large and quite imposing from the outside. On the inside, it’s a warm and comfortable home, a contrast to the grandeur of her New York townhouse, which is designed to reflect the family’s wealth and power.

I’ve always imagined that if she didn’t marry a mob boss, Ava would have settled into a comfortable middle-class suburban life. She’d have made a beautiful home for her family and raised her children to be doctors or lawyers, ordinary professional people. But, like me, she had no choice in who she married. Now she has to worry about whether her children will be arrested or gunned down by their enemies. I guess that’s the future I have to look forward to if Antonio and I have a family. It’s something we both wanted when we first married but I have no idea if it will happen now. The gulf between us seems impossibly wide once more and I couldn’t bear to bring children into a failing marriage.

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