Chapter Thirty
“I thought you loved me.”
“Shh, he’s about to save her in his Volvo.”
Sal shakes his head, removing his arm from around my shoulders so he can lean forward and grab a snack. On the coffee table in various bowls, we have an assortment of cereals to snack on. A cereal bar, if you will. We never really eat cereal at my house since we have people to cook for us, but during the course of our relationship, Sal has taught me that dry cereal is the perfect snack to movie watching.
Tonight I’m making him watch Twilight.
“This is the textbook definition of cruelty,” Sal states. “If I ever doubted you were a ruthless Morelli, I couldn’t after this.”
I raise my eyebrows at him, not about to take this sass. “Um, excuse me, could you recall for me how many full seasons of Entourage I sat through? Eight. It was eight. You owe me.”
“I watched that BBC bullshit with you.”
“Not good enough.”
“I want to die. This is so bad.”
I laugh, but it comes out as more of a gleeful cackle. He grabs a bowl of Froot Loops and hands it to me, then grabs some Corn Pops for himself and settles back against the couch.
“At least you have good snacks,” I point out.
“The cereal shouldn’t have to endure this,” he states. “Cereal deserves better.”
“Maybe cereal will better appreciate New Moon,” I suggest innocently. “We’re watching that next.”
“I don’t understand what I’ve done to warrant such hostility,” Sal says before popping some cereal into his mouth.
He gives it about ten more minutes, then he gives up on his snack and starts running his fingers over the exposed inside of my thigh. Stupid sleep shirt, giving him ideas.
“I will not be seduced,” I declare. “Not until this movie is over.”
“You have to admit, sex would be more fun than this movie.”
“That could be said of most movies.”
“Most?”
I grin at him, popping some sugary loops in my mouth.
“All movies. Sex is better than all movies.”
I shrug, grimacing. “I haven’t seen all the movies in the world. I’m not comfortable making such a blanket statement.”
Sal shakes his head, pushing up off the seat.
“Wait, where are you going?” I ask, grabbing for the remote. “I’ll pause it.”
“I’m going to wash the Corn Pops off my hands, then I’m going to take you into my new study, put your little ass on the desk, and fuck you until you take that back.”
I want to object and demand he watch the movie with me, but… well, that sounds like fun.
He frowns, pulling his phone out of his pocket. I see it’s all lit up, like someone’s calling. “Aw, shit,” he mutters, answering the phone and ducking out of the room.
I do pause the movie, but now because I’m worried.
Impatience drives me to abandon the couch and follow after him. He went down the hall toward the study, but I can still hear the sound of his voice.
Before I can catch anything, he slips into the study and closes the door. Now I can’t hear a damn thing.
He stays in there forever. I remain outside the door in the hall, waiting and waiting and waiting. The longer he’s inside, the more I worry. I slide down the wall and sit in the brightly lit hall with the butter yellow walls, hugging my knees close.
The door finally opens and Sal emerges, stopping short when he sees me sitting in the hall by the door. He cocks his head to the side, then asks, “You hear any of that?”
I shake my head. “Couldn’t hear a single word.”
His eyebrows rise and he glances back at the door appraisingly, nodding his approval. After a couple of seconds, he backs up against the wall and sits down next to me.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
Even though he had all that time in the study by himself, he still doesn’t appear to know what he wants to say to me. My stomach is sick with dread, but I don’t even know what I’m most afraid of. If Mateo found us, there wouldn’t have been a warning call. Adrian would’ve shown up at the front door at best, maybe popped up inside the house without even that much warning. The only forewarning might’ve been the muffled sound of his bullet jetting across the room before it hit Sal and obliterated my life.
Sal reaches over and takes my hand, linking his fingers together with mine. I feel only slightly calmer. “There was an attempt on Mateo’s life tonight.”
My anxious heart drops. “What?” Now I pull my hand away from his, prior doubts coming to the forefront of my mind. “You told me no one was planning to—”
“I said as far as I knew,” he corrects, watching me intently. He reaches over and takes my hand again, a bit pointedly. “I didn’t know, Francesca. My dad did this on his own. He didn’t even go through the proper channels, it was—he sent his own guy, the one who was with him when he dispatched Meg.”
“Is Mateo okay? What happened? Did he get hit?”
Sal shakes his head, passing a hand over his face and sighing. “No. He was out with Meg. She recognized Little John from before and pushed Mateo out of the way. She was hit instead.”
Guilt freezes the blood as it travels through my veins. “What?”
“Your brother’s fine.”
“And Meg?”
He shrugs his shoulders, shaking his head. “I don’t know. She’s alive. He rushed her to the hospital. I don’t know anything else.”
I lean my head back against the wall, trying to digest all this. Sal’s dad tried to kill Mateo tonight, even though Sal told me that wasn’t the plan. It didn’t make sense to me that wouldn’t have been the plan, so how could it have made sense to Sal? Is he lying to me, or did he just try that hard to believe his dad because it was what he wanted? I can’t say I’ve never done that myself. I’ve looked past Mateo’s misdeeds more times than I can count, but Sal seems more grounded in reality and less likely to turn a blind eye. Unless it was an intentional blind eye. Unless he does want my brother dead, and he just doesn’t want me to know that. Of course he wouldn’t want me to know that—he knows I would try to talk him out of it.
But if they’re going to be on opposing sides, it makes sense that Sal will need Mateo out of the way. If Sal fails to take Mateo out of the way, Mateo will take Sal out of the way.
It never ends, does it? It never ends until somebody I love dies.
Shaking my head, I push up off the floor. Sal gets up to follow me, but I don’t want to be followed. I want to be by myself.
“Francesca…” He catches up and tries to take my hand again, but I yank it away.
“I’m going upstairs.”
“I’ll just follow you,” he states. “I mean, we can change locations if that’s what you want, but…”
I huff, but I storm up the stairs anyway. He follows.
Once we get inside the bedroom, he closes the door and leans against it, looking at me with his solemn gray eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Still guarded, I meet his gaze, wrapping my arms around my own waist. “For what?”
“For what happened tonight,” he says, carefully. “I did not have a hand in it, but I’m sorry it happened.”
“Is it going to happen again?” I ask, but I don’t even give him time to lie to me. “They’ve already shown their hand, they’ve already tried and failed to kill him, now they have to try again, right? Now they have to try harder. Now they have to try to hit him before he hits back.”
Sal’s head falls back, thumping against the door as he sighs. “Please, Francesca. We can talk about anything else, but not this. We have to leave this stuff out of our relationship.”
“But how?” I demand. “It’s my family. It’s your family. People we love. People who matter to each of us. They are a part of us. What happens between our families will affect our relationship. It’s insane to pretend otherwise.”
“You told me your loyalty was mine,” he reminds me.
“And I’m here, aren’t I?” My eyebrows rise. “Did I not help you plot against my own brother? Did I not help you frame the woman he’s in a relationship with to make him think his least favorite moment in history was repeating itself? Did I not leave everything behind to come with you? What have you had to give up, Sal? Who have you really had to betray? Not your family—they just tried to kill my goddamn brother, so obviously they’re operating just fucking fine. Your dad knows about me—my brother’s still in the fucking dark. This is impossible. What we are trying to do is impossible. I can’t go that far. I can leave my family for the competition, but not the people out for my brother’s blood. I can’t hide away in domestic paradise while your family picks off mine. Fuck that.”
Sal doesn’t say anything; he remains with his back against the door and closes his eyes, messaging the bridge of his nose.
Finally he says, “You know I don’t want war with your brother, Francesca. You know that.”
“I know you’ve told me that,” I state, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know if it’s true.”
“You think I’d lie to you?” he asks, evenly. He doesn’t sound angry or defensive, but I don’t know how to interpret that. I feel like I know him inside and out, but in rare moments since all this shit got kicked up, I’ve realized there’s a side of him I don’t know. The side he told me I’d never need to know, because it’s the business side, and I’m not business. But this is business. Our relationship isn’t, but his family’s fight with my brother? That’s business.
And it can destroy us.
“Yes,” I finally answer. “Yes, I do.”
He nods wordlessly, watching me. Then he steps out of the way of the door so he can open it, slipping outside to leave me in here by myself, just like I asked for.
---
I don’t know if Sal’s coming up to bed or staying downstairs, so I shut off the lights and climb into bed alone. I can’t fall asleep, though. Too many thoughts are running circles around my head, too many things to worry about.
I can’t believe Meg pushed Mateo out of the way of a bullet. I still have my doubts about her, but for the first time, I consider maybe I haven’t given her a fair chance. I don’t even understand how they were out for Mateo to be targeted in the first place. Meg is supposed to be locked up in the dungeon, and once Mateo uncovered Antonio’s plot, I was sure he’d kill her.
Apparently I was wrong.
I guess I’m glad. I’m still not convinced she’s the right woman for him, but if he’s going to be with the wrong woman, he could do a lot worse than one who would take a bullet for him.
I’m really worried about what the future holds for us all. I don’t know how I build a happily ever after with the man who might be plotting to kill my brother and lying to me about it. Vince’s words come to mind, about how Sal is second-in-command and I’m crazy if I think he’s out of the loop. I want to trust Sal, but I feel like he’s lying to me. The lying itself isn’t even the issue; it would’ve probably scared me off earlier on in the relationship, but I’m in deep enough now that it won’t. I’ve grown up with men who lie when they see fit, in a family where the business side of things was kept from the women just like Sal’s. I know the drill.
I just didn’t think it would really come to this. I thought the peace that had lasted for years would hold. We would’ve been fine if the peace held. It’s not disloyal to express opposition at the prospect of my boyfriend trying to have my brother killed.
The door finally creaks open. I turn over to make sure it’s Sal. Once I see it is, I turn my back to him and feel a little less comfortable. I listen to him disrobe and head to the bathroom to brush his teeth, and I feel a stab of longing. It’s incredibly stupid and sentimental and just completely lame, but since we’ve been staying here we always go to bed together, so we brush our teeth together at the double sinks in the master bathroom. I feel guilty and like I’m missing out by not doing it tonight. I feel like I miss him, even though there’s only a wall between us.
Unfortunately the physical wall isn’t the only one between us, so despite missing him, I keep to my side of the bed even after he climbs in. I wait to see what he’ll do, if he’ll say anything, but he doesn’t. I wonder how mad he is at me. I wonder if he debated even coming up here tonight. The couch is pretty damn comfortable.
I wonder if he regrets doing all this for me. I wonder if he’s starting to doubt whether or not it was worth it. Whether or not I’m worth it.
I hear him moving around behind me, trying to get comfortable, and then his arm snakes around my waist and he tugs me toward the middle of the bed. I can feel the relief move through me, but I’m not ready to trust it yet. The heat from his body warms me immediately and I want to shove the comforter down. There’s air conditioning so the house isn’t warm, but Sal runs hot; snuggling with him is like snuggling with a space heater.
“Let’s look on the bright side,” Sal says suddenly. “If the maid dies, Mia gets your brother by default. You might get to rub my nose in it at their wedding after all.”
I crack a smile, glancing back at him over my shoulder. “That’s not gonna work.”
“No?” he asks, smirking and nodding at the faint smile on my face. “Looks like it worked to me.”
“You shouldn’t be so confident in your abilities,” I inform him.
“But I’m so capable.”
“So capable of pissing me off,” I mutter.
“Hey, I don’t pick my proficiencies.”
I sigh, bringing my hand to rest on his arm around my waist. “This is harder than I was prepared for.”
“I know,” he says with considerable patience.
“I hate this,” I add.
“Hopefully it will all be over soon.”
If that’s supposed to make me feel better, it doesn’t. “And what does that look like? Whose funeral? This doesn’t end with everyone I love alive. There’s no way.”
Sighing heavily, he says, “There might be one way.”
I wait for him to go on, but he doesn’t. “Are you planning to share?”
“Nope.”
I lift his arm from my waist and roll over. He replaces it, but this way I can look at him. “Because it’s horrible?”
“Every path out of this scenario is horrible in some way, Francesca. I’m doing what I can to make as many people happy as possible. I do have to consider my own family, yes. I’m set to be as responsible for them as Mateo is for yours. That doesn’t mean your needs are any less important to me. Just means more stress for me.”
“‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’”
“I haven’t had to wear it yet, but my time’s fast approaching.”
“My brother embodies that quote,” I state.
“Your brother makes a lot of his own problems,” Sal replies. “I would ask if the bastard knows how many people it takes to keep him alive on a day-to-day basis, but he clearly does and that’s why he has you all trained like fucking monkeys.”
“Well, he’s a very good trainer,” I say lightly.
“Yeah, I bet he rewards you with bananas and everything.”
Smiling faintly, I tell him, “No, his training materials run a little more expensive.”
“Your brother’s a pain in my ass,” he states.
My smile droops, given what almost happened tonight. “I know. He’s a pain in everyone’s ass. But he’s still important to me.”
“I don’t want to fight with you. Especially not about your brother.”
“Well, I don’t want him to die,” I reply unflinchingly. “Maybe he’s not a good guy, but your hands aren’t clean either and I still love you.”
“My hands are a hell of a lot cleaner than his.”
I think on this for a moment, wondering how dirty his hands are. I have no problem with that side of his life being separate, and considering how much I’ve had to brush under the rug with my own family, I can’t imagine Sal has any skeletons in his closet that would scare me off. I decide to ask anyway.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“The worst thing I’ve ever done?” He pauses to think about it, looking off at a spot beyond my head. “I killed a guy in front of his dog once. The dog went over and pawed at his chest to try to wake him up, and then he just laid there and whined. I’ve never felt like more of an asshole in my life.”
“Aw, poor dog,” I say, swatting him in the stomach. “Did you leave him there?”
“No, I couldn’t. I took him home with me. He was old though, died a year later.”
“That’s sad.”
“It is. I felt bad.”
I lean over and give him a kiss. “I still love you though.”
Smirking lightly, he said, “I thought you might. No offense, but the family you grew up in, the brothers you have—you’ve seen worse.”
I shrug. “I don’t see much of it first-hand, but yeah.”
“What about you? What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“Definitely this,” I say, without hesitation. “Setting Meg up like this and messing with Mateo’s head. Totally betraying what little trust he afforded me. This is the worst thing I’ve ever done, hands-down.”
He sighs, his hold on my waist tightening as he pulls me closer. “I’m sorry I made you do all that.”
“You didn’t make me do it. I wanted you enough, so I made the hard choice. I could’ve sold you out instead. I could’ve led Mateo or Adrian straight to your door.”
“That’s true,” he acknowledges with a little nod. “Did you ever think about it?”
“Of course not,” I say, lightly shoving his shoulder.
“I won’t be mad; you can tell me if you did.”
“I didn’t consider it.” I pause, then add, “I did experience a bout of cold feet my last night at home, though. It wasn’t because I doubted wanting to be with you, it was just… fear of change, I guess. Especially change on this level. Something so permanent, so impossible to take back if it turned out to be a mistake. I’m sure you had doubts of your own.”
I expect him to play it off, deal me some of his signature charm. But he’s sincere, reaching out to brush a lock of hair behind my ear, his gray eyes somber. “Not a single one.”
Well, that makes me feel like an asshole.
“Not even the last couple hours?” I ask lightly.
He rolls his eyes, like that’s a ridiculous suggestion. “Of course not. We had a fight. Couples fight.”
“Is that what Ethan told you?” I tease.
“Believe it or not, I worked that one out on my own.”
“You’re so smart.”
“I’m a regular relationship expert.”
I offer a smile, leaning in almost close enough to kiss him, but just lingering near his lips. “I’m a lucky woman.”
“Damn straight,” he says, before grabbing me and closing the distance.