“Papa, what’s on this anyway?” Antonia asks her father. We watch from where we are seated in our blacked-out SUV as she hands over the disk in question.
“Nothing that concerns you. Why did it take you so long to find it?” he grunts, and I reach out a hand to increase the volume of the audio.
“It’s not easy snooping through a mobster’s house. You of all people should be aware of that,” she replies.
I hate this version of Antonia, the prim and proper mafia daughter who knows her place. I will never let Jazzy become that. I want her to stay as innocent and clueless as she currently is. I want her to be one hundred percent herself.
At the thought of my daughter, I check the feed on my phone. It’s displaying the CCTV of the room she’s sleeping in at Emmanuel’s house. Charlotte and Evie are both with her. I have five men outside that room, while Emmanuel has another fifty in the hall. I have no doubt their instructions are to protect Evie at any cost.
“Come on, Antonia, get up and walk out,” I whisper.
“She can’t leave right away. You know that,” Louie tells me.
“Much longer and I’m going in to get her,” I grunt.
“No, you’re not,” Emmanuel says.
I raise a brow at him. He’d have to shoot me to stop me—although I wouldn’t put that past the fucker.
“How did you get it?” Antonia’s father asks her.
“He took Jazzy out. I told him I wasn’t feeling well and stayed behind. It wasn’t hard to break the code to the safe after that. It’s my birthday,” she explains.
“Fool. You know I thought the kid would be his downfall, but the mother disappeared when she was supposed to go in. If I would have known he’d still be as obsessed with you, I would have used you first.” Marciano laughs. “Love makes men do stupid shit.”
“You used me. I’m your daughter. Your only child.” Antonia sounds broken.
“Don’t act like you didn’t get anything out of it. You married the man you’d already given yourself to. It’s not like I could offer you up to anyone else after he ruined you.”
“Fuck this! I’m going to get her.” I swing open the car door, about to step out, when Louie grabs hold of the back of my jacket.
“Wait. She’s getting up.” He points to the screen we’ve been watching.
“I’m sorry for not being enough for you to love like a father should love his child. I guess you and my mother have that in common. She left me with you. You sold me,” Antonia says, and my heart stops beating for a moment.
“Stop talking and get the fuck out, Antonia,” I grumble.
“Your mother died for you to live. She loved you,” Marciano spits back.
Antonia laughs. A dark, humorless laugh. “She didn’t die. She’s very much alive. She left you. She left mewith you. She didn’t love either of us enough to stay.”
“What did you just say?” Marciano rises to his full height while leaning across the table.
“Fuck.” I spring out of the car and sprint across the road. When I push through the door of the restaurant, the fucker is towering over her. And she’s on the floor, holding a hand against her cheek.
“She didn’t love you. She left you and she got away with it.” Antonia laughs again.
He raises his arm to hit her, and I grab hold of his wrist. “Get the fuck away from my wife,” I growl. I look down at Antonia. “Out, now.”
I wait until she scrambles to her feet and runs out of the restaurant. Sammie meets her at the door while Louie and Emmanuel position themselves in front of it.
“I knew the bitch wasn’t fucking loyal,” Joey Marciano, my soon-to-be-dead father-in-law, spits out at me.
“Oh, she’s loyal. Just not to you.” I smirk. “She’s real fucking loyal to me, though.”
“Should have known when she didn’t take the bait with those text messages I sent her. No matter how much she claimed she wanted out of that arrangement, she was content being your whore.”
I reach behind my back, draw the pistol I tucked into my waistband, and point it right at his head. That was twice now this fucker insulted my wife in front of me. “You’re getting out of this easy.”
