Page 40 of Where Wild Hearts Dance
“We came to close down his business. We planned to sell all his assets and make back the money he lost us. It wasn’t our intention to kill anyone. But then Mario walked in…”
He sighs and finally averts his eyes. I collapse asI’m released from steel clutches and land on the edge of the bed. My packed bag slides to the floor.
“He was the worst of all of them—he didn’t have just one new car, he had three, and to be quite honest, that was the first time I’d seen him in a year because he’d spent most of that time in his second home down on the Jersey shore. God knows, he probably had mistresses he was propping up with our money. He knew we were there to shut them down and clear them out and he panicked. The second that gun went to Augie’s head I grabbed Mario, but before I could calm him down, Augie shot him.”
I can feel the warm air of the room touch my eyeballs as I stare back at Bernadi wide-eyed.
“Oh God—” My gaze falls to the carpet.
“After Augie and Beppe had left the room, I hung back and told Enzo to get himself and his family as far away from New York as he could within the next twenty-four hours. If Gianni had found out exactly what Enzo Falconi had done, he’d have killed the entire family.”
My brain swims as I try to piece everything together. That’s why Federico was insistent on us sleeping together so quickly. It all makes sense now. There’s just one thing I can’t quite get my head around.
“If Enzo had betrayed the Di Santo’s so badly, why did you help them out by giving them a warning? They meant nothing to you.”
Bernadi rubs his right hand up and down his leftbicep, inadvertently drawing my gaze to its firm swell. He looks…uncomfortable.
He sighs and turns his gaze to the pouring rain. “There was a time when Enzo made us a lot of money and took very little. We made him work for it. Then one of his senior managers was shot dead in a drive-by. It affected him badly. That’s when he started the skimming. And it escalated from there. Once he got a taste for cheating us and getting away with it, he couldn’t help himself.”
Bernadi turns his head, and once again, I’m ensnared in the grip of his gaze.
“I’m not condoning or excusing the stupid shit he’s done over the years, but… I don’t blame him for how it all started.”
I don’t know what unnerves me the most—the fact Federico paid for his father’s greed by having his life uprooted to start over several thousand miles away, or the fact Bernadi apparently has a heart.
I sigh heavily and frown at the carpet, my head buzzing with new information, rearranging everything I once thought I knew.
When I look up, Bernadi is crouching in front of me. His face is so close to mine I can see every inch of scar tissue down his left cheek, and wide pupils in burnt bronze eyes that are slightly narrowed as he searches my face for something.
A warm flare licks at my insides and I swallow.
“I’m sorry for what happened after that,” he says, softly. “I didn’t even know you and Enzo’s son were…” Hetrails off before licking his tongue over his bottom lip.
“We weren’t.” My dried-out voice cracks a little when I speak. “I didn’t know that was something… he wanted.”
I drop my gaze back to the floor. Four days ago, no one knew about that night or my loss of impurity. Now, two people do: the sister I felt most estranged from growing up, and the consigliere to New York’s biggest mafia family. Not a scenario I’d have conjured up in my wildest dreams.
He reaches up and takes my chin between his thumb and fingers so gently I have to fight the urge to give in to his touch. “What about whatyouwanted?”
I flick my gaze to his and swallow against a desert-dry throat as the truth silently alarms me. “I didn’t think that mattered.”
Seconds are consumed by uncomfortable silence, then something flips behind Bernadi’s eyes.
I watch his expression shift from gently concerned to confused.
“Wait… You don’t believe what you want in lifematters?”
The fact I don’t know how to answer that question renders me silent. I mean, of course I know what I want, right? I’m not just doing this whole dance thing because I went a few times as a kid and was pretty good at it, right? Not because Mama always said she loved to watch me dance…right?
I used to want to travel to Asia, to work in France, tostudy in London… I harbored those dreams for as long as I can remember. But after Mama died, Papa’s propensity to worry about all of us reached new and unfathomable heights. He tried to hide the stress of raising four young daughters from us, but the evidence was there in the creases around his eyes, in the lines on his brow and the downward turn of his mouth.
We all watched Trilby’s mental health deteriorate even after moving into the apartment. We all knew she hardly slept. No one questioned why she dyed her hair platinum blond, but we all knew… She had her own way of coping with Mama’s death.
Sera threw herself into tarot cards, astrology books, placing all her faith and fortune in the stars above. She disappeared into a shell we were all so desperate to see her re-emerge from that Papa didn’t argue at all when she announced she wanted to do an internship away from home.
Bambi was only ten when Mama died. She didn’t understand it then and I’m not sure she even understands it now, but Allegra watches her like a hawk, knows her inside and out, and will do anything to shield our precious baby sister from the evils of the world.
As for me, I’m just Tess. As long I keep dancing, no one need worry about me. I don’twantanyone to worry about me. Like I tell myself every morning when I open my eyes and realize all over again that it’s not a very bad dream, I’mfine.
