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“Are you going to tell me your grand plan of getting us out of this mess, or are you just going to stare at me?”

“I see you’re getting your spunk back.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Can you sit down? I’m having a hard time craning my neck.” I tore a piece of croissant and stuffed it into my mouth. “These are good but not as good as the way Renz makes them.” I paused. “Before you tell me anything else, do you have news on Renz?”

Sandro sat on the barstool next to me and angled my way. There was a gentling in his eyes. “He’s staying in the hospital for another day or two. None of my men can get close enough to find out, but we managed to get to a nurse who knows the nurse taking care of him. Security is tight, Bianca. But word is your dad and brothers are on a warpath, and Dom is trying to calm them down.”

A rippling of goose bumps dotted my arms. “What did you expect?” It made me pissed at Sandro all over again and I had a feeling this would be a familiar refrain. Alternating between being mad about our current situation and bittersweet about our shared history. “So what do we do in the meantime? Cards on the table. Being married to a made man and being the wife of the boss is a far cry from what I want in life. It’s eating me inside how I’ve let down my dad, my family…so you better come up with a plan.”

“I won’t be boss for long.”

Wait. What?

Chapter

Eight

Sandro

Was I fucked in the head? I derived immense satisfaction from seeing the shock on her face. But I wasn’t sure whether it pissed me off, or it was self-directed anger. Relief. I should be feeling relief that I was finally rid of her obsession. But last night, I saw the disgust on her face when I was about to kiss her. Her rejection was an unexpected kick in the gut and I felt hollowed out. It fucked with my head. I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to barge into her room for a do-over.

Fuck me.

“What?” she rasped, eyes widening. “What do you mean? You went through all that trouble.”

“Smoke and mirrors,” I told her. “Tommy is taking over, but neither Raffa nor Gian knows that’s my plan. They have to believe that I’m serious about being the boss.”

She looked at me doubtfully. “But how will Tommy take over? You’re simply stepping down?”

I stared at her, not answering. She caught on. One simply didn’t stop being the boss. He either died or got injured enoughfrom fulfilling his duties. Bianca’s eyes glistened with what suspiciously looked like tears and they unraveled my insides. Fuck stopping myself from touching her. I cupped the side of her face. “I’ll have to disappear, baby. Fake my death. That way they won’t come after you.”

Fury flushed her face red. She shoved my hand from her cheek and stood. “That’s crazy talk. Surely there’s another way.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. But right now, that’s how we’re playing it.”

Her shoulders sagged, and she sat on the barstool again as if the revelation weighed her down. A slew of emotions crossed her face. Sorrow, as if she’d already lost me. She would never lose me. I would always watch over her as long as I lived. I watched her sleep last night. There was a camera installed in her room. I wasn’t a total pervert. I shut off the feed when she undressed. Something rolled through my chest when she picked up the silver bracelet I’d given her for her twelfth birthday. She fell asleep holding it and I hoped it gave her comfort.

When she left her room this morning, the sensor under the floorboard alerted me she was awake and on the move. It was time to tell her my plans, if only to gain her cooperation.

But there was one secret I had to keep from her because I didn’t know how to move forward with it. To take over from Gian as boss, I had to consummate the marriage with Bianca and produce an heir. That was one of Raffa’s conditions. His three weeks was a minimum time frame for getting Bianca pregnant. He pointed out that Cesar would do everything in his power to file for a divorce, but the existence of a child with De Lucci and Rossi bloodlines would complicate things.

“If there was any other way, I wouldn’t have forced you to marry me,” I told her.

Anguish etched her features. “But what about the dance club? The life you built in Harlem. What will happen to that?”

“I’ll sign it over to Tommy. Don’t worry. I survived a Russian prison, I can survive this.”

“And I’m supposed to be okay with your plan?”

“You’ll get to return to your family. Have a life. Marry someone else.”

“Fuck you, Alessandro Rossi.”

“Do you want to?” I returned evenly.