“How I treat my daughter is my business and none of yours.” Her spine stiffened. “Now, I’m assuming you’re here to apologize to your father.”
Fat chance in hell. “I’m here to see Dante.”
My mother’s jaw tightened beneath her expensive makeup. “Dante is being punished.”
Yeah, no fucking kidding. But it burned my nerve endings hearing her just toss it out there as if it were no big deal.
“It’s my right to see my brother.”
“That you will have to take up with the Grand Duke. He has final say in everything concerning Dante’s insubordination.”
My mother sounded like she was fucking brainwashed, but then why should that surprise me? She’d been brainwashed by my father and the sick men in my family since long before I was even born.
I fought to keep my temper in check. “Where is he?”
“In his office at the winery.”
I wanted to shake the woman. She could have told me that five fucking minutes ago and saved us both this farce of a conversation. I turned for the door.
“Luciano,” she said, stopping me.
When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw what I’d missed earlier. That wasn’t disappointment in her eyes. It was disgust.
“You will not disgrace this house by bringing that American whore back here again. I will not permit it.”
I’d never wanted to strangle another person as much as I did right now. “Don’t worry, this is the last place she ever wants to visit again. And she’s not a whore, she’s my wife.”
My mother’s eyes grew wide and dropped to my left hand and the ring she’d missed earlier.
“Accept it or not,” I said as I jerked the front door open. “I don’t really give a shit what you do.”
I moved down the front steps and slid into the passenger seat of Marco’s Mercedes. He joined me seconds later and started the ignition. As we pulled away from the house and turned onto a road that led around the house and down to the vineyard, I knew my mother was watching us from the front stoop.
“Man, you sure know how to make an entrance,” Marco muttered.
Resting my elbow on the windowsill, I rubbed my already aching forehead. “Guarantee she’s on the phone right now, alerting my father we’re on our way.”
We rounded the corner and headed toward the large stone building that housed the winery. As we drew close, three of my father’s bodyguards, each wearing black suits and sunglasses, moved out of the shadows and took up a triangular position in front of the door, blocking our entrance.
“Guarantee he already knows,” Marco answered, pulling to a stop and killing the ignition.
Fuck me. So much for the element of surprise.
I climbed out of the vehicle and buttoned my jacket as I moved toward the three brutes who were each as big as houses. I’d learned long ago not to show fear no matter the circumstance. My House might be able to dictate my life from the shadows, but my father would never make me cower. And I would never again beg for anything from these men.
I stopped in front of them and met their icy stares with one of my own. Tension crackled in the air, then slowly, they each stepped back, leaving a path to the arched wood door. I headed into the winery with Marco at my back.
The small lobby area was empty. Since visitors only ventured onto the Salvatici Winery by invitation, there was no secretary or personnel manning the building and the small tasting counter to my left. I bypassed the warehouse access where the grapes were pressed and fermented, avoided the bottling area, and headed for the curved staircase that led to the main offices on the second level.
My father was exactly where I expected him to be when I pushed one side of his double office doors open without knocking—seated in the big leather chair behind his desk, gazing out the wide arched windows and over the vineyard like the king perched on the top of his fucking throne.
I stepped into the room, leaving the door open for Marco. Then I cleared my throat and waited, knowing it would be enough to piss the old man off.
“I wondered when you would arrive.” My father continued to stare out at the view as if I weren’t even there. “I expected you here at least twenty-four hours ago. That slut you’ve taken up with comes before family now? That is unacceptable, Luciano.”
We were going to do this first? Fucking fantastic.
I’d wanted to strangle my mother mere minutes ago, but that rage didn’t even come close to how much I wanted to choke the life out of my father.
“She is family. She’s my wife.” I pulled the document I’d brought with me from my breast pocket, crossed the floor, and slapped it on my father’s desk. He swiveled toward me with shocked eyes. “And call her slut again, and I promise it’ll be the last word you utter.”
His jaw turned to ice beneath his tanned skin, and his infuriated gaze dropped to the paper beneath my hand.
I released the paper so he could read it. “It’s legal. Signed by the Archbishop in Panama. That copy’s for you since I know you don’t believe me. You can look it up. The paperwork’s all been filed and approved.”
My father snatched the paper from the table and lurched to his feet. “This marriage is an abomination and unsanctioned.” He rounded the desk in a flurry of movement. “Where is she? I demand to see her at once.”
My spine stiffened, but I slid my hands into my pockets, relaxing from the shoulders down because my father’s enraged reaction told me what I’d done had been the right decision. Natalie was safe, and I was in control.
“You don’t get to demand anything when it comes to my wife. And I’m not here to discuss her. I’m here to discuss Dante.”
My father stopped in front of me with my marriage document crumpled in his fist, his muscles a mass of straining fury.
We were roughly the same height, but my father was broader across the shoulders and chest and had me by at least thirty pounds. I was younger and stronger, though, and knew if he came at me, I could hold my own and inflict plenty of my own damage. It wouldn’t be pretty, but I’d stopped being afraid of him when I was twenty, and he knew it. Which only enraged him more.
“Dante is serving his punishment,” my father said from between clenched teeth.
“So I’ve been told. Where is Maricella?”
My father fixed a bored expression on his face. “I don’t have a clue where his beta slut is, nor do I care.”
He was lying. I could read it in his fucked up gray eyes that were exactly like mine.
I let the slut comment pass this time, picking and choosing which war I wanted to escalate. “Dante cares.”
He moved back around his desk, putting the solid piece of furniture between us as if that would protect him. “Dante doesn’t give a shit about anything right now, trust me. He’s refused to answer anything related to his crime. He knows he’s guilty.”
A rage I hadn’t known was still in me gathered in the depth of my soul and rolled to the surface of my control. “If you think you can murder your own flesh and blood and get away with it—”
“Murder?” My father slapped his hands on the desk and glared at me. “If Dante is sentenced to death, the order will come from the Knights, not from me. But, yes, I will oversee the punishment as is my duty by the laws of our House, because he’s too cowardly to open his damn mouth. And you will not interfere, because you have no power over any ruling that comes from the Thirteen.”