Page 32 of The Broken Queen
He pressed a kiss to the corner of my eye ever so gently, and then he sat down on the edge of the bed, and I sat across from him on the small, tufted stool.
“My father was Lucian Adesso. He was the leader of a smaller mafia outfit here in Italy. His best friend was Markos. While their history is a little exhaustive, the important part is that my brothers and I grew up knowing Markos as our godfather. He was always around, every birthday, every Christmas…he was there. When I was seven, Renzo was ten and Benni was twelve…our dad had been flying to New York more often. Markos would watch over us anytime he’d go, except for this one time. Dad left again on urgent business; there was this man who was making things difficult for his business partners. He needed to organize the muscle or something, but Markos was worried about him, so he chartered a flight and took all of us with him.”
Something told me this was going to make me cry. My fingers dug into the fabric underneath me and tried to balance my breathing.
“We arrived in New York, and Markos immediately had us pile into a big SUV. I remember wondering if the television screens worked that were in the back of the headrests. I was so focused on the screen and whether I could find any movies in the car that I missed Benni screaming how he’d spotted our dad. We were pulling up to a restaurant where he was supposed to be meeting his men, but when I looked out the window, Dad wasn’t paying attention to us. The moment he realized we had arrived, he ignored whoever he’d been talking to. Instead, he started toward our car, turning his back on the shadows…” His voice trailed off right as my heart continued to bang against my rib cage.
I pictured small Adrian, just like me at that age, and how we’d both been so vulnerable and so scared. I didn’t even need to hear him say what happened next; I already knew. Someone had killed his father right in front of his three sons and best friend.
“A man came out of the shadows, he killed my father so fast, it was impossible for Markos to even open his door to get to him. One second, our dad was smiling, walking toward us, and the next, his eyes were too wide and then…” His voice cracked, and I rushed forward, crowding the space by his knees.
“Adrian.”
He shook his head, a smile lingering on his lips, but a few tears fell from his lashes. “Markos was so shocked, he didn’t even tell us to stay back. All three of us boys ran to our dad. We held his hand while he slipped away. Markos cried, and I remember he didn’t even look to see who had done it, as if he knew. Later, when we asked how we’d find who killed him, he explained that he knewwho had done it. Then he showed us this playing card, the only thing on it was, The Joker.”
My father? No, that couldn’t be right.
“Adrian.” I wanted to be sensitive, but there just wasn’t any way my father could have been the one to kill his.
His hand came to my hair as he began soothing me. “Shhh, it’s okay. I don’t blame you for your father’s sin…although that was the plan.”
I sat back on my heels and watched as new emotions worked his features. Agony, guilt…pain.
Tilting my head the slightest bit, I asked, “What exactly was the plan?”
Adrian stroked along my jaw while letting a few more tears slip off his lashes. “I wasn’t lying when I said I saw you for the first time at that ball. You were sixteen, I was eighteen, and I knew at that time exactly who your father was, and when my brothers saw that you were present, we began to develop a plan. Your cousin falling in with the Ferro family was just a lucky coincidence for us. It pushed Scotty to start poking around a few of his old allies. Except that’s where he went wrong. From the time your father killed mine, Markos had been slowly buying out all of Scotty’s old contacts. He was meticulous in finding each and every one. Someone planted the suggestion that Scotty look into me. That I might be a blank slate when it came to choosing sides. We erased every single trace that Markos was connected to me, and then we erased my brothers’ connection as well, until all that was left was an opportunity to lure you in.”
Just another man who saw me as disposable. An opportunity for revenge, and fuck, he wasn’t even right about his vengeance in this case. I tried not to react, so I could hear the rest, but anger stirred so strongly in my chest that I moved out of his space and began to pace.
“Go on,” I encouraged.
Adrian’s eyes shifted to the balcony, as his Adam’s apple bobbed. “The plan was to get you to trust me. Then to eventually fall for me,so you’d agree to marry me. I was told to do whatever it took, be as convincing as possible.”
“Then what?” I asked, needing to just finish this.
“Then once we married, we’d force you to carry out the hits on your family.”
I lost it and began laughing. He immediately rose and came for me, clasping my arms. “Presley, please.”
His tone bordered on panic, but I continued to laugh until I began to cry. “What was to come of me once I dispatched my family?”
“Pres—” He tried to cut in.
I stepped away. “Just tell me.”
Another brief silence passed before he replied. “I was going to have the choice of keeping you or letting Markos find someone who wanted you. But, Presley, let me explain why I couldn’t go through with it. I didn’t?—”
“Just tell me what Markos thinks is going to happen now. We’ve been here for two months, and at this point, it feels like we’re being abducted. Have you kidnapped us, or am I free to go?”
“Please, just let me explain why I haven’t let you go. I just…I know that I had to explain this to you, and I know that now you know, you’ll go and you won’t come back and I’ll lose you, and I can’t—I can’t lose you.”
I wasn’t even sure how to respond, so I rubbed the stress out of my forehead. “So you’ve kept me here because you’ve been trying to figure out a way to explain all this to me in a way that would make it so I wouldn’t leave?”
“It’s more complicated than that. Markos has to think we’re following the plan, or else he has a fail-safe set up that will kick in if he thinks I’m going off script. He’s already suspicious because of how I acted that night at dinner, and how protective I’ve been of you since. He keeps trying to push up our wedding date.”
“Well, there’s not going to be a wedding, Adrian. I’m going home. If you don’t allow me to, then I’ll scale those cliffs myself. I willbecome the weapon my father raised me to be, and I’ll die ensuring Alex gets out.”
Adrian walked closer, tentative and cautious. “I know, Presley. I know you will. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Presley, but you have to understand that it may have started disingenuous, but it changed. I changed. This is real. If you don’t want to marry me, then that’s fine, we don’t have to, but don’t leave me. Let me fix this.”
