Page 15 of Dario

The judge’s clerk seemed to magically produce the paperwork we needed and a moment later we were signing everything.

Then it was done.

Nonna was thrilled. Alessandro seemed shellshocked. The only thing that needed to be done was to get him a proper wedding ring. Even I wasn’t crass enough to use what I had bought for Sofia. It was Nonna who saved me, quickly pulling the ring off her finger that my grandfather had given her sixty years ago.

I was touched but hid it.

“I want you out the back,” Lucio ordered. “The car’s been out front for too long for you to just get back in it, and it’s a target. Mario’s brought another car around.”

I nodded. It was a good plan. Mario was a youngster Lucio seemed to be taking under his wing. Apparently, defensive driving was one of his skills. But I had an important task that couldn’t wait. Judge Nolan wished us well, but he didn’t add the traditional “you may kiss the groom.” Not that I needed either the suggestion or anyone’s permission, and I turned to my new husband and just for a moment let the world slide away.

Then he was in my arms and those lips I had gotten too brief a taste of were pressed to mine. I teased with my tongue, but when he stiffened, I nipped the demand none too gently on the bottom one. My whole body lit up as rather than object to the dominance he seemed to melt against me, and I relaxed my mouth. His smell, his taste, wove around me then I jerked back as a sharp pain stung my lip. The little viper had returned the bite. I smashed my lips on his harder for just a second in punishment, then withdrew. I wanted so much to laugh at his temper, but my cock was trying to drill through my pants and I was glad my suit jacket hid it.

“Bello mio,” I crooned. “Later.” It was both a warning and a promise and I couldn’t wait for this day to end.

Nonna announced that she was accompanying us back and expected champagne and a light breakfast before preparations began. I knew the apartment would be safe and it was closer than the safehouse, so we went back to the original arrangements, as taking the time out to get married had cut into the day.

I wanted to say all sorts of things to Alessandro as we drove back, but with Nonna in the car with us—she’d insisted—I was stuck. My husband’s gaze seemed to be fixed firmly out the window anyway.

Nonna didn’t seem at all fazed by the silence and waited patiently as we drew up to the side of the casino and the VIP entrance for those wanting a little more secrecy. My cell buzzed just before I got out and I frowned at the screen. It was Gianni. He needed to see me urgently.

I texted him to say we’d meet in his apartment, which was just below mine. His had the same security protocols and we wouldn’t be overheard. Nonna and Alessandro disappeared into my suite and I instructed Lucio to guard them. I rode back down in the private elevator we had installed between Gianni’sand mine, let myself in with the code that was just for me, and walked into the kitchen.

Gianni was pouring two generous measures of Macallan Lalique, and at over twenty thousand dollars per glass, I was shocked. Not that we couldn’t afford it. It was more that Gianni hardly drank. “What’s wrong?” He handed me the glass and didn’t try to bullshit.

“First, congrats, and second, I carried on digging into Alessandro’s situation. I haven’t gotten very far because we’ve been a little busy, but the first thing I always do, as you know, is to flag if anyone else has looked.”

Suspicion curled in my belly like something ugly. “Apart from Rocco?”

He nodded. “It was merely a cursory glance but the IP address once I tracked it came from a subsidiary of Gabriel Amato’s outfit. It was hidden well, but this is me looking.”

“Amato?” I echoed. Don Gabriel Amato was head of the Italian Chicago outfit. His nephew Marcello was his heir. “Why would he look at Alessandro?”

“He’s never stopped looking. And we both know what he’s looking for.”

I shook my head completely stunned. “Still?” Gabriel Amato had come into power when most of his family had been taken out in a huge explosion by a rival family. In a quirk of fate, he had stepped out of the restaurant to have a sneaky cigarette since his fiancée was insisting he quit. As DNA techniques progressed, all the bodies had been identified except his younger sister, who had been nine at the time.

There were rumors that she had been abducted by their rivals in the confusion, but no ransom demand had ever come in. Gianni brought up a shot of Caterina on his phone and put it side by side with one of Gabriel and his mother and sister.

“Caterina looks nothing like her,” I said, staring at Gabriel’s mother.

“Stop looking at height and hair. Look at the shape of her face, the eye color.”

“Small, brown-eyed Italian women are hardly rare,” I argued. But as I stared into the laughing brown eyes I knew whose they reminded me of. “So you’re theorizing that Alessandro’s mother Caterina, is the long-lost younger sister of Gabriel Amato?”

“And your new husband is his nephew. The dates fit.”

I shook my head. “That’s ridiculously far-fetched. How did she survive the explosion and end up working as a cook? And what made Gabriel even look at Rocco?”

“That would be something you would have to ask him,” Gianni said and took a sip of scotch. “But if it’s true and your new husband is the nephew of Gabriel Amato, you just married into Italian mafia royalty, or as good as, and what’s more worrying is what he will do if he finds out you forced him into it.”

I threw back the whisky and set the glass down, meeting Gianni’s gaze. “Then we will just have to make sure no one tells him.”

And that included my new husband.

8

Alessandro

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