Page 24 of His Wicked Wants (West Coast Mobsters #6)

CHAPTER 22

GAbrIEL

I call up Yvonne after I’ve finished for the day, because I want to make sure that Nero doesn’t retaliate against GreenSpace out of petty spite for my questioning him earlier today. It’s played on my mind all afternoon, that conversation we had in the greenhouse. At the time, I believed him when he told me he’d gifted that money to Elise’s sister simply to be able to enjoy his lunches more.

But the more I think about it, the worse I feel.

Nero Andretti is not a good man, not in the traditional sense of the word, anyway. But whatever his reasons for pushing money onto some woman he’s never met, the outcome is the same: a sick child will get the treatment that she needs. Does it really matter if he didn’t do it simply out of the goodness of his heart?

Yvonne sounds so happy and excited when she answers the phone, that I immediately ask what’s going on.

“Well,” she says, “for one thing, your boyfriend came in and told me I didn’t need to worry about those other guys?—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I explode. “Nero came in there and demanded protection money? I swear to God, I’m going to?—”

“You’re going to shut your mouth and listen, Gabe,” Yvonne snaps at me. “He didn’t make me pay any money. He told me that he was going to take care of the men who were threatening businesses around the area, because that was his job, and that I didn’t owe him anything to do it. Because—and this is the real good news—he put in an order for, like, a thousand flowers for some wedding. Irises, roses, everything you can imagine—but they all have to be orange or red, and a few yellow. He said as long as I did a good job, we’d be square.”

I’m no less horrified. “But that’s no kind of deal at all!” I insist. “Do you have any idea how much it will cost GreenSpace to?—”

“Why do you insist on treating me like I’m some kind of moron?” she asks frostily, and from Yvonne, this is the closest she gets to angry. “Of course he’s paying for the flowers, and the labor, which is more than I can say for most of the wedding planners around town.”

But that’s not good, either. “I’ve told you before,” I say, carefully, because I don’t want to risk another Yvonne explosion. “You should never let a guy like that do you a favor. It will only come back and bite you in the ass. Trust me, I know how it works.”

“Gabriel,” she says firmly, “I have accepted the work order, and I will be fulfilling it. And I need you to get behind me on this, ’cause we need the money for the community garden.”

Money. Of course it always comes down to money. I say no more to Yvonne because I know she doesn’t want to hear it. But I resolve to speak to Nero as soon as I can and tell him to back off. I’ll have to be careful because I know it’s true—the community garden needs funding.

But with men like Nero Andretti, there are always strings attached.

I’m actually up at Redwood Manor when Nero arrives home in the early evening, his Bugatti racing up the drive as though it was a Formula One track. I’ve been looking again for the best place to hold this wedding for Roxanne Rochford, and I wanted to see the effect of the sunset on different parts of the estate. But I don’t want to confront him in front of the house guards, so I head off to his guesthouse to wait. He’s there only moments later and, as usual, looks completely unperturbed by my presence.

“What is it now?” he asks coolly.

“Why are you getting Yvonne to do the flowers for the wedding?”

He sighs, reaches out to grab me by the arm, and pulls me into his guesthouse. “For someone who claims to have grown up around the business, you sure have a big mouth.”

“Why the hell are you making GreenSpace handle the flowers?” I demand again, hands finding their way to my hips as they always do when I’m in Nero Andretti’s presence.

He must have noticed me doing it often, too, because he puts his own hands on his own hips and scowls hard in what I assume is supposed to be an imitation of my expression. “Because there are any number of people who would love to infiltrate a private wedding held on Castellani grounds with the new Bernardi Don.”

“You’re going to tell Yvonne that you made a mistake,” I say obstinately. “You’re going to tell her that you’re very sorry, but Roxanne Rochford has changed her mind.”

“No I am not.” It’s the absolute calmness in his voice that drives me crazy.

“Yes you are, because if you don’t, I’m going to tell Julian and Sandro what you’re doing.”

“What I am doing is organizing floral decorations from a source that the Family can trust,” he says, an edge to his voice now. “I think they’d be thrilled to hear it, little gardener. Not everything in the whole world revolves around you , you know.”

I stare at him, my anger deflating. “You need flowers from a source you can trust?” I repeat.

“Correct. And unless you’re telling me that GreenSpace is actually a front for organized crime?—”

“You know it isn’t.”

“Then for God’s sake, take the win, Gabriel,” he says wearily. I’ve never heard him sound that way before. “Ms. Rochford will stop harassing you about the flowers, I won’t have to waste time mediating between the two of you, and your precious GreenSpace gets a much-needed influx of cash. It’s wins all round.”

I know what he says is true. It’s just that I still don’t trust his motives. There’s something about Nero Andretti that just screams “fake,” no matter how nice he might pretend to be sometimes.

“Are you going to leave now?” he asks. “Or do you have some other interrogation you’d like to attempt?” He pulls off his jacket and throws it over the nearby ottoman as though he doesn’t care at all about the quality of the piece.

“Look,” I say stiffly, “I’ve actually been feeling kind of shitty about what I said to you before in the greenhouse. Because maybe you’re right. Maybe it doesn’t matter what your intentions are, as long as the outcome is a positive thing.” I stare around the room, trying to think of some way to get him to admit to this, and catch sight of a violin case next to his jacket on the ottoman. “Isn’t that a little on the nose for you?” I ask before I can stop myself.

It’s as though I want an argument with him, I want to make him lose his cool and fight back, and I’m not even sure why.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, and he really does sound exhausted now.

“The gun in the violin case,” I say, waving at it with a hand.

He raises an eyebrow, then grabs my arm once more. I assume he’s going to throw me out—he should throw me out. I’m behaving like some petulant kid, annoying even myself. But instead, he drags me over to the sofa and pushes me into the seat. “I will show you exactly what is in this violin case, little gardener, and perhaps it will teach you to keep your mouth shut from now on.”

His eyes are flashing. I’ve pushed him too far. Fear threads its way from the top of my scalp all the way down my spine. But I stay where I am, as though Nero’s command is a bond of iron. All I can do is watch as he opens the case, then turns it to show me the contents.

“It’s a violin,” I blurt out, after a long pause.

“As you see.”

“Whose is it?”

“Some poor unfortunate musician who couldn’t pay his debt to me.” He rolls his eyes at my expression. “ Porca miseria! It’s mine! Is it so unbelievable?”

“No,” I protest. “I just didn’t think...”

“You just didn’t think someone as uncultured as me would play the violin.”

Uncultured? That’s an odd way to put it, like it hasn’t quite translated properly from the Italian. “I don’t think that. I just didn’t think you were the kind to have…a hobby,” I finish weakly.

“Perhaps I keep it as a reminder of everything I can’t have.”

“Perhaps you’d be kind enough to play something for me,” I counter.

Slowly, without taking his eyes from mine, he reaches into the case and withdraws the violin and the bow. His hands, scattered with tattoos, seem to change as he lifts them up, reverent and gentle. He turns away from me then, heading to the window instead, where I can see, silhouetted against the darkening sky, the rise topped by the trees that he hates so much.

He takes a few tentative slides of the bow against the strings, and then suddenly breaks into Vivaldi’s Spring—just a few bars—enough to shock me upright on the sofa.

He’s very good.

And then he alters the tempo, slows it down, and begins playing a piece I’m not familiar with. Sad and melancholy, but with a little kick of hope at the end of every bar, like...

Like a heart jumping. Like mine is, right now.

He stops, hands falling to his sides with the bow and violin.

“Why did you stop?” I stand and take a few steps toward him, and when he turns, he wears the same old expression—arrogant, sneering, contemptuously amused. I don’t know if there was some kind of spell in that piece he played, because I can see that expression now for what it really is.

A mask.

“Because it is not useful to me,” he tells me.

I take another few steps closer. “Is music supposed to be useful? I think it’s just…human expression.”

He sets the violin and bow down on the side table next to him. “And again. That is not a useful thing for me.”

I’ve come close enough that I could reach out and brush my fingers over his face if I wanted to. And the strange thing is…

I want to.

“I’ve never heard you playing before. I mean…from outside.”

“I haven’t played for a long time.”

“What was it called, that piece? I didn’t know it.”

His gaze travels down my body, but not in that usual, seductive way he has. No, this feels more like…shyness. But that can’t be right. Nero Andretti is the polar opposite of shy. He says something rapidly in Italian, and I think I catch my own name.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak?—”

“‘For Gabriel of the Sad Green Eyes,’” he translates. “A composition of my own. I made it up,” he adds, as I open my mouth again. “Just now. And now you must go.”

My heart is thudding now, with that little kick at the end, just like Nero’s music. “Why?”

“Because I am a bad man, Gabriel. You think there is some part of me that you can save—make me care about the things that you care about. But it’s a fool’s dream, and you are a fool to think it.”

His words are harsh, but he sounds only weary once more, not heated. He steps past me, but I catch his arm as he goes, turning him so that he’s facing me, and my back is to the window.

“What if I don’t want to save you? What if—what if I just want to be bad for a little while, too?”

His eyes darken, eclipsing the caramel shards. “If that is what you want, then you know what to do.”

It’s electric, this thing building between us, like that storm in the garden earlier today. If I give in—if I stay out in the tempest—I run the risk of getting struck by lightning. But the need is pulsing through me. A need, not a want.

Wordlessly, I sink to my knees in front of him and look up into his face.