Page 22 of Where Wild Hearts Dance
“And now?” I ask in a quiet voice.
“He… I don’t know. Hefits.” Guilt returns to her features. “Augie told me Cristiano was born to do it, and I can see what he means. He leads well and his men respect him.”
I pan my gaze to the house, absorbing Trilby’s words. While I won’t ever fully support the work of this crime family, I do feel slightly less hateful toward it, knowing it’s protecting my family’s livelihood and future.
“So, yeah. I can’t promise you’ll come over here and not see any of his men or advisors, and I can’t promise you won’t ever see blood being washed off their hands. But I can promise you that while Cristiano is the boss ofthisfamily,ourfamily is safe.”
She takes one of my hands and squeezes it. “So now I’ve given you a truth, can I ask one of you?”
I glance sideways at her, my tone wary. “Okay.”
“Why do you hate Benny so much?”
Crap. I should’ve seen that one coming. I grit my teeth and glue my lips shut.
“Come on, Tess. Tell me.”
I take a deep breath and exhale slowly.
“Fine. He is the reason Federico had to move to the west coast.”
“Federico Falconi?”
“Yeah.” I twist the cotton of my dress in my fingers. “Bernadi closed down the family business, ruined their reputation. They had to leave the city for good.”
“I’m sure he had good reason—” she starts.
“His father fell back on the lease payments by one month, Trilby,” I cut in. “One month.”
“Okay, well that does sound a little extreme,” she concedes.
“And that’s not all.” I look away because I haven’t told anyone this before.
“Go on.”
“I lost my virginity to Federico the night before he left.”
Trilby is quiet for so long I have to turn to check she’s still there. I’m relieved to see she isn’t looking back at me like I’ve made a catastrophic mistake.
“Is that bad?” she says, quietly.
“I wasn’t particularly ready to give it up,” I say with a shrug. “But he asked me to do that one last thing for him. I felt so bad he was having to leave.”
“But… you liked him, right?”
“Of course I did. I still do, even though I haven’t heard from him since he left. But if Bernadi hadn’tforced Fed and his family out of the city, I wouldn’t have felt pressured into sleeping with him.”
She rubs a hand over her face. “Well, it makes a little more sense now why you don’t like the guy. I’ll do my best to keep him away from you but, like I said, I can’t promise he won’t ever be here.”
“I know.” I sigh, then remember the other reason I sometimes lay awake at night. “Is this going to be a problem? Now that you’re marrying into the Italian mafia, isn’t the fact I’m no longer a virgin going to bring shame on the family or something?”
She laughs, then stops herself when she sees the terror on my face. “I doubt it, Tess. Spoiler alert: I’m not a virgin either.” She winks and I grin.
“Cristiano?”
She arches a brow. “Who else?” She goes to stand. “I need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
I glance at our empty glasses. We drank the refills pretty quickly without me even noticing. “Do you think it’s safe to go inside?”
