Page 36 of His Playground (Owning Vegas #2)

Chapter Thirty-Five

A ntonia’s words repeat in my head. Don’t break me again. Breaking this woman was the last thing I ever wanted to do.

When she stormed out of Emmanuel’s office with her threats of divorce papers, I saw fucking red. There is no universe where I’d grant her a divorce. She’s delusional if she thought that would happen. But I understand her need for honesty. I understand where her lack of trust comes from.

Me. I’m the reason she’s wary. I broke the blind trust she once had in me, and I have to work to rebuild it. And I will.

“How did I let you fuckers talk me into this shit?” I grunt.

“Because you know it’s the quickest and easiest way to get him,” Louie says.

“He’s right,” Sammie agrees.

“I don’t know what you’re worried about. Your wife can handle her own just fine,” Emmanuel adds.

“I can’t fucking wait for you to have a wife and have to put her in a position where she could be hurt.” I glare at him.

The asshole smirks at me. “If it were my wife, she wouldn’t be out there.”

“Then why the fuck did you think it was a good idea for Antonia to go through with this fucked-up plan?” I yell at him.

“Because she’s not my wife. And Louie is right. It’s the quickest way to get the old bastard so we can all go home,” Emmanuel replies. “Relax. I have a hundred men surrounding this building. He isn’t getting out of there alive.”

“I’m not concerned about him getting out alive,” I mutter. I’m concerned that my wife is in that room with a fucking asshole who wants to kill her. The same asshole who happens to be her father.

We have eyes in the restaurant. The whole place is monitored, our snipers have him in their sights with instructions to fire at any sign of trouble. I’d prefer if my wife wasn’t fucking in that room when they do it, though.

“Papa, what’s on this anyway?” Antonia asks her father. We watch from where we are seated in our blacked-out SUV as she hands over the disk in question.

“Nothing that concerns you. Why did it take you so long to find it?” he grunts, and I reach out a hand to increase the volume of the audio.

“It’s not easy snooping through a mobster’s house. You of all people should be aware of that,” she replies.

I hate this version of Antonia, the prim and proper mafia daughter who knows her place. I will never let Jazzy become that. I want her to stay as innocent and clueless as she currently is. I want her to be one hundred percent herself.

At the thought of my daughter, I check the feed on my phone.

It’s displaying the CCTV of the room she’s sleeping in at Emmanuel’s house.

Charlotte and Evie are both with her. I have five men outside that room, while Emmanuel has another fifty in the hall.

I have no doubt their instructions are to protect Evie at any cost.

“Come on, Antonia, get up and walk out,” I whisper.

“She can’t leave right away. You know that,” Louie tells me.

“Much longer and I’m going in to get her,” I grunt.

“No, you’re not,” Emmanuel says.

I raise a brow at him. He’d have to shoot me to stop me—although I wouldn’t put that past the fucker.

“How did you get it?” Antonia’s father asks her.

“He took Jazzy out. I told him I wasn’t feeling well and stayed behind. It wasn’t hard to break the code to the safe after that. It’s my birthday,” she explains.

“Fool. You know I thought the kid would be his downfall, but the mother disappeared when she was supposed to go in. If I would have known he’d still be as obsessed with you, I would have used you first.” Marciano laughs. “Love makes men do stupid shit.”

“You used me. I’m your daughter. Your only child.” Antonia sounds broken.

“Don’t act like you didn’t get anything out of it. You married the man you’d already given yourself to. It’s not like I could offer you up to anyone else after he ruined you.”

“Fuck this! I’m going to get her.” I swing open the car door, about to step out, when Louie grabs hold of the back of my jacket.

“Wait. She’s getting up.” He points to the screen we’ve been watching.

“I’m sorry for not being enough for you to love like a father should love his child. I guess you and my mother have that in common. She left me with you. You sold me,” Antonia says, and my heart stops beating for a moment.

“Stop talking and get the fuck out, Antonia,” I grumble.

“Your mother died for you to live. She loved you,” Marciano spits back.

Antonia laughs. A dark, humorless laugh. “She didn’t die. She’s very much alive. She left you. She left me with you . She didn’t love either of us enough to stay.”

“What did you just say?” Marciano rises to his full height while leaning across the table.

“Fuck.” I spring out of the car and sprint across the road. When I push through the door of the restaurant, the fucker is towering over her. And she’s on the floor, holding a hand against her cheek.

“She didn’t love you. She left you and she got away with it.” Antonia laughs again.

He raises his arm to hit her, and I grab hold of his wrist. “Get the fuck away from my wife,” I growl. I look down at Antonia. “Out, now.”

I wait until she scrambles to her feet and runs out of the restaurant. Sammie meets her at the door while Louie and Emmanuel position themselves in front of it.

“I knew the bitch wasn’t fucking loyal,” Joey Marciano, my soon-to-be-dead father-in-law, spits out at me.

“Oh, she’s loyal. Just not to you.” I smirk. “She’s real fucking loyal to me, though.”

“Should have known when she didn’t take the bait with those text messages I sent her. No matter how much she claimed she wanted out of that arrangement, she was content being your whore.”

I reach behind my back, draw the pistol I tucked into my waistband, and point it right at his head. That was twice now this fucker insulted my wife in front of me. “You’re getting out of this easy.”

“You think you’re going to get away with killing me?” Joey laughs. “I’m a Don. You can’t kill me.”

“Actually, I think I can.” I pull the trigger and his body hits the floor with a thud . “Oh, look, I just did.” I kick at his motionless torso. Then I crouch down, fish around in his pocket, and retrieve the disk.

“Let’s move out.” Emmanuel taps a hand on my shoulder.

I nod and walk out of the restaurant, without looking back. Taking a life has never felt so fucking good.

By the time I get to the car, I find Sammie holding an icepack against Antonia’s cheek. I sit next to her and pull the cold compress away from her skin. Cursing when I see the mark that fucker left on my wife’s face. “Fucking hell, I want to kill him again.”

“It’s fine. It’s over now. Right?” Antonia asks me.

“Yeah, it’s over now.” I lean forward and kiss her forehead.

“Good, let’s go get our kid out of Emmanuel’s house and take her home.”

Our kid. She said our kid . I didn’t know how much I needed to hear that, to know she accepted Jazzy as her own, until now. I know Antonia’s not her mother, and I don’t want to replace Wendy. But I do want us to be a family, a real fucking family.

“Let’s go get our kid.” I nod. “I fucking love you.”

“I love you too.” Antonia grabs my jacket, pulls me closer, and presses her lips to mine. “Carlo?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“Will you marry me?” she asks.

“Ah, we are married.”

Fuck, did she hit her head when she fell? I need to find a new fucking doctor to do house calls.

“I know, but will you marry me again? A wedding of our own choosing this time?” she clarifies.

“I’ll marry you every day for the rest of our lives, Antonia Bianchi. You might not have chosen me, but I never had a single doubt about choosing you,” I tell her. “Let’s plan the wedding of your dreams. I want you to have everything you ever wanted.”

“I want to do it in our backyard. Just you, me, Jazzy, and our friends,” she says. “That’s everything I want.”

“I can make that happen.” I capture her lips in mine, pulling her over so she’s sitting on my lap, and hold her against me.

I have everything I ever wanted too.