Page 26 of The Virgin’s Dance with the Devil (The Martinelli Wedding #3)

Her hand flew through the air and connected with his cheek before he could finish his final plea.

“Don’t you understand?” she screamed, her face red with anguish and fury.

“I fucking hate you! Now let me go right this second, or I’m going to tell everyone what you and your despicable brothers did to me and I don’t care if it humiliates me too – there is no way I can feel more humiliation and pain than I already feel, so if you ever felt a damned thing for me, let me go ! ”

The last spark of fight in him extinguished. It wasn’t the threat he knew she’d never act on that did it. It was her curse. In all their time together, Marisa had barely made a mild profanity, so to hear that from her lips...

I fucking hate you .

It sliced him.

He’d taken this precious creature, this precious angel who’d given him nothing but love, trust and affection, and instead of recognising just how precious she was, he’d…

He’d done everything she said he’d done. Treated her like meat. Like a toy.

Opening the door to let her go was the hardest thing Rico had ever done. It was the only real unselfish act he’d made in his life.

He watched her walk to the stairs at the end of his floor. “I love you, Marisa,” he called behind her hoarsely. “I will always love you.”

She didn’t break her stride or look back at him.

Marisa had no recollection of walking to her sister’s suite. It was on the top floor of the block next to Rico’s. The hand that knocked on the door felt disconnected from the rest of her. Nothing felt connected. It was like she was just a walking mass of cells.

Gennaro opened the door. His smile of greeting didn’t even reach his eyes before it fell. “Luisa,” he called urgently as he stepped aside to let Marisa in.

“What’s wrong?” Luisa’s voice called back from somewhere else in the suite, and then she floated into view… at least, it seemed to Marisa’s eyes that she floated. It wasn’t just herself that felt disconnected; it was everything. The world itself .

Luisa’s frightened face came into clearer focus. “Marisa?”

Suddenly feeling a desperate need to touch something solid and real, Marisa put her trembling fingers to her sister’s warm cheek.

“You were right,” she croaked, barely aware tears were streaming down her face.

“You were right about him.” And then her knees buckled, collapsing as Marisa’s world collapsed around her.

Rico couldn’t lift himself off the floor. The world was spinning around him. His world. Marisa. Gone.

His phone kept buzzing and ringing. His family. Soon, they would send someone to his suite to check on him and see what the hell he was playing at. The tequilas Mattia had lined up would be long gone.

He wanted to rip Tommaso’s head from his shoulders for what he’d done. Those damned messages.

He pinched the bridge of his nose to stem the hot tears that kept building and retracting.

Rico hadn’t cried since he was a small boy, and Tommaso had called him a girl for crying when he’d fallen over and taken a chunk out of his knee.

He didn’t think he even knew how to cry anymore, and what good would crying do if he could do it? It wouldn’t bring Marisa back.

The best thing that had ever happened to him was gone, and he could blame Tommaso for those damned messages but Tommaso wasn’t to blame. He was. It was all on him. Everything. He was everything she said he was.

His phone rang again. A different ring tone. One he couldn’t ignore.

His heart heavier than he’d dreamed it could be, he answered it with a weary, “Yes?”

He closed his eyes, too drained to curse the caller relaying the worst news that could be delivered on the eve of his sister’s wedding.

The mistress’s sister had escaped. A car had left Dante’s estate and driven to the nearest town.

Callie Thomas had been seen getting out of it.

Minutes later, Callie and her luggage had been seen getting into a taxi.

“What do you want us to do, boss?” Ciro, the caller asked.

He was in the car tailing Callie’s taxi.

“We can head them off, no problem. We’ve got the apartments ready.

” The secure apartments Ciro and his team would take her to while Rico called his father.

Rico would give the order for Callie to be snatched from the taxi; his father give the order for what came next.

What would come next? He doubted his father would order that she be hurt.

He’d probably insist on every courtesy. However, he’d also insist that she be kept in the apartment until the wedding ceremony was done, and as Rico thought this, he thought of Niccolo and how wrong and disjointed he’d looked that morning.

Their puppet on a string’s strings had been cut.

Niccolo didn’t want to marry Siena. Niccolo loved someone else. And when you loved someone…

You would do anything for them.

Rico loved Marisa. Rico had made a promise to Marisa.

Niccolo was going to attempt his own escape. Rico knew it with the same certainty that he knew his love for Marisa. And if he was successful, then Callie Thomas would be a valuable hostage for Rico’s father. A valuable tool for vengeance.

If anything happened to Callie, and Marisa heard about it, it would destroy her.

Destroy her more than Rico had already destroyed her.

And even if she didn’t hear about it, Rico would know.

Rico would know he’d broken a promise Marisa had had more faith he would find a way to keep than he’d had.

And he’d know an innocent woman had been hurt when he could have prevented it.

“Boss? ”

He closed his eyes. All his life, his loyalty had been to his father and his family. He obeyed his father’s orders without question because those orders were always for the good and betterment of the family.

He expelled a breath then said, “There’s been a change of plan.”

“Boss?”

“Let her go. She’s no danger to us.”

Ciro was Rico’s man and knew better than to argue with him. “Sure thing, boss. Shall we keep tailing her?”

“No. You can all stand down. Go home and see your families.”

The call ended, Rico sent a message on the Esposito family messaging group:

Not feeling well. Going to get an early night. Will see you all in the morning, ready for the big day. Have a drink for me.

That done, he crawled into bed, curled himself into a ball, and finally let the tears run free.

Accardiano’s sky that early morning was already the most brilliant blue. By the time Rico’s sister made her vows, the sun would be high. The perfect day for a farce of a white wedding.

His phone was mercifully message-free. His mother had visited after the meal finished to check on him.

Whatever she’d seen on his face must have solidified his lie that he was unwell, for she’d kissed his cheeks and left him to sleep.

He guessed she’d told his brothers to leave him alone as the abusive messages that had flooded in off the back of Rico’s begging off the meal stopped.

He hadn’t slept for more than snatches at a time.

He couldn’t explain how he felt. He didn’t think there was a word for it.

He wanted time to fast forward to the wedding ceremony.

Marisa would be part of the congregation witnessing the marriage.

He would see her, and she would see him.

In his heart, he knew there was little hope for forgiveness, but that didn’t stop foolish hope from forming that being in a church that preached forgiveness would soften her heart to him.

All he could hope for was one more chance.

The first message of the morning pinged in. His mother checking on him.

He answered:

Well enough to attend the wedding.

It might be the last chance he ever had to see Marisa again, the wedding reception his last chance to watch her eat, the evening party his last chance to ask her to dance with him.

God, grant him one more dance with her.

The congregation filled the church. High-speed chatter and laughter echoed off the hallowed walls, a sense of excitement pervading the air.

The church’s piazza was lined with armed security, there to stop the thousands-strong crowd who’d excitedly lined Accardiano’s streets from getting any closer.

It was a circus out there, the press as rabid as the public.

All this Rico absorbed subconsciously. His current task as groomsman was to guide guests on the groom’s side to their seats.

The Rossellinis were guests of the groom. The Rossellinis had failed to arrive.

Rico tried to catch Gennaro’s eye, but the groom’s brother had cold-shouldered him since all the groomsmen had gathered in Niccolo’s suite earlier, Rico’s question of how Marisa was stonewalled with a look that could kill.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the groom slip out of the side door that led to the toilets.

Knowing Mattia would be watching him, Rico turned his attention to Dante, the best man who’d arrived with barely an hour to spare with Callie Thomas on his arm – Rico didn’t have the energy to wonder how the hell that had happened – and was chatting to Gennaro at the top of the aisle.

Unlike Gennaro, Dante didn’t avoid Rico’s stare, but then, he owed Rico.

It was sheer luck – or God’s will as Marisa would call it – that had seen Rico looking out of Niccolo’s window when Dante had appeared on the pathway below with the blonde Englishwoman.

With the excuse of needing fresh air, he’d left the suite, then run down the stairs to head them off.

“It isn’t safe for her to be here,” he’d told Dante bluntly. There was nothing in Niccolo’s demeanour that made him think the groom was in any better a state of mind than he’d been the day before. If given the chance to bolt, the groom would be gone, and all hell would break loose.

Dante must have read something in his face that convinced him Rico was being serious, for when Rico had thrust the card key for his suite in Dante’s hand and told him to hide Callie there until the wedding service was over, he’d taken it and then taken her without arguing.

Trying not to let the burrowed rats in his chest start clawing at his chest again, Rico scanned the congregation once more. Still no Marisa or her family. Not even her sister.

About to head over to Gennaro and demand to know what the delay was with the Rossellinis, the signal came that the bride had arrived.

The groom was still in the bathroom. Mattia made a signal to the groomsmen to delay the bride, and disappeared through the door the groom had not long ago slipped through.

Although Leonardo was the groomsman closest to the entrance, he didn’t move from where he’d propped himself against the wall.

He looked as ill as Rico felt. It was Tommaso who hurried onto the piazza to tell the bridal party to hold off their big entrance for a few more seconds.

He came back into the church at the same moment Mattia came back through the door with his phone glued to his ear.

Tommaso beckoned the bride inside, not noticing Mattia now looking as ill as Leonardo. But Rico noticed.

Dread rising like a poisonous snake inside him, he moved quickly to his oldest brother, reaching him as he ended his call. “Where is he?” he asked in a rough undertone, even though he already knew the answer.

“Gone. I’ve sent my men after him and ordered all Esposito men in Accardiano to find him.” He shook his head and closed his eyes.

“He’s escaped ?” Rico clarified in horror. If Niccolo had escaped the church grounds, he could be hiding anywhere amongst the thousands-strong crowd. Thousands and thousands of people, all armed with phones that would video everything. Hundreds and hundreds of press.

Cursing viciously, Mattia nodded.

Now Rico cursed with equal viciousness, angry with himself as well as Mattia, who’d dropped the ball on the most important task of the whole wedding – making sure the damned groom was at the altar to recite his vows.

He should have shared his concerns about Niccolo being a flight risk, but amongst Rico’s anger at what was minutes away from becoming an international scandal and humiliation for the Espositos was a silent prayer of thanks that he’d been able to hide Callie Thomas away from the inevitable fallout…

and also a silent prayer to Niccolo to get himself the hell out of Accardiano. Run, Niccolo. Run …

His stomach suddenly dropped. The first order his father would give would be for Georgia Thomas to be taken from her home, and the order would be given to Rico to enact.

The noise level of the congregation had increased, but in whispers, people realising something was wrong.

Siena stood in a huddle with her bridesmaids at the church entrance.

The best man and the groom’s brother were deep in urgent conversation with the priest. Tommaso and their father, whose hand was gripping his chest, were heading towards Rico and Mattia.

Their father’s grey face was one of barely suppressed thunder.

Rico braced himself and felt Mattia brace himself too. Felt every set of eyes in the church fall on them. Excitement and apprehension permeated the air.

“Where the fuck is he?” their father demanded, rounding on Mattia.

“We’ll find him,” Mattia insisted, standing his ground. “Everyone’s looking for him.”

“You let him escape?” Their father didn’t raise his voice.

Like Marisa, he didn’t need to for the impact to be felt.

He whipped his stare to Rico and hissed.

“Get the girlfriend. Get her now –” The now ended abruptly, but with an inflexion of surprise.

His father’s eyes widened, and then in a blink, Rico was no longer staring into his father’s eyes.

Lorenzo Esposito had fallen into a heap on the floor.