Chapter 4

I spent forever grooming into a slick version of myself that would fulfill the entry requirements of the dance club. Earl was weary of me following Marcella inside one of Vitiello’s clubs, concerned about the danger, or probably just about our plan being detected. But hiding right under the enemy’s nose was one of the best places to be. Luca would never expect a member of the Tartarus MC to set foot inside one of his establishments. The asshole was too sure of himself. To guarantee my success, I’d chosen Mary-Lu to accompany me. She could clean up pretty well and pretend she belonged in a fancy Manhattan dance club. Guys with a female companion usually had it easier to access dance clubs.

“Take my hand,” I said as we joined the line, and Mary-Lu did at once, looking as if I’d given her the greatest gift of all. It certainly didn’t hurt that I’d given her a few hundred bucks to go clothes shopping so she’d look like a Manhattan chick.

When we reached one of the huge baboons Vitiello had picked as bouncers, he gave me the once over then checked out Mary-Lu and motioned for us to go inside. Mary-Lu clung tightly to my hand as we made our way into the club. This wasn’t my usual crowd, nor the music I enjoyed. The monotone beat and the crowd spasming in rhythm with it made me want to touch a sledgehammer to my temple. I quickly scanned the club but it didn’t take me long to spot my target. She and her brother throned high above the mundane crowd on their VIP balcony, overlooking their subjects like the king and queen of New York that they thought they were.

“Let’s dance,” Mary-Lu shouted.

I gave her a look. We were here on business, not for fun.

“We need to blend in,” she reminded me, as if she gave a fuck about our mission, not that she knew exactly why we were here. Earl didn’t trust the club girls to keep their mouths shut. But she had a point. We needed to blend in.

As usual, the Vitiellos had an entourage of bodyguards surrounding them. Blending in wasn’t their style.

The bodyguard on the staircase leading up to the balcony gave me a quick once over, but his face didn’t show any recognition. With the stiff dress shirt and slicked-back hair, I looked too much like one of those Wall Street brokers that frequented Vitiello’s clubs to blow cocaine up their noses.

I danced with Mary-Lu but my gaze kept darting up to the VIP balcony. Unfortunately, the angle wasn’t the best, so I could barely make out Marcella Vitiello. The main reason why I knew she was up there were the many curious gazes from the people on the dance floor.

“Let’s go to the bar,” I shouted, growing tired of dancing.

“I’m going to the loo,” Mary-Lu said, and I nodded absent-mindedly because Marcella was heading toward the staircase leading down to the main floor.

Several people craned their heads to watch the spoiled princess of New York as she glided down the stairs in a boner-inducing dress. My eyes were glued to her as she headed for the dance floor through the parting crowd. She wore heels that had my head spinning. High and pointy, but she danced in them as if they were sneakers. Every move, every toss of her hair, even every bat of her lashes was in perfect sync with the music, as if she’d spent months perfecting a choreography. Marcella Vitiello was pure perfection. She knew it, and everyone around her better acknowledge it.

And I despised her for it. She lived a spoiled life, bare of hardships. She’d never suffered the way I had. Her father had put her on a throne, made her a princess without any achievements of her own. Hard work, pain, sacrifice meant nothing to the princess of New York.

Her fall would be steep. Fuck. I’d make her fall flat on her arrogant nose.

I let my gaze wander around the crowded club. Apart from her brother, a kid whose resemblance with his father made me want to slash his throat. She had three bodyguards with her. For once, her lapdog of a fiancé wasn’t at her side. Trouble in paradise?

I smiled against my beer bottle and took another swig. I should leave. Even in disguise, the risk of being recognized by one of the Famiglia soldiers was too high. It would ruin everything, but tearing myself away was hard.

I stayed where I was for a couple more minutes and watched her dance. That girl didn’t need bodyguards or her giant of a brother to keep everyone at a distance. Her gaze with those soul-suckingly cold blue eyes built higher walls than the Chinese emperors.

Another toss of those black tresses and suddenly those blue orbs locked on mine, for less than a second, but my pulse sped up. Fuck it. The only time I’d felt this arrested by a gaze had been her father’s but in a very different way. The tables would soon turn. I smiled. Her brows puckered and I tore my gaze away. After leaving the bottle and cash on the bar, I found Mary-Lu and exited the club with her.

“What’s gotten into you, Mad? You look as if the devil’s after you,” Mary-Lu said as she stumbled after me in her heels, displaying none of the grace that Marcella showed off with ease.

I got into the fucking Prius Earl had forced on me again and waited for Mary-Lu to get in as well before I hit the gas. “Let’s go back to the clubhouse. I’ve had enough.”

She gave me a curious look but I focused on the street and occasionally the rearview mirror as we hastened away. Marcella Vitiello had eyes that could freeze the blood in anyone’s veins while the rest of her body had the opposite effect.

That night was the second time I dreamed of her, and from that day on, she’d haunt my nights.

Usually dancing always worked wonders on my mood. It was my personal happy place, the medicine of my choice when I felt blue, but today it didn’t have the intended effect.

I preferred things to go my way, to follow the plans I’d laid out meticulously for my future. So far all of my plans had worked out. I’d finished high school best in class, and had made it to the university of my choice. When I started something, I always finished it and when I finished it then I did it as one of the best. Breaking up with Giovanni, even if it was the right choice, felt like a failure, like admitting defeat on my part. I’d given up.

“Why are you pulling such a face? I thought we were here to have fun,” Amo shouted over the sound of the music.

My eyes sought the club for something to catch my attention and distract me from my wandering thoughts. And then I spotted the guy who seemed completely out of place in this fancy Manhattan club, despite the standard outfit of dress shirt and dark slacks. Something in his eyes told me he despised everything about being here, as if he had to pretend he was someone else. I knew that feeling, but no one would ever suspect anything. I had perfected my mask over the years. Maybe he would too, eventually, or just stop doing what he hated.

He leaned against the bar, a bottle of beer in one hand. My gut instinct told me he didn’t care for anyone’s approval, which made his choice of outfit even stranger. He probably wouldn’t give a damn if my father got mad. I wished I could be like that, not giving a damn about what people thought of me, but that was a luxury I couldn’t afford, pretty much the only one. The guy met my gaze and his smile around the bottle rim became almost smug. My skin began to tingle in a treacherous way, a sign of impending danger, but my bodyguards looked unperturbed and so I ignored my body’s reaction to the guy, but I couldn’t stop looking into his eyes. Something in them raised goose bumps all over my body. Many people disliked me, but his feelings toward me seemed darker and deeper.

He turned abruptly and disappeared in the dancing crowd like a ghost. Sometimes I wished I could do the same, just vanish into the shadows, into anonymity for a little while. I glanced at my bodyguards once more, but they hadn’t even paid attention to the guy. And Amo? He was dancing with two girls at least five years older than him who looked ready to tear his clothes off.

I rolled my eyes at him as I kept dancing on my own, the usual ban mile around me. Men didn’t approach me for fear of my father and girls kept their distance so they could badmouth me. Amo waved at the two girls and danced his way over to me.

“You don’t have to keep me company like I’m some loser,” I muttered but I was glad for his presence, which said a lot about my day and my life in general. Having to rely on your younger brother to dance with you was sad in every regard.

Amo shrugged. “You are the only person I can be myself with, loser or not.”

I rolled my eyes again, but my throat clogged with emotions. “Shut up and dance!”

It was almost two in the morning when Amo and I dragged our tired asses back home. Despite the three champagne cocktails I’d had throughout the evening, I felt disappointedly sober once I settled in my bed. All the thoughts of Giovanni and my now frustratingly unplanned future returned full force.

I remembered the guy who’d disappeared into the shadows and how in that moment I’d wished to do the same, but I wasn’t someone who ran off. Even if this life often sucked, I was too grateful to my parents for what they’d done for me.

Despite my insistence to Amo that I wasn’t nervous about talking to Mom and Dad, my stomach tightened as I made my way downstairs in the morning. I could already hear Mom and Dad talking, and the occasional clinking of cutlery.

When I stepped into the kitchen, they both looked up. Mom smiled brightly, looking as if she and Dad were fresh off their honeymoon. “How was date night?” I asked unnecessarily.

“Wonderful as always,” Mom said, giving Dad one of those secretive smiles.

His face always filled with so much tenderness that I realized why it could have never worked out with Giovanni. I was striving for what Mom and Dad had, but while Giovanni worshipped the ground I walked on because of who I was, of who my father was, he never looked at me as if he’d walk through fire for me. Dad wouldn’t have let anyone tell him how to love Mom. He definitely wouldn’t have been scared of her father.

“Marcella?” Dad asked, worry tingeing his voice and his dark brows pulling together.

Steps sounded behind me and Amo trudged in, in sweatpants and nothing else, looking like death warmed over and squinting against the sunshine. The five o’clock shadow on his cheeks and chin still threw me off even though his facial hair had been growing for a while.

In case Mom and Dad hadn’t known about our dance party yet, they would now. Amo gave the barest hint of a nod as he plopped down on a chair with a groan.

Dad’s expression became stern. “What did I tell you about getting drunk?”

“I expect you to study for your math tests even if you have a headache,” Mom added.

“It was my fault,” I said because Amo didn’t look as if he was in a state to defend himself and it wasn’t fair that he’d get into trouble because of me.

Dad leaned back in his chair with an expectant look.

“I broke up with Giovanni,” I pressed out.

Mom’s eyes widened and she jumped up at once and hurried over to me. “Oh, Marci, I’m so sorry. What happened?” She touched my cheek. I was about an inch taller than Mom but she still managed to make me feel surrounded by her comfort.

Dad, however, looked as if he was about ready to hunt Giovanni down. “What happened?” His words, even if they were the same as Mom’s, held a very different meaning. I could see that he was already imagining all the horrible things Giovanni might have done to upset me, and how to make him pay tenfold for his transgression. “What did he do?”

“Nothing,” I said firmly. That was the problem. I couldn’t tell Dad the exact reasons why I had broken up with Giovanni, especially because they were the reasons why Dad probably would have chosen him. They were most definitely the reasons why Dad had allowed me to date Giovanni in the first place. Dad could read people and he’d probably smelled from a mile away that Giovanni was too cowardly to ever touch me.

Dad looked at Amo as if he hoped my brother would prove my words wrong, but Amo only shrugged as if he didn’t have the slightest clue and would rather die than suffer another moment of his hangover.

Mom’s eyes softened further. “Maybe you and Giovanni can fix it?”

“No,” I said immediately. If I returned to Giovanni, that would only happen out of habit and because I hated the prospect of an uncertain future, but those weren’t good enough reasons to continue a relationship. “I just realized I don’t love him. I don’t want to settle for less than what you have.”

Mom smiled softly. “Sometimes love takes time. Your father and I weren’t in love when we married.”

“I know. You didn’t even choose to marry but it didn’t take you years to love each other. Giovanni and I have been together for more than two years, but I don’t love him, and I never have.”

Dad finally rose from the chair as well. “There must have been an event that made you realize this.”

“There wasn’t, Dad. Honestly. I’ve realized it a while ago but I didn’t want to give up too quickly, especially knowing that it might reflect badly on you and Mom if I break off the relationship and worse, our engagement. The Famiglia is still stuck in the Middle Ages in some regards.”

Mom nodded but Dad still eyed me as if he expected me to give him a more satisfying answer to his question. “I’m going to have a word with Giovanni.”

My eyes widened in alarm, and Mom warned, “Luca, that’s Marcella’s decision.”

“It is her decision but I should still talk to Giovanni and see what he has to say.”

“In his defense, you mean,” I added angrily. I loved my dad and his protectiveness, but sometimes it went too far.

“It’s my job to make sure you don’t get harmed.”

I lost it. “But you are the reason why it didn’t work out in the first place! So if you want to find an answer to your question then you have to look in the mirror.”

“Watch your tone,” Dad said firmly, then he frowned. “Now explain. I supported your relationship with Giovanni. Didn’t I?” he asked, turning to Mom.

“After your initial resentments, you were in favor of the relationship, yes,” Mom said neutrally.

Amo stifled a grin, but I was far from being amused.

“You were in favor of Giovanni because of how easily you could control him. He was always eager for your approval. You could be sure he’d never do anything you didn’t want.”

“I don’t see a problem.”

“Of course, you don’t. But what I want should matter in a relationship and not your wishes!”

“I am who I am, Marcella. My reputation carries even beyond our circles. Few men have the bravery to disregard my wishes. That’s something you’ll have to accept. I’m giving you more freedoms than most girls have, far more freedoms than your mother ever had, but you’ll always be bound by certain rules.”

“I guess then I’ll just have to find someone who has the balls to stand up to you,” I gritted out.

“Language,” Mom said.

I shook my head and stalked off.

“Breakfast isn’t finished,” Dad reminded me, but I ignored him.

I headed straight for my room and flung myself on my bed, letting out a frustrated cry. Who would have the guts to go against Dad’s wishes? Giovanni and all the other Famiglia soldiers even tried to anticipate Dad’s unvoiced wishes. A man like that would never make me happy. But the normal guys I met in college were even worse. They barely glanced my way because they worried Dad would chase them Al Capone style. They didn’t know any real facts about the Famiglia but even their imagination was bad enough to keep them at arms’ length. If they really knew what Dad was capable of, they’d run away crying. No, I could never respect a man like that.

I stared up at the ceiling blankly. Maybe someone from another mob family. But I had absolutely no intention to move to the West Coast, nor to become a part of the Camorra. They were too crazy for my taste. And someone from the Outfit? I might as well just put a bullet in Dad’s heart.

I guess I’d have to stay single indefinitely.

A soft knock sounded, and Mom came in. “Can I talk to you?”

I nodded and sat up. I didn’t want to mope around on the bed like a five-year-old. Mom perched on the mattress beside me and gave me an understanding smile. She was always understanding. I supposed she’d learned that feature in her marriage with Dad.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I said. I wasn’t sad about losing Giovanni, not really. “I’m just sad I didn’t end things sooner.”

Mom tilted her head. “Is there anything you want to tell me that you couldn’t say in front of your dad?”

I laughed. “Giovanni didn’t do anything so I don’t have to protect him. Dad would probably give him accolades for being such a perfect gentleman.”

Mom bit her lip, obviously fighting amusement.

“Go ahead, laugh. I feel like a laughingstock anyway,” I muttered. “Is it so wrong to want it all? Love, passion, and someone that Dad likes… or at least tolerates?”

“Maybe things would improve after your wedding.”

I shook my head. “Giovanni will always try to please Dad with everything he does.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“You were so lucky that you got Dad. He is the one everyone fears. He’d never try to please anyone. He takes what he wants.”

“I didn’t see it that way at first. I was terrified of your father. Love and passion required some work on both parts.”

“No matter how hard I try I can’t imagine you being scared of Dad. You are like yin and yang, you complement each other.”

“Someday, you’ll find that special someone.”

“Where?”

“Where you least expect it.”