“I thought we were going to call him, he who should not be named.” I offered them a wry smile and ignored the jolt of pain that ignited in me at the sound of his name.
“Anabel,” Emily said my name and as I looked into her eyes, I realized that I saw my own pain reflected in her irises. Only it wasn’t Luca that had hurt her, it was me.
“I’m sorry, guys.” I could feel my shoulders crumbling in on me as despair filled me. “I know I should have told you about him. Don’t think that it was because I didn’t want to. Don’t think it was because you guys aren’t the best friends I’ve ever had in the world.” I chewed on my bottom lip and tried to settle my thoughts before continuing. “I just didn’t want you guys to judge me or think I was a bad person. I didn’t want to lose your friendship.”
“Anabel, there is nothing you could have ever done that would make us leave you. Nothing.” Charlotte gripped my hands while Emily nodded in agreement.
“We’re your family, Anabel,” Emily said softly. “You two girls mean more to me than anything.” Her eyes softened and she smiled at me sweetly. “We are ride or die, girl. This friendship is everything. I love you both so much. And I will always be here.”
“You guys are going to make me cry.” I licked my dry lips. “You know how much you both mean to me.” I grabbed my wine glass and took two long gulps of the deep red liquid. “Also, I didn’t want to harm you, girls. I didn’t want to put you in any danger.”
“Danger?” Charlotte’s eyebrows rose and twisted in that mad scientist way that they always did when she was perplexed. “Why would you be putting us in danger?”
“You know that Luca’s in the mafia and well, let’s just say he wasn’t one of the good guys in a group of bad people.”
“What are you saying, Anabel?” Emily’s voice was sharp as she questioned me. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.” I shook my head quickly, knowing that if I said yes, Emily and Charlotte would immediately find the number to a hitman and have him offed. “Well, not physically. Mentally and emotionally yes.” I looked down then thinking about how much I’d loved him and how heartbroken I’d felt when we’d broken up and then my mind pictured him from the last week. He was older now, as was I, and he was even more handsome than I’d remembered him. He was a man now. A dark, deadly man. Before he’d been a boy, a young man growing into his destiny. Now he was his destiny and as much as I hated him, I couldn’t help but think that my attraction to him was stronger than it had ever been before.
“Will you tell us about him?” Emily asked hopefully. “Will you tell us about your relationship?”
“I suppose I can.” I sat back and closed my eyes, thinking about the beginning and how it had all started. I would tell them the story, but I wouldn’t tell them the biggest secret of all. I couldn’t. And I wouldn’t. No one but me knew and I would take it to my grave. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them. It was that I never wanted to think about that time in my life again.
Chapter 5
Luca
My watch was fifteen minutes fast. It had been since I was twelve when my grandad told me that in our world, we must always be in front of time if we wanted to stay ahead. And so, for me, three p.m. was two forty-five p.m. and my days always started before everyone else’s. That meant I was always everywhere before everyone else. It meant that I always had the upper hand. Even if the other person was on time. There’s something about arriving second to a meeting that makes someone feel uneasy, like they’re already on the wrong foot. And in my life, there was nothing I valued more than being in control.
They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but I don’t agree. I loved once in my life and I lost her, and now my heart is broken, and jaded, and bitter. When I saw Anabel again for the first time in years, something in me wanted to get my revenge. I’m not a particularly mean man, but when I saw her I knew that I had to have her again and I had to make her pay for leaving me.
In my world, there are two types of people that are off-limits: kids and women. You don’t mess with them when you’re in the mafia, it was an unspoken rule. You could do whatever you wanted to their fathers, to their grandfathers, to their husbands or to their brothers. But you left the women alone, you could die if you hurt a woman or a child.
But the mafia didn’t care so much about women who weren’t a part of our family. And Anabel wasn’t a part of the family. Not that I was going to hurt Anabel. I wasn’t going to harm her, I was just going to take what was mine. I was just going to make her pay back her debt to me. I had never forgotten what she did to me years ago. And I never would. She had broken my heart. And I was going to make her wish that hers had been cut out of her body.
She thought she had banished me from her life, but I’d just been biding my time. Now I was ready to exact my revenge. I was going to bring her back into my life. Only, this time she won’t be able to hurt me like she did before. I’m going to play a little game with her. A game that I think is only fair. A game that she will never win. It’s a game I’ve been wanting to start for a very long time.
“Hey, Giorgio.”
“Yes, Luca?”
“Have you done what I asked you to do?”
“You asked me to do millions of things, which one of them are you talking about?”
He walked over to me, a frown on his face.
“You know what I’m talking about, Giorgio.”
“Luca, I don’t know.”
I glared at him and tapped my gun and he sighed.
“Fine, I know. And no, it’s not done.”
“Giorgio, you disappoint me. I told you I needed it done first thing.”
“Luca, you disappoint me. No woman should interfere in our operation.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to, Giorgio?” I looked him square in the eye. “I’m the boss here.” His pudgy little face twisted, but he kept his mouth shut. That was one thing about Giorgio, he was very opinionated. I’d underestimated him when we were younger. He was fat, he was slovenly, but he was intuitive. He knew exactly what was going on with everyone around him. He could see what was happening emotionally, mentally, and psychologically. If he wasn’t my best friend and my most loyal soldier, I would have killed him a long time ago. But he was like family to me. So even though he said and did things I didn’t like, I let him get away with it. However, he knew, as did all my other men, that he was the only one that could get away with speaking back to me. And he knew he couldn’t push it too much because if he did, there was no telling what I would do to him.
“Luca, I know you like the girl. You liked the girl years ago, but she’s bad news. She’s bad news for you, she’s bad news for me, she’s bad news for our whole operation. You just gotta let her go.”
“There’s nothing to let go, Giorgio. She’s not mine anymore.”
“Yeah. You know that and I know that. But I got a feeling that you want to make her yours again.”
“Why would you think that, Giorgio?” My voice was cold as steel.