Page 117 of Luca
The constant ache in my chest grew and grew until a permanent darkness resided in my chest. Anger grew by the day.
She took my daughter from me. She fucking left me. She burned all we had to ash without a single backward glance. She should have trusted me to protect her and our daughter. She should have talked to me about it.
You should have trusted her with your secrets and agreements you made too,my mind mocked. Fuck. Off.
Wonderful. Now I was telling myself to fuck off.
“Anything on Guido?” Luciano asked, bouncing his daughter on his knee. Matteo, his son, was right outside the office, being chased by Nico’s twin girls. My little nieces. Hannah, one of the twins, was pretty adamant about marrying him. She was probably trying to convince him to do it today.
“No,” Cassio answered when it was clear I wasn’t going to. “I can’t believe that fucker played along with Maeve’s body. Helped us clean that fucking scene, and all along he’d been sleeping with her.”
Guido, Nonno’s cousin, worked with Margaret’s mother. The two teamed up and worked against me.
“That’s one cold bastard,” Luciano muttered. “Your grandfather must have been disappointed that his own family did this.”
He had no idea. Nonno had known Guido his whole life. He never thought to look at him when shit started happening. Truthfully, neither did I. Except the suggestion that Margaret gave us on an untraceable device led us directly to him.
Now that asshole was somewhere on this godforsaken planet hiding, like the coward he was.
“I still can’t believe Callahan bought that his sister-in-law left without saying goodbye, then landed herself in a fatal car crash,” Nico muttered.
He was there that night. He didn’t see what happened, but we needed him to hack into all Callahan’s surveillance and wipe it clean.
“Maeve never came around,” Cassio grumbled. “The only reason she showed up that day was to see her daughter. Apparently she wanted to see with her own eyes that her daughter married the boy who shot her father.”
The fucking secret that cost me everything. I should have told her. I was terrified of losing her so I didn’t. It turned out I lost her anyhow. Both her and my daughter.
“Are you sure she didn’t go back to Sicily?” Luciano asked. “Hiding in plain sight. That’s what Grace did,” he grumbled, his expression darkened slightly thinking back to those days. Grace left him too. Slightly different circumstances, but he ended up searching for her for three long years.
“Nonno’s men searched the whole country,” I said darkly. “The entire fucking continent.”
“Africa?” Nico asked, then shook his head before I could answer. “Not likely.”
My jaw clenched.
“A newborn would have needed way too many vaccines to go to Africa,” I said. “But now–”
Fuck, it had been almost three years. She could be anywhere.
“How in the fuck did she learn about your deal with Marchetti?” Cassio pondered for the millionth time.
“Her mother had to have told her,” I gritted. If I could kill that bitch, I’d do it all over again. Just sooner. What kind of goddamn mother would be willing to sell out her own daughter and granddaughter to Marchetti?
The mafia soldati called him ‘il diavolo.’ There was a fucking reason for it, because that devil didn’t give second chances.
Matteo busted through the French doors, the twins at his heels. “Daddy, Arianna said she’ll keep me hostage so Hannah can marry me.”
Everyone shared an amused look. I had no amusement left in me. Only bitterness. Only anger that tasted like acid, even after all these years.
“Get over here,” Hannah squealed. “You haven’t said ‘I do’ and I need my diamond.”
Nico muttered something under his breath about being too old for this shit, then grabbed his drink and downed it in one go. Cassio grumbled that we were raising scary women.
“Maybe he’s just too scared to marry you,” Arianna pondered. “Mommy said that not all boys will be able to handle us.”
Jesus Christ. What was Bianca teaching these girls?
“Your mother was right about that,” Cassio said, shaking his head.
