Page 110

Mariano

M y wife had been keeping a dangerous fucking secret from me.

My wife.

She glanced at me and then looked away. It seemed as if she wanted to say something, but she kept closing her mouth before she did. Maybe she knew it was no use. My mind was hyper focused on what she had told me.

That motherfucker had broken into my wife’s private space.

One.

He was a dangerous motherfucker who could have hurt her. I refused to even think the fucking word, but men like him were known to make grown men beg for death to escape the pain. He was in her room with her, all alone, telling her he loved her.

Which led me to fucking number two .

My fucking boundaries as a man. As a husband. It was more than improper to be alone with my wife. He had no fucking business, personal or otherwise, no fucking reason on this earth or anywhere else, to think he had the right to do what he did.

She didn’t even fucking tell me.

She didn’t fucking tell anyone.

She was worried about my soul. From my experience, good women were. My mamma and sister were the same. It was something they took into consideration when dealing with a man who had no issue with taking another man’s life.

I had no fucking issues with it. I didn’t kill or maim willy nilly, but if or when the situation arose, and the outcome called for it, I didn’t hesitate.

The honor in my blood demanded it.

The ruthlessness craved it.

I simply fed it.

Not only was it my right for the disrespect to me , but anything that threatened mine was mine to destroy. It was fair game when another man encroached on what belonged to me, especially something as vital as my heart. Something I couldn’t live without.

My wife.

My wife glanced at me, then turned her eyes away again.

We were en route to my parents’ place in Tuscany.

She looked different. More…mature in a way she hadn’t been before.

It wasn’t just her attire. My grandfather demanded respect, was traditional about it, and we both had changed before we landed in Tuscany to honor his wishes.

I had dressed in a custom-made black suit.

She wore a sheer black dress that had a slip dress underneath.

The sleeves were long, and the dress fell at her ankles.

A belt to match the fabric of her dress cinched her waist in, showcasing her figure.

She wore a pair of black stockings (which I wanted to rip off with my teeth) with a pair of high-heeled booties, as she had called them.

That was the term she had breathed at me when I had called them boots on the plane, slipping them on her feet.

“Boo-ties,” she had said, trying to make a joke, trying to bring back our time on the island and the word booby . She was making the word out to mean ass instead of something she wore on her feet.

I had never considered myself a stone-cold motherfucker until I found the one thing in life worth living for, worth dying for, my wife, and I couldn’t find the humor in even her jokes. She had sighed at me, like a fucking accusation, and shook her head.

I was rambling inside of my head.

It wasn’t her clothes that gave her a refined, more mature look. It was her. The way she carried herself, like she could walk into a room full of monsters and tell them all to sit the fuck down and they would do it. She was finding her worth as a woman and demanding no less than what she deserved.

This was something I would always challenge.

I would keep upping my game as her husband to keep up with her standards, because there was no fucking way I would ever be able to claim I deserved her. I would never be able to meet her worth. But it fed into my hunger for her. My need to forever work for her acceptance, her yes, her love.

My old man didn’t have a way with words, unless he was speaking to my mamma, and they had a language of their own, which he seemed to speak to her enough through it, but there was one thing he taught all his sons.

How to love a woman.

How to feed the unworthiness to my hunger to keep her satisfied and in love with me.

So deep in love, her heart would expand to a size she couldn’t even fathom.

That was what my wife had told me on the island, in the cave she had called magical, hidden behind the waterfall. Her heart felt as if it might burst, but at the same time, it was still beating inside of her chest.

It’s a woman’s right to feel that way.

As a man, I was lost, worthless, entirely gone without her.

The only trace I had lived for a time would be my time spent with her.

Nothing I ever did before her meant fucking anything.

My life was a blur before her. When I had found my Renaissance painting in that jewelry shop, surrounded by priceless jewelry that was worthless to me in her presence, my life came into focus, but the blur kept around the edges—only she and I were in the clear.

I was physically stronger in every way than the woman sitting beside me, but where it fucking counted, she could destroy me.

Destroy me enough to bring me to my knees.

She could take a knife to my throat, to my heart, and I would allow her to—as long as she didn’t fucking stick it in my back.

If she did, she would kill me in a way that was unnatural.

There would always be a part of me stuck in the hell she inflicted on me.

What she had done, not telling me about Iggy, was not that type of betrayal. Because I knew the reason behind her silence. I understood it, even if I couldn’t stand it.

I had my way of doing things when it came to protecting mine.

She had hers.

We wouldn’t always see eye-to-eye on it.

This was one of those times.

I ran a hand over my chest—I got the feeling I was in for more of this fucking heart strain. By the time I was my old man’s age, I’d need fucking antacids like him.

Oscar turned into my parents’ drive in Tuscany.

Dr. Musa was next to him in the front seat, and Nino was behind us in the third-row seat.

A line of cypress trees bowed to the wind, and dust swallowed the armored car as it ate the slope of the steep drive with ease.

The SUV came to a smooth stop in front of the villa, and Sistine and I sighed at the same time.

We looked at each other.

Our eyes connected.

I refused to rip mine from hers, and she refused to move hers from mine, even when Dr. Musa knocked on the window.

My wife had been right. The old gangster and the good doctor had mended whatever rift had been between them.

My wife said they were more in love than ever, and she was thrilled with how the island had healed their relationship.

Nino’s fucking business was his. Whatever went on between him and his wife was theirs.

I didn’t meddle in other people’s business unless it directly affected me.

The end.

However, bringing them together made my wife happy, so I allowed it. All she had done was set up a date for them in Fiji. Nino took the hint and did the rest. Dr. Musa’s knock, though, signaled that she wanted her husband out of the car. My wife and I were blocking his exit.

Nino sighed, rather fucking dramatically, and Sistine turned away from me and grinned. Dr. Musa grinned back, but I knew the grin wasn’t meant for her. It was from the dramatic note in Nino’s sigh.

I turned my wife’s face back toward me.

You didn’t fucking tell me.

She sighed, a deep sound from the depths of her chest. I know this. However, there is nothing I can do about it now.

This was the conversation.

Over and over.

There was nothing she could do about it.

It was done.

The thought of it haunted me like a screeching ghost.

That thought fucking made me harden.

I should have never allowed the distance between us, even if it meant her family would always question our connection.

Her mamma was not of sane enough mind to see past whatever lies her husband had fed her about how Capri treated Sistine.

Her grandfather and father knew the truth about who was the disturbing force in the palazzo.

Her sister was a spoiled toddler, and toddlers couldn’t understand unless it was explained to them.

No one in that palazzo was doing the explaining to her.

I fixed my suit, then opened the door, stepping out.

Nino was right behind me. He rushed to his wife’s side as I went around to my wife’s side and opened her door.

I gave her my hand, and she stepped out of the car like the woman she was.

I almost expected birds to sing above her head, and dangerous wild animals to bow at her feet.

That was me.

The dangerous wild animal.

She squeezed my hand. I cannot change it.

I squeezed back. Don’t fucking tell me something I already know.

She sighed and then released me when Mamma and Papà came out to greet us.

Mamma pulled Sistine into a hug, joking about how jealous she was that Sistine had the perfume of the island on her—the magic it held.

Papà shook my hand and then squeezed my shoulder.

Mamma came to me next, and I hugged her tightly.

She smelled like my childhood—roses and something specifically hers.

Something that was tucked away in my DNA.

A subtle reminder that this small, delicate woman was powerful enough to give birth to five offspring of Fausti blood.

My sister wasn’t as tiny as mamma, but she wasn’t as big as Brando Fausti’s sons either.

Still. My sister was strong of will—probably as strong as me and my brothers put together.

That still counted as being strong enough to pull off such a difficult feat for a woman of my mamma’s size.

Mamma was strong of will too.

I glanced at my wife.

Yeah, she had it in her as well.

“You look so good, my son,” Mamma whispered. She stepped back and smiled at me. “You look healthy. Healed in a way you weren’t before.” Her eyes moved to the left, and mine moved with hers.