Page 19 of Plus-Size Bratva Possession (Vadim Bratva #12)

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He had a woman he loved once. She was carrying his child. My brothers…they killed her.

Every instinct within me urged to call him a liar, to ask how he could stoop so low as to make up such a horrific story, but I stayed shut. Somewhere in my mind, I knew he couldn’t.

He couldn’t have created and murdered a woman all to convince me he wasn’t anything like my brothers.

My mind scrambled to refute what he was saying. I was certain there had to be some other explanation that would make sense of this nightmare. Because it had to be a lie. It had to be.

I could no longer hold myself back, knowing I was being cruel. But what was he saying? My brothers killed a pregnant woman? Impossible.

My entire body was trembling with shock. Gastone was now watching me with worry, as though I might collapse. I hated letting him believe I was convinced of what he said.

“You…You….it can’t be!” I spat, finding my voice, unable to hold back anymore.

Gastone's face twisted with pain, with anger.

“You think I'd make this up?” his voice trembled. Trembled. “You think I'd invent a dead fiancée and unborn child just to win an argument?”

“No!” I said instantly, shaking my head. “Of course not!”

“Then what?” he roared. “What the hell am I lying about?”

I crossed my arms over my chest to hide how badly I was shaking. “My brothers aren't murderers. They would never kill an innocent woman, let alone a pregnant one.”

“Here,” he said, thrusting the phone at me after an entire minute of scrolling through it.

I hesitated, then took it from him. I saw an old photo of Gastone with his arm wrapped around a dark-haired woman. They were smiling at the camera, arm in arm, looking utterly in love.

“That's Adriana,” he said quietly, watching me. “We met at a charity gala. She worked in fashion.”

“Why are you showing me this?” I asked, my hands trembling as I clutched the phone and stared down at this beautiful woman who was once the love of Gastone’s life. Without meaning to, I felt tears well in my eyes. To know she once existed, and now didn’t, I couldn’t digest it.

“Because I need you to know. To see she had no enemies.”

I swiped to the next photo, one of Gastone and Adriana at the beach, laughing as waves crashed behind them.

The next one was of the two of them bundled up in winter coats, snowflakes caught in her long hair.

The next was Gastone kissing her cheek as she held up her hand to display an engagement ring.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I…I’m sorry,” my voice shook. I couldn’t tear my gaze away. How could anyone have killed someone so innocent? So beautiful? So alive. The world didn’t feel fair.

“She was the one who convinced me I could have a different life,” he continued, his voice rough with emotion. “We were going to leave after the baby was born and run off to another country. We were thinking Indonesia. She always loved the beach.”

“Oh, Gastone,” I murmured, looking up at him for a brief moment.

That anguish in his face, I wanted nothing more in that moment to take it away.

No matter how many times I said it, it didn’t seem enough.

With my spare hand, I reached out and gave him a squeeze.

He laced his fingers through mine, squeezed back.

I hadn’t forgiven him for what I’d seen or the lies he told about my brothers, but I couldn’t bear to not comfort him.

I kept swiping, my hands trembling as the photos told their story. They had such a life. There were more memories than I knew what to do with. Pictures of them doing up a nursery for a child, photos of her baby bump, of them being goofy and funny and so alive and full of love.

I felt sad. Sadder than ever, trying to comprehend the loss Gastone faced. Sad for the whole situation, but even then, I had to fight for my family. This was too cruel a thing for my brothers to have done.

“It could have been anyone,” I whispered, trying to maintain my brother's dignity. “You have enemies everywhere, right?”

“Keep going,” he said grimly.

“I…I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. Looking at these photos made me sad.

“Swipe forward,” he growled with insistence, and I felt a chill down my spine.

I swiped, fearing what might come next.

The headline made my heart stop: “Fashion designer Gunned Down in Daylight Attack.”

I read with growing horror: “Adriana Moretti, 29, was fatally shot yesterday afternoon while leaving her obstetrician's office in Manhattan. Police are investigating connections to organized crime, as Moretti was romantically linked to Gastone Ajello, a known associate of the Ajello crime family. Sources close to the investigation suggest a Russian-Italian crime organization may be behind the attack, but no arrests have been made.”

“No, this can't—” I looked up at him, my voice failing. “There are other Russian-Italian organizations in New York.”

“Are there?” Gastone challenged. “Name one with enough power to cover their tracks this thoroughly. One with enough pull to make evidence disappear and not face consequences for such a powerful crime. One with enough reason to target me this way.”

I couldn't. We both knew only one family fit that description: mine.

“It's not proof,” I said weakly.

“I didn't need the papers to tell me who did it,” Gastone said. “I asked around and the people I talked to confirmed my story.”

I felt my vision tunnel into darkness. The truth was, I didn’t want to believe it, didn’t think I could.

“She was coming out of the doctor's,” he choked on his voice.

“She had just found out we were having a daughter. She called me right after, so excited she could hardly speak, but she told me she wished I were there. She was still on the phone with me when it happened. I heard the shots. Heard her fall. Heard her trying to breathe as she bled out on the sidewalk.”

A sob escaped me. The phone slipped from my numb fingers, and Gastone caught it before it hit the ground.

“I got there ten minutes later. Ten minutes too late.” His eyes were dry but haunted. “She was gone. Both of them were gone.”

I covered my mouth with my hand, tears streaming down my face. “I don't understand. Why would they do this?”

“Your brother Gio was expanding territory, pushing into our shipping lanes. I'd refused to negotiate. Adriana was the message: back off or there would be more bodies.”

“No,” I shook my head. “My brothers wouldn't...”

“They did,” Gastone said firmly, taking back his phone. “And ever since that day, I’ve wanted nothing more than to make them pay.”

His words hit home and gave me the reason I’d been searching for. “Is that what this is? Taking me to get back at them for Adriana?”

“Initially? Yes.” His honesty surprised me. “But things changed. You changed things.”

I looked at him through my tears, trying to reconcile this man, who had loved so deeply, with the one I'd come to know. With the one who had made me breakfast and kissed me goodbye.

With the one who had tortured a man in that warehouse.

“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked.

He sighed, suddenly looking exhausted. “I don't know. I've kept it locked away for so long. I guess I kept it from you because it wasn’t your burden to carry.”

In the midst of all that happened, what he believed my family did, he still tried to protect me. How could he be so very caring yet so cruel at the same time?

Given what he just shared with me, though, he needed kindness from me. Not rage. He had finally opened up, to reveal a story I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. That had to have taken courage for a man like him, who was always the one in charge, who never showed an ounce of vulnerability. Until now.

In that moment, I chose kindness.

“But now I know.”

“Now you know.” He met my eyes. “Don't tell anyone, Elena. Not your brothers, not anyone. Please . It’ll only bring trouble.”

I was feeling so numb and drained that all I could do was nod. Whatever had happened—whoever was responsible—this was Gastone's pain and truth.

And despite everything, despite the warehouse and the blood and the accusations against my family, I couldn't bring myself to hate him for it.

In time, I was sure I could show him he was wrong about one thing. Even now, I believe my brothers couldn’t have.

Right?

“Can we go home?” I asked, my voice small. “I'm so tired.”

He reached out tentatively, as though asking if I forgave him, and I linked my fingers through his, needing the anchor.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Let's go home.”

***

Two weeks later, we were standing in the most unlikely of places. We were at my brother Caspian’s front door, and I was nervous beyond belief.

“You don't have to do this,” I told him for the hundredth time. The dinner invitation had arrived three days ago, a peace offering from my oldest brother to welcome Gastone as a brother-in-law.

It had confused me too. If they’d killed Adriana, they wouldn’t have been so bold, would they? But nowadays, my head was a jumbled mess. My world seemed to be full of secrets, and I didn’t know what to trust anymore because I no longer trusted myself to decipher reality from agenda.

For all I knew, my brothers could have done it. They could have thought Gastone forgave them for how well my family treated his sister. That being married to me was a peace offering.

Or, Gastone was mistaken all along.

Most of the time, I believed my brothers to be innocent. But sometimes, when my mind crumbled and distorted, I found myself thinking of what-ifs that petrified the hell out of me.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Gastone replied, straightening his tie. “I'm your husband, and out of respect for you, I'll sit at their table.”

I swallowed hard, knowing what this cost him, knowing what he believed my brothers had done. The knowledge sat like lead in my stomach, poisoning every phone call I'd had with my family since that day at the warehouse.