Page 85 of My Dark Ever After

“Yes, but I do not want this information to hand it over to thatstronzo. I want it for myself. The Venetian can have Raffa’s kingdom if he can steal it. All I want is his life.”

“No.” The word exploded from me like a bullet.

I wished it was one.

If someone had put a gun into my hand that second, I would have raised it without hesitation to put lead between my grandfather’s eyes.

The thought should have chilled me.

That the idea of killing could be so immediate in my fantasies. That I could almost feel the weight of the gun and the cool of the metal in my hand, my index finger twitching like it was hungry for the pull of a trigger.

But I had already had my existential crisis about killing someone. The man on the top of the Impruneta bell tower.

Now, instead of the blare of panic trilling through my head, I heard only the cool, calm tones of Raffa.

Non sei un’assassina; sei una cacciatrice.

You are not a killer; you are a huntress.

And I felt it was true in that moment, staring at a stranger who shared my blood and feeling certain I would end him if he so much aslaid a finger on Raffa or Martina or Renzo, Ludo, or Carm. On any of the Romanos who had taken me into their home.

Far from horrifying me, the idea sang through my blood like a macabre song.

“The Venetian doesn’t want him dead yet,” Gaetano continued as if I hadn’t spoken, and I had a feeling he did that often, especially with women. “He doesn’t have what he needs from Raffaele, and until he does, he can’t secure the empire. But it is too good an opportunity to pass up. So I have made my own little plan. Unfortunately, it involves your cooperation.

“Tu sei mia nipote. Il mio sangue,” he said in Italian, gesturing widely with one hand. “You are my granddaughter. My blood. Of course, even though the circumstances were not desirable, I was thrilled to discover your existence. It was wrong of your father to keep you hidden from us.”

He paused for me to agree with him, and though I did take umbrage at Dad for keeping such a colossal secret, I couldn’t very well blame him for keeping me from his family.

They were batshit crazy.

“I want to embrace you as my blood and, one day, maybe even my heir,” he continued, dangling the last word like bait before a fish, hoping to hook me with its shiny promise. “What do you think about that?”

“I have no interest in being a mob boss,” I said flatly, though that wasn’t necessarily true anymore.

When Raffa came for me, I would never leave his side again. Not for meetings with Albanians, not to confer with other capos. Not when he could be in danger and not when he might be complicit in criminalities. I would go where he went—be it prison or the ER or any circle of Dante’s hell. I would be his partner in all things.

The queen to his King Below.

He laughed. “That is a good thing. Men who want to be mob bosses only care about the money and the swagger. I have looked into you, Guinevere Stone, and you are a smart woman. First in your class at the University of Michigan for your MBA, a job at one of the bestfinancial firms in the country. Doing what I do is much like running a giant corporation.”

“Where people are killed if they don’t follow company policy,” I quipped.

A shadow passed over his face. “I do not appreciate jokes when talking about business, Guinevere.”

“And I do not appreciate your threatening the man I love or my being kept hostage when I’ve asked to leave.”

“We have welcomed you warmly,” he started to say, but I cut him off with a harsh laugh.

“Warmly? My aunt drugged me on a train and dragged me here, and when I didn’t immediately comply with your wishes, you had me locked in this room. I haven’t met any other family members, and I haven’t been allowed access to my phone. Is that considered warm in the Camorra?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “A cold welcome would involve you strung up with the prosciutto in the barn, left to dry and rot until we deigned to slice you open. Would you rather the alternative?”

I swallowed thickly but gathered my bravado around me like a shield. “Which are you? The loving grandfather happy to meet his granddaughter for the first time, or the Mafia don wanting answers from me by any means necessary?”

“Can’t I be both?” he asked, and it gave me chills because he was utterly sincere. “I do not want to hurt you, but I will if it means ending this mess once and for all.”

“By killing me, you mean?”