“Oh.” I look around guiltily. “There was a long line.”
Anna looks through the menu. “Who’s having dessert?” she asks.
I pretend to read the menu. “I’m full,” I reply, still completely disheveled.
“You got that right,” Giuliano murmurs under his breath.
Full of come.
I smirk into my menu, that’s my fiancé.
The pussy punisher.
Giuliano
“Can I get you anything else to drink?” the waitress asks.
“Yes.” Lorenzo swallows his food. “We’ll have two more Blue Label scotches, please.”
“Yes, sir.” She disappears out the back and we both continue to eat in silence.
Lorenzo and I have snuck away from the office for lunch, it’s rare that we are alone where we can talk privately.
“You still fighting with Bianca?” I ask.
He pushes his pasta around on his plate with his fork. “I don’t know. She’s saying one thing; all evidence points to another.”
“And it’s bothering you?”
“How could it not?”
I chew my food as I stare at him, it’s obvious he’s upset. “You know, it was twenty-eight years ago…maybe you should just let it go.”
“I know. I keep telling myself to drop it.”
I nod as I look across the crowded restaurant.
“How are you and Francesca going?”
“She’s incredible.” I beam proudly, to think that she’s going to be my wife. I can’t wait until we can tell people. I’m going to shout it from the fucking rooftops.
My dream girl, Francesca Ferrara, is going to marry me.
Un fucking believable.
A broad smile crosses his face as he watches me. “That she is.”
“Giuliano.” A deep voice sounds from behind me, we both turn to see Lombardi standing over us.
The sound of our cutlery hitting the plates echoes around us as we both reach inside our suit jackets for our guns.
“Relax.” He holds his hands up. “I come in peace.” He sits down at the table.
“What do you want?” I snap.
“We need to talk.”
I glare at him. “Where’s my yacht?”
His eyes flick to Lorenzo. “I need to speak to Giuliano alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Lorenzo growls.
Lombardi smiles, clearly amused. “Then you won’t hear what I have to say.” He goes to stand and I hold my hand up, I want to hear what he has to say. “Leave us,” I say to Lorenzo.
“I don’t….”
“Now.” I cut him off.
Lorenzo stands and walks over to the wall, his eyes not leaving us for a second, his hand on his gun inside his jacket.
Lombardi and I glare at each other, I hate this man with every fiber of my being.
He killed my father…and my grandfather. Enrico.
“We’ve never met in person,” he says calmly, his voice deep, husky.
“Cut the shit. What the fuck do you want?”
He leans his elbow on the table and steeples his finger up along his temple as he stares at me. “I’m dying, Giuliano.”
I frown, that’s the last thing I was expecting him to say.
“Inoperable cancer, I don’t have long to live.”
“Good.” I smile. “I hope it’s slow and painful.”
“How much do you know about me?” he asks.
“I don’t care about you, tell me where my fucking yacht is?” I growl. “You have five minutes before I shoot you dead.”
“I was your mother’s bodyguard.”
What?
“It was me who looked after her when her husband went back to his wife.”
Our eyes are locked.
He smiles darkly. “In more ways than one.”
I begin to hear my heartbeat in my ears.
“It’s time to come home, son.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I’m your father.”
20
Giuliano
“Liar.”
“Am I?” he replies calmly. “Are you positive of that?”
I glare at him as animosity begins to pump through my veins.
He slides an envelope across the table to me. “My DNA profile is at this lab. If you don’t believe me, believe science. This will give you the proof that you need.”
I stare at the envelope in front of me, he has proof.
What the fuck?
“I only have weeks to live, I need you to take over the Lombardi operations. You are the only person capable of running the company at the level I do. To take us into the next generation.”
“Go to hell,” I sneer. “I wouldn’t touch your infected company if my life depended on it.”
“Perhaps it does.” He smiles as if predicting my reaction. “You would prefer to run a company that doesn’t belong to you? You are not a Ferrara; you will never be a Ferrara. And one day, they will find out and you will be outed as a traitor, a Lombardi to the bone. And where will you be then? Do you think they will stand by you? He didn’t even give you his last name until after he died, he was ashamed of you. Tell me, Giuliano, will they reward all of your hard work? We both know the answer to that, don’t we?”
The sky turns red.
“I’m going to kill you,” I whisper.
“This is what I respect. I tell you that you’re not a Ferrara and yet all you can think about is killing me.” He smirks. “I like that in you…you think like me.”
I pick up the steak knife from the table and I hold it in my hand.
“What are you going to do?” He gestures around the room. “Stab me to death in a crowded restaurant for all to see? You don’t have the police commissioner’s protection anymore, Giuliano. Remember?”
“You took care of that,” I reply.
“Nicolai was getting in my way.” He shrugs. “I did what had to be done.”
Something sinister snaps inside of me.
I pick up my knife and drive it through the back of his hand as it rests, pinning it to the table.
He winces as I twist the knife farther through his flesh.
“And I will do what has to be done.” I sneer as I glare at him, relishing his pain. “I will kill you and it will hurt.”
“Don’t be a fool, Giuliano,” he whispers in pain. “Listen to me.”
I twist the knife again, pressing my point. “Stay the fuck away from me.” I stand, grab the envelope and without looking back I leave the restaurant in a rush. I storm through the front door and up the street to my Lamborghini, I dive in and pull out onto the street in a rush. My men scramble as they run to their cars behind me to catch up.
I grip my steering wheel with white-knuckle force as I floor it.
My world…spinning on its axis.
No.
I pull into my underground parking lot and take the elevator up to my floor. I couldn’t be at work, and I don’t want to…I can’t even be with Francesca.
I need to be alone.
The elevator stops at my floor and I walk into my apartment, I haven’t stepped foot inside here since Francesca and I moved my things out two weeks ago.