Chapter 0007
Chapter 0007
Layla
I turned the car down my street, smiled a little as the brownstone rowhouse came into view. I could practically smell the wonderful dinner I was about to cook for my family. The bag of groceries in my passenger seat would go entirely to that meal–but it was worth it if it was the one I shared with Nonna and Eli.
It was only as I pulled the car into the driveway that I noticed the man crouched at my front door.
A man in a black suit. A dark–haired man with bronzed skin and wide shoulders and a face that looked beautiful
drenched in rain.
Talking to my son.
I cut the ignition and leapt from the car without bothering to grab the groceries. My shoes crunched against stone as I ran. I recognized that man.
Vasco–no.
My teeth clenched and my footsteps slowed. The man in the suit stood. Not Vasco. Not the man I’d married.
“Aldo Marcello.” The name I’d gleaned in rumors and gossip felt foreign, clumsy on my tongue. But it suited the man who stood before me–stern, emotionless, hard. “Or should I say, Don Marcello?”
“How do you know that name?” His words were so cold, they were barely a question.
“Which?” My voice came out cold and cutting, too. Somehow, this man and I, we were cut from the same cloth.” Your new name, or your
title?”
He sighed, and for a moment, I thought I glimpsed the man he used to be, behind the cold Mafia mask. “Both, I suppose.”
How often I’d heard both in the past handful of days. The name, the title, the rumors attached to them. And now, he was here. Talking to my son…
He has no heir–but I forced those words out of my head.
“Eli, go back inside for a minute, okay?” I crouched to turn my son from the doorway. “Mommy needs to talk to this man for a minute.”
“Who is-”
“Inside, Eli.”
This time, Eli turned without protest. Leaving me on my front stoop with the legendary Mafia king. Because that’s who he was, wasn’t it? This man I’d once called lover, husband, friend.
He has no heir.
“Eli is Marco’s son.” I closed the door with a sharp snap. This man wasn’t welcome in my home. With my family. ” Marco is the doctor who drove me home the day of the attack. You saw him.”
I met his gaze, unblinking. Vasco–Aldo–stared back, his face unreadable. Always, I’d valued truth, but this was one lie I’d tell until my dying breath. Please, believe it.
“Who told you my name?” His brow wrinkled into a confused furrow, and it was so familiar, so like the man I’d once known, my heart seized in a cold clench.
“The men you left at the hospital called you that.” I crossed my arms like my heart might burst, shatter, like it
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Chapter 0007
had on the day he left me. Like I hadn’t spent eight years hardening it against such loss. “Don Marcello.”
He has no heir-
His jaw clenched, a tendon feathering in his cheek. “You know who I am.”
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“I know you’re the head of the notorious Marcello family.” The words stumbled off my tongue. They felt wrong. That the man I’d once considered my soul mate-
“Yes.” No inflection in his words.
My heart clenched again. And yet … I could only be grateful that he’d chosen to tell the truth. After so many years of lies…
“They say you’re cold. Cunning.” The words tumbled off my tongue. Over the past handful of days, the hospital had been rife with rumors.
“I am.” Still no inflection, like the man had become the mask. No explanation, no excuses.
So, I pressed on. “That you unified the Mafia for profit.”
“I did.”
I should be grateful that he wouldn’t deny what I knew to be true–that Aldo Marcello was one of the most feared Mafia kings to ever rule the streets of New York.
Iron–fisted, my co–workers whispered to each other, words hushed by fear and awe. Ruthless. Domineering. Nobody can oppose his rule.
“Seems not everybody agrees with your … reign.” My fingers clenched on my arms as I stared up at that man with the mask of a face. “Or am I misreading the attack at the hospital?”
“No.” His jaw clenched again, that muscle feathering. I’d never seen that look before. “There have been some power struggles lately.”
And now, he was here. Talking to my son. His son. But he didn’t know that.
If he did, it would change everything. If he knew the truth the one truth I’d never told him–what would he do?” Why are you here, Aldo?”
“Because you’re not safe.”
Of all the things I’d expected him to say, those words were not among them. “What?”
“I need you to come with me.”
“Absolutely not-‘
“”
He leaned in suddenly, stealing the protest off my tongue. For half a heartbeat, I thought he might kiss me. Instead, his words whispered over my cheek. “Don’t turn, but look left.”
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