Page 33 of Tortured Hearts
“Why am I here?”
All I can see are her blue eyes, and the splintered hope I ground into dust with a cruel but necessary response. Twisting the moment we met into a sin was like firing a bullet into my chest, especially after seeing that damn tattoo. But right now, I need her cooperation more than her affection. I already crossed the line in fucking her. I sure as hell can’t offer a truth I can barely admit to myself.
“Because I fell for the forbidden fruit.” I tip my glass back and down what’s left.
“A few weeks with a shrink and you sound like a suicidal Hallmark card.”
I glance across the control room to find my father’s underboss standing in the doorway like a sniper. “You lost, Anton?”
And by the looks of him, I mean more than his location. After driving to the estate in dead silence, I assumed he’d get the hint and fuck off. It seems I underestimated his ability to read a room. Because here he is hours later, in a pressed designer black suit, while the rest of him seems trapped in an uncharacteristic state of chaos. Deep lines carve their way across his forehead, while each strand of his gray hair appears to be fighting its own war and losing.
“Still a smartass, I see.” The corners of his mouth lift, but his eyes stay outlined in a bitterness I understand all too well. But I’m not stupid. Talk is cheap, and trust is a costly commodity earned in blood.
Anton Altieri has stood at my father’s side for over thirty years. I don’t know how deep the rivers of his loyalty run, and as private as he is, they’re not bridged easily. Consideringhis actions at the club, I have to assume he had a hand in stirring the pot of shit that trapped Becca in a cage and me in the line of fire.
“Still showing up where you’re not wanted, I see.”
“Because you’re a stubborn pain in my ass. I was supposed to take you home hours ago.” When I say nothing, he exhales roughly and nods at the screen. “You’re no good to her if you collapse, you know. When’s the last time you slept?”
“November.”
“Cut the shit.” Unbuttoning his suit jacket, he pulls out the chair beside me and sits down. “You want to tell me what the hell you think you’re doing?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“That performance you put on at the ’Boo. Pulling a gun on Marcello wasn’t the smoothest way back into the family.”
“If that’s what you think I’m doing here, then one of us is delusional.” I scan him up and down like a grade-A asshole who has no room to talk. “Lucky for you, I know one hell of a psychiatrist. If you ask nicely, I could put in a good word for?—”
His palm connects with the back of my head. “You breakomertàand suddenly you got jokes?”
I grab his wrist. “Don’t touch me again, Anton. That’s your only warning.” He lowers his gaze to my grip, then lifts it back to my face. Taking his silence as a concession, I let go, then flip a switch on the control board, turning the image on the screen black. “I asked you a question. Why are you here?”
“You heard your father. He wants you riding shotgun on a collection.”
Pulling a playing card from the inside pocket of my jacket, I twirl it between my fingers.“I already told him I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”
“And how did that work out for you?” he mutters. I say nothing because the asshole has a point. “Besides,you agreed to this.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“We all have a choice. It’s how far we’re willing to go and how much we’re willing to sacrifice that determine the outcome.”
I huff out a dry laugh. “Now who sounds like a suicidal Hallmark card?”
“Don’t push me, Gianni. It’s not in your best interest.”
“None of this is ‘in my best interest.’ If you think differently, you haven’t been paying attention.”
“No,” he says, his stilted tone wound tight enough to snap. “It’s you who hasn’t been paying attention. How many fists have to hit your head before you see the hand in front of your face?”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
He rises to his feet and buttons his jacket, the unguarded look on his face hardening. “It means meet me downstairs in five minutes. I’m driving you home to shower and lose the attitude.” He eyes my disheveled attire. “And put on a suit. You’re Gianni Marchesi, for Christ’s sake. Start acting like it.”
“I’m not putting on a fucking suit.” I stare at him, trying to drill through that plastic coating to find a motive, only to hit a layer of steel. “I’ve already told you I’m not…” The card stills between my fingers as my phone screen flares to life.About damn time.I drag the device off the table and scrub my hand across my forehead as I scan the text.
My apologies. In the future, I’ll get shot in a timelier manner.
