Page 51 of Plus-Size Bratva Possession
The headline made my heart stop: “Fashion designer Gunned Down in Daylight Attack.”
I read with growing horror: “Adriana Moretti, 29, was fatally shot yesterday afternoon while leaving her obstetrician's office in Manhattan. Police are investigating connections to organized crime, as Moretti was romantically linked to Gastone Ajello, a known associate of the Ajello crime family. Sources close to the investigation suggest a Russian-Italian crime organization may be behind the attack, but no arrests have been made.”
“No, this can't—” I looked up at him, my voice failing. “There are other Russian-Italian organizations in New York.”
“Are there?” Gastone challenged. “Name one with enough power to cover their tracks this thoroughly. One with enough pull to make evidence disappear and not face consequences for such a powerful crime. One with enough reason to target me this way.”
I couldn't. We both knew only one family fit that description: mine.
“It's not proof,” I said weakly.
“I didn't need the papers to tell me who did it,” Gastone said. “I asked around and the people I talked to confirmed my story.”
I felt my vision tunnel into darkness. The truth was, I didn’t want to believe it, didn’t think I could.
“She was coming out of the doctor's,” he choked on his voice. “She had just found out we were having a daughter. She called me right after, so excited she could hardly speak, but she told me she wished I were there. She was still on the phone with me when it happened. I heard the shots. Heard her fall. Heard her trying to breathe as she bled out on the sidewalk.”
A sob escaped me. The phone slipped from my numb fingers, and Gastone caught it before it hit the ground.
“I got there ten minutes later. Ten minutes too late.” His eyes were dry but haunted. “She was gone.Bothof them were gone.”
I covered my mouth with my hand, tears streaming down my face. “I don't understand. Why would they do this?”
“Your brother Gio was expanding territory, pushing into our shipping lanes. I'd refused to negotiate. Adriana was the message: back off or there would be more bodies.”
“No,” I shook my head. “My brothers wouldn't...”
“They did,” Gastone said firmly, taking back his phone. “And ever since that day, I’ve wanted nothing more than to make them pay.”
His words hit home and gave me the reason I’d been searching for. “Is that what this is? Taking me to get back at them for Adriana?”
“Initially? Yes.” His honesty surprised me. “But things changed. You changed things.”
I looked at him through my tears, trying to reconcile this man, who had loved so deeply, with the one I'd come to know. With the one who had made me breakfast and kissed me goodbye.
With the one who had tortured a man in that warehouse.
“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked.
He sighed, suddenly looking exhausted. “I don't know. I've kept it locked away for so long. I guess I kept it from you because it wasn’t your burden to carry.”
In the midst of all that happened, what he believed my family did, he still tried to protect me. How could he be so very caring yet so cruel at the same time?
Given what he just shared with me, though, he needed kindness from me. Not rage. He had finally opened up, to reveal a story I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. That had to have taken courage for a man like him, who was always the one in charge, who never showed an ounce of vulnerability. Until now.
In that moment, I chose kindness.
“But now I know.”
“Now you know.” He met my eyes. “Don't tell anyone, Elena. Not your brothers, not anyone.Please. It’ll only bring trouble.”
I was feeling so numb and drained that all I could do was nod. Whatever had happened—whoever was responsible—this was Gastone's pain and truth.
And despite everything, despite the warehouse and the blood and the accusations against my family, I couldn't bring myself to hate him for it.
In time, I was sure I could show him he was wrong about one thing. Even now, I believe my brothers couldn’t have.
Right?
