Chapter 9
Allegra
Time held no meaning that night. There were no minutes or hours, only moments of sheer pleasure that left me craving more. Dante let me explore every inch of his amazing body, just as he took the time to do to mine over and over again. He taught me what he liked, what he loved, and what made him moan just as helplessly as I did when I touched him in exactly the right spot.
As dark of night turned to weak morning light, we both fell into a deep, contented sleep.
But my internal clock wouldn’t allow me to sleep past seven o’clock, which meant it was eight on the East Coast. Too many years of making sure I was up and dressed—that the bruises were covered and I was presentable—had been beaten into me. But for once, I wasn’t scared of what the day would hold.
My stomach, on the other hand, was complaining loudly. I climbed off of Dante and carefully went into the bathroom. As I took the first step, my entire body protested. I ached in places I never would have known I could ache. But the discomfort only made me grin happily as I rushed through a shower and then dressed.
Dante was still out cold as I sat on the ottoman at the end of the bed and brushed my hair. Even when I pulled the covers up over his naked back, he didn’t so much as flinch. Touching my lips to his cheek, I left him and went in search of breakfast.
I didn’t know the house, barely remembered the way to the kitchen because I’d been so nervous the night before. But soon, I found the stairs that took me straight down to the kitchen. I was glad to find it empty. Eloise and whoever else lived in this house were strangers to me, and I was uncomfortable around new people. The housekeeper had seemed nice enough when we first arrived, but she’d quickly changed before my eyes once Dante told her I was going to be sharing the same room with him.
She came across as a mama bear type of person, and I’d gotten the impression I was the cub, not Dante. As if I would ever need or want to be rescued from him.
The fridge was well stocked with everything I needed to make breakfast, and I got to work, wanting to make myself useful. As the coffee began to drip, I mixed chocolate chips into the pancake batter, softly humming to myself.
While the bacon fried, I flipped the first batch of pancakes, lost in the song that seemed to be playing on repeat in my head.
“Something smells delicious. Would…you like help?” A soft, hesitant feminine voice asked from behind me.
“No, no. I’ve got this. Are you…” Turning, a shy smile forming on my lips, I faced the woman. “…hungry?”
Everything inside of me froze at the sight of the woman before me. I felt the blood drain from my face as a ghost stood in front of me. She took a step toward me, and I jumped back. Nothing made sense in my mind.
She looked the same, not even a single new line on her beautiful face to show time had gone by. But then again, ghosts didn’t age, did they? The same silky midnight-black hair, the same wary hazel eyes. Up until she met Gio Vitucci, I bet she hadn’t had a care in the world. Now, even in death, she looked sad, lost, and vulnerable.
And I couldn’t help but scream.
Dante
The scream echoing through the entire house pulled me from my near comatose state. I jerked upright in bed, reaching for my gun. It took a moment for me to realize I wasn’t back at the Vitucci compound in either New York or Chicago, but home. Cursing, I pulled open the nightstand drawer and grabbed the Glock.
I was wide awake now, blood rushing in my ears, but the sound of Allegra’s scream was now echoing through my head. Jerking on the sweats that were on the floor, I ran downstairs with my gun at the ready. Before I’d even gotten halfway downstairs, I could hear her sobbing.
Fuck, I was going to destroy Gio. I didn’t know how he’d found us, but I would put a bullet in his head before I let him touch his daughter again.
“Allegra.” I froze at the sound of her voice, and realization kicked in, the fiery rage that had been boiling through my veins only moments before turning to ice. “Didn’t Dante explain everything to you?”
Dropping the hand that held my gun to my side, I slowly descended the rest of the stairs. Dread replaced my anger as I stepped into the kitchen. I should have explained everything when she told me about the night her mother died. But I was a selfish bastard where Allegra was concerned, and I didn’t want her any more upset than she had been already .
Mostly, though, it was because I hadn’t been ready for the change that would come with my confession. The change I prayed wouldn’t happen now, but the apprehension clenching my guts like a vise told me it was a huge possibility. Allegra was the kindest, most understanding person I knew, but the secrets I had been keeping from her had the potential to break even her strong heart.
“Y-y-you’re not r-r-real,” Allegra sobbed, her entire body shaking under the force. Tears ran like rivers down her pale, beautiful face as she lifted an accusing finger. “I s-s-saw you…die!”
Lauren spotted me on the other side of the kitchen and gave me a helpless, imploring look. “Dante, you promised me you would tell her everything before you brought her here.”
Allegra jerked around to face me, confused and angry. “What…? How…?” She shook her head, her damp hair flying in all directions as tears fell over her cheeks. “I-I don’t understand anything right now.”
I tucked the gun into the waistband of my sweats and started toward her. “No!” she cried, lifting her hands to hold me at bay. “Just s-stop.”
“Allegra baby, I’ll explain everything to you,” I promised, keeping my voice quiet and calm, while inside, my mind was demanding I grab her and hold on before it was too late. “I just need you to calm down and listen to me.”
“My mother is standing right there!” she screamed, pointing a shaking finger at Lauren. “You will tell me now.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Eloise enter the kitchen from the other side of the room. Behind her, Jarvis stood like a colossal entity, assessing and patiently waiting to be needed. I ignored everyone but Allegra as I took slow steps to reach her. But every step I took forward, she backed up two.
“She’s dead,” Allegra whispered, her voice cracking. “She died. I saw her die.”
My heart hurt for her that she had seen something so life-changing, even as rage at the thought of Lauren dying filled me. “No, sweetheart. She didn’t die.”
“But I saw her! I saw Papa break her.” As if the entire moment was replaying before her eyes, she looked at Lauren. “He threw you against the wall and wouldn’t stop hitting you. Then you went limp. You stopped breathing. We buried you!”
“All of that happened,” her mother rushed to assure her. “He nearly did kill me, but someone helped me.”
“W-who?”
“Arlo,” she said the name the same way she always did, with love and sadness all mixed into one. Losing my father had nearly destroyed her, something Gio’s violence had never succeeded in doing. “Arlo De Stefano rescued me that night. He took care of everything, and once I was out of the hospital, he flew me back to New York. Then when Dante became underboss of the Chicago territory, I moved with him here.”
Allegra shut down. The anger, the confusion, and the hurt that had been shining like two bright spotlights from her eyes turned off. Her face clouded over, and her gaze closed off. “You just left.”
“There was no other choice. If I stayed, Gio really would have killed me the next time.”
Those lifeless eyes lifted from her mother to me, and I suddenly felt cold all the way to my bones. “You kept this from me. You knew my mother was alive and didn’t tell me. All these years. The last few months. Nothing. Not one single word from you that she was alive and safe. And last night…! I told you it was my fault, but all you said was that it wasn’t.”
Close enough to touch her now, I grabbed her hands. She didn’t put up a fight as I pulled her closer, needing to hold her. “I was going to explain everything on our honeymoon. I would h
ave told you every last detail. But then things got out of hand, and there was no time for explanations. I needed to get you away from New York as fast as possible.”
It was like holding a statue. Her skin felt cold, her body completely still, and that blank look on her face scared the hell out of me. I didn’t know if it was shock from seeing her mother, or if she had forced everything inside herself to turn off. I prayed it was the former and would wear off soon, because she was fucking scaring me.
The smell of something burning had Eloise moving from the door and turning off the stove. The burned bacon and pancakes were tossed into the sink, but even over the clatter of the pans banging around, I still heard the soft murmur from behind Jarvis.
“Mom? Why is everyone yelling?”
I clenched my eyes shut as Allegra jerked in my arms, her head turning to look at the little girl who was pushing past her personal bodyguard and wiping sleep from her eyes. When her eyes landed on me, the kid’s entire face lit up. “Dante! You’re home.”
“Jenny.” Lauren’s voice stopped her before she could rush to greet me as she always did. But as much as I loved that girl, right then, Allegra needed me more. “Go get ready for school.”
“But, Mom,” she whined. “Dante’s home.”
“Jenny, go.” There was zero room in her voice for arguments. “You can hug him later.”
With a pout and a glare, the girl stomped out of the room. “No one ever tells me anything.”
“I have a sister?” Allegra breathed, her eyes following hungrily after the girl.
“We both do,” I informed her and waited for her to lift her gaze to mine. “Jenny is Lauren and my father’s daughter.”
“You’re joking.”
I shook my head. “No, sweetheart.”
“You’re joking,” she repeated with a hollow laugh. “You can’t be serious.” When I just continued to look down at her with my face completely impassive, the laugh died. Her brow scrunched up, and she shook her head back and forth over and over again. “I can’t process this right now.”
“I’m sorry. I should have told you last night.” I started to kiss her forehead, but she jerked back and away from me. My stomach bottomed out at the anger that was now blazing out of those eyes I loved so much. I clenched my hands into fists at my sides to keep from reaching for her.
“No. You don’t get to kiss me. Or touch me. Not now.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, as if trying to forcefully hold herself together. “Everything I ever thought I knew is a lie.”
“It’s not nearly as bad as you think it is, dear,” Eloise murmured softly as she came up beside Allegra and put an arm around her stiff shoulders. Allegra started to shy away from her, but the old woman only cupped her fingers around Allegra’s elbow, keeping her in place without force. “This boy may have kept a lot of things from you, things he should have told you before now, but no one meant for any of this to hurt you. All we have ever wanted was to protect you.”
Allegra shrugged off her hold and stepped away. “You mean you only wanted to protect yourselves. Not one of you thought about me. About what I was going through. I lost my mother and gained a monster the same week. No one rescued me. No one came for me!”
“What are you saying?” Lauren demanded, and the temperature in the room plummeted. “Did… Did Gio start hurting you, Allegra?”
My hands clenched tighter, but I kept my mouth shut as Allegra let out a brittle laugh. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“He never touched you when I was there,” her mother reminded her, almost as if she didn’t believe her. “He never once lifted a finger to you.”
“Is that why you thought it was okay to leave me?” Allegra demanded angrily. “You thought as long as you weren’t around, it was over?”
“Yes,” Lauren cried. “That’s exactly what I thought. To Gio, I was just a possession. Something he stole right out from under his rival’s nose. I was his favorite game to play because he knew if I was hurting, then Arlo would be too. You were his darling little girl whom no one was ever allowed to so much as raise their voice to. He loved and adored you more than anything or anyone in the world.”
“Well, you thought wrong.” Allegra jerked up her shirt, exposing the scar that started on her stomach and went around to her back. Just the day before, she had been so reluctant and shy to show that same scar to her cousin. Now, she willingly showed it for everyone in the room to see just a small portion of the damage her father had inflicted on her.
Every time I saw that scar, the need to kill Gio grew and festered. He had touched the most precious person in the world. He had hurt the woman I loved, and he wasn’t allowed to continue breathing. He was on borrowed time, and I was going to collect very, very soon.
Eloise gasped softly, but Lauren seemed to break at the evidence that she had been so incredibly wrong. I knew this would crush her. It was why I hadn’t told her about the beatings her husband had been doling out to their daughter for the past eleven years. She already had enough guilt on her plate as it was, and I wasn’t about to add to it.
“There are other scars,” Allegra told her mother in an emotionless voice. “But this is the biggest. This one hurt the most. I got this one on the five-year anniversary of your death. It bled for days, but all I could do was put butterfly bandages on it because he refused to take me to a doctor. If he’d done that, Nona would have found out, he’d said. And that wasn’t about to happen, because then he would have to stop.”
“Was it his belt?” Lauren murmured weakly, the shocked look on her face making me wonder if she was reliving her own beatings.
“Yes.”
The older woman pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to hold back her sob, but it still escaped. “Madre di Dio!”
“You, like everyone else I have ever known, only thought of yourself.” Allegra tugged her shirt down. “I shouldn’t be surprised, really. I mean, I’m used to it at this point in my life. But I hoped…” She trailed off, shaking her head with a bitter-sounding laugh. “Hope is the worst. Hope breaks your heart more than anyone else possibly could.”
Her words were like sharp little daggers, stabbing my heart, because I knew they were aimed straight for me. But she could slice me up all she wanted. I would take it. It was what I deserved.
But I wasn’t going to walk away or release her. She was mine. She always had been.
Chapter 10
Allegra
The surreality made me feel like I was in a dream. The pain that was pressing down on my chest like a five-ton anvil, however, told me this was all very much reality. There was no waking from this, no shaking off the aftereffects of having my heart healed at the first sight of my mother, only to have it so forcefully torn from my body by not only her hands but Dante’s as well.
I was so happy she was alive, that Papa hadn’t killed her that night. She was saved. The relief that she had been rescued was an answered prayer I’d made every day from the moment I saw her go limp on that kitchen floor eleven years ago.
Then, within a few seconds, being told she had willingly left me behind when she knew exactly what he was like—what he was capable of. Yet she still ran off with the man she always loved, leaving me to face my father’s wrath.
Alone.
No one else knew about that darker side of Papa. Not his own mother or brother, not my cousins or even the guards who patrolled the compound and house. Just her and me. With her gone, I was forced to face his darkness alone. A scared little girl who, even now, was terrified of what his rage could destroy if unleashed. Every bruise, every fractured bone that had gone unattended, every aching muscle and bloody slash. None of them might ever have happened if she had taken me with her.
But as much as that hurt—sweet holy, did it hurt—it couldn’t compare to how destroyed my heart was now over Dante’s betrayal. For years, he had been my closest friend. For him, I gave in and talked about what it was really like to be my fat
her’s daughter. I’d let go of the shame I wore like an outer skin and showed him the scars when he’d asked to see them. I gave him my heart, damn it, as well as my trust.
Both were now crushed like dry, dead leaves at my feet. The wind would blow them away soon, making it as though they were never there to begin with. It left me feeling hollow, so empty that nothing would ever fill it up again.
“Why did you want to marry me?” I demanded now, forcing myself to look him in the eye.
He took a step toward me, but I held up a hand, stopping him from coming any closer. “To protect you. I told you that, sweetheart. All I’ve ever wanted is to protect you from him.”
I knew better than to have hoped he would say because he loved me. He never said those words, but then again, neither had I. I was the one stupid enough to think words weren’t needed when I could see it in his eyes, in how he touched me. In the way he treated me like I was the most precious thing in his world.
Now I saw that all those caresses, the soft kisses, treating me like delicate glass, wasn’t for me. He was just acting, spinning a fantasy for me to foolishly fall for so he could get his end game. All I needed was to see the look that passed between him and my mother to know where his loyalties rested—where they would always remain.
“And because you are mine.” His voice was deeper now, turning to that darker, seductive tone that had driven me half mad when he’d muttered dirty things in my ear only a few hours before. “You know it’s true, Allegra baby. We’ve had this pull between us since you were a teenager. You belong to me, just as surely as I belong to you.”
A small thrill went through me at those words, but I couldn’t allow them to touch my heart. I didn’t trust him anymore, especially not with that ridiculous organ. “I don’t know what’s true anymore. Everything I have ever known is a lie.”