SWNOVELS Luciano: Chapter 15
I studied my wife throughout dinner. There was no doubt; she had spread her wings over the time we spent apart. From the moment I found her, she kept surprising me. The latest revelation about her was hard to reconcile with the woman I remembered. The woman I married. But I realized I loved this side of her too. It would seem there wasn’t a side of her I didn’t enjoy.
Grace was the Ghost. My Ghost, my runner. Massimo was finally able to penetrate through their firewall and retrieve the email correspondence. Massimo worked through some of her transaction history, and apparently, he still has to break through a few more firewalls, so we could track every single one of her transactions.
She is the fucking Ghost! I was so shocked I couldn’t even enjoy the fact my intuition was right when I suspected the Ghost was a she.
Right now, my first inclination was to deny her a lawyer without knowing what she needed it for.
It made me uneasy not knowing, especially as layers of her kept unravelling in the short span of two days. But it seemed to be really important to her.
“Sure, I’ll have a guy here in an hour.”
“Thank you.”
She gave me a grateful, soft smile. If she only knew how much power she had over me. She could smile like that and stab me in the heart. And I’d probably let her. Cassio and I still struggled with the connection between their two families.
Belles and mobsters. I scoffed again to myself at that notion. Leave it to the King’s ancestors to come up with such a ridiculous concept. What was even more ridiculous was that it worked for centuries.
Self-hatred filled me remembering that day when I pressed the gun to her head. The snowflake on her long eyelashes, love and fear mixing in those eyes. I loved my wife, even back then. From the very first second I spotted her in my nightclub, she had slowly drawn me under her spell. I wanted to hate her more than anything; I wanted to hate her since the moment we first met. I was bitter at the loss of my mother and sister; blaming her right along with her uncle for it. And she fought to escape him and survive.
I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. I couldn’t blame her for finding someone else and having a child. But now that I had her, and I knew some of the reasons that drove her, I would protect her with all I had. Her and her son.
“So where are you ladies going out tonight?” Luca asked.
“Not sure yet.” Grace’s attention was on her son, her voice soft and nonchalant, but I knew without a doubt she was lying. Those two knew exactly where they were going.
“You can take my car,” I offered. “Your old car is still running too.”
There was surprise on her face, but she didn’t comment. “Thanks. We’ll just take an Uber.”
“No, you’ll take my car.” Why did she have to fight me on everything?
“No, I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.”
Her eyes flashed annoyance. “Stop pissing me off, Luciano. I can handle getting transportation.”
She returned her attention to Matteo who was done with his dinner and getting crankier by the second.
“Let’s go take a bath, buddy,” she finally gave up trying to calm him down. “What do you say?”
He rubbed his eyes, smearing spaghetti sauce all over his face. Again, I wondered who the boy’s father was. Matteo hasn’t asked for anyone else since we left Sicily. I started to think he wasn’t in the picture at all.
Grace struggled with the high chair, while trying to keep Matteo from climbing out. “Here, let me help.”
I got up and lifted him out of the chair, his chubby hands gripping to my shirt. My heart swelled, causing another crack. The little guy was effortlessly breaking the walls with his small hands. Just like his mother.
Grace chuckled. “You are wearing spaghetti sauce.”
It was her first soft, open expression without any animosity towards me. Maybe it was because I held her son, but fuck it. I was such a sad case, I took it for myself. She leaned over, her hands brushing against my chest as she took Matteo out of my arms.
“C’mon handsome, let’s get you washed up and ready for bed,” she murmured softly. She left the kitchen and Ella hurriedly took her last two bites, giving me a weird look, and then headed out too.
“You are doomed,” Alessio muttered.
I lifted my eyes to find all the men, including my father and Massimo watching me. I raised my eyebrow in a silent challenge. “What the hell are you all looking at?”
“I didn’t say a word,” Massimo commented. “I’m just thinking about the code to break those firewalls.”
“Do it fast,” I spat out, agitated. “Those two are up to something.”
“Who is Ian?” Nico asked out of the blue. My father had a valid question there, and it surprised me she didn’t want to use him.
My father leaned back, so far, he just watched silently. “Ian is the Romano family lawyer.”
“He and Grace were an item before I got her.” I hated the idea of her with him. That guy was a cockroach.
My father shook his head. “No, son. They were not. You have to learn to watch things with a clear mind when it comes to your wife.”
I grunted under my breath. Easy for him to say. Grace had my head spinning and my dick rock hard.
My father chuckled. “Ah, Luciano. You remind me so much of myself with your mother.”
He rarely spoke of my mother since their death. I knew it pained him, so it was surprising to hear him bring her up.
He stood up and headed out of the kitchen. He lingered at the doorway and turned back to all of us.
“Boys, it is time you clean rotten apples out of the mix.” All of us watched him, and for the first time in the past ten years, I wondered if maybe my father didn’t keep tabs on what was going on in our world. “Together you can end women being traded like stock.” He nodded as if that explained it all, then his eyes returned to me. “Luciano, keep Gracy and Matteo protected. At all costs.”
I fully intended to, starting with her outing tonight.
My teeth clenched, the sound of grinding breaking the silence. I watched my wife dance with Ian fucking Laszlo and my fingers itched for my gun. Anger burned beneath my skin, searing the flames to all-time highs. The irrational part of me thundered in my ears, edging me on.
Go ahead and smash his head.
Red crept into my vision, and it took all I had not to smash every single item in Cassio’s office. The dance floor was crowded and each time someone bumped into Grace, she inched closer to Ian. I hated that fucking guy’s guts. My wife looked happy, carefree and beautiful, startlingly beautiful, her hair sparkling like flames even in the dark of the nightclub. The young girl of twenty-one was gone, and in her place was this woman who was sure of herself; she knew what she liked and what she wanted.
Definitely not me. It didn’t matter though. She’d get only what I say or offer. And she’ll fucking like it.
Too bad she betrayed me three years ago. We could have been good together, spent the last three years enjoying each other. I still remembered the way she tasted. That attraction the moment our eyes locked. Even after three years apart, it didn’t diminish. It was still there, although Grace ignored it. She no longer wanted it; wanted nothing to do with me.
Point taken, wife. But I’ll be damned if I let you wrap yourself around another man while you are still my wife.
And she would be my wife till death do us part.
“Luciano, you should stop looking.” It was a sane suggestion. Except there wasn’t a single sane cell in my body at this moment.
True to my wife’s word, she took an Uber. Lucky for me, I was able to track her and Ella’s movement via their phones. Massimo hasn’t broken through all firewalls, but whatever he did, it was enough to be able to pin their location. And lucky for me again, she was in Cassio’s nightclub in New York, Temptation.
The unlucky part came in seeing my wife dance with him. That motherfucker Ian. My wife’s hands lazily moved from his chest and down his stomach. Cassio was right next to me, watching the scene unfold. Of course, he didn’t fume. It wasn’t his wife out there on the floor, her skimpy, little black dress making every man in the club worship her with their eyes.
Ian’s hands snaked to cup her ass, and I could see him squeeze her butt from here. All kinds of images of me sawing off his hands playing in my mind. I could start with ridding him of hands and then move on to slowly cutting his stomach and removing his guts while he wailed in pain, begging me for mercy. He wouldn’t get any.
Watching my wife dancing with Ian spread the boiling rage and jealousy within me like wildfires. Seeing the hands of that prick on her body, his eyes on her. I wanted to gauge his eyes and then torture him for days. Until he couldn’t remember her name.
The problem was that he would still remember her. Grace wasn’t the type of woman anyone could forget. I’ll kill him, I thought with finality.
“Are her hands going into his pocket?” Cassio’s voice penetrated the red fog and that was it. All my fury unleashed, it took me less than thirty seconds to find myself right behind my wife, on the dance floor. Ian’s hands on her ass.
“Wrong girl,” I spat out. My fist connected with his jaw, and he went flying across the dance floor.
“Are you fucking nuts?” Grace shouted, clearly furious at me. Yeah, fuck that this pervert just touched my wife. Or that she touched him.
“Nobody touches you,” I snapped at my wife. The word mine seared into my chest, the word on repeat in my brain. “And if you don’t want him to lose a fucking limb, don’t touch him either.”
I took two steps and lifted the bastard off the ground with my hand gripping his neck while my free hand curled into a fist and connected with the other side of his face.
“We can’t have that pretty face be unevenly bruised. Can we?” I gritted out, a dark smile pulling on my lip corners. I landed another punch. “No one touches what’s mine. No one looks at what’s mine. And Grace is mine, you motherfucker.”
Everything around me became a white noise in my head, my only focus on this sleazebag that dared to grope my wife’s ass.
Cassio pulled me off the bloody bastard, his face a fucking bloody mess.
“Grace, you and Ella with me. Now!” Cassio snapped at her.
I reached out and tugged on my wife’s hand, pulling her along. In shock, she followed without a question, Ella on her tail. Cassio barked orders to his bouncers to pick up Ian and bring him along too. I would rather leave the fucker on the floor. Maybe punch him a few more times.
Once we were in Cassio’s office, the door firmly shut behind us, I pulled my wife closer to me, inhaling deeply her scent. In her state, she just let me.
“Are you okay?” Her voice was soft, her eyes shifting down my body and stopping on my bloody knuckles.
“He touched you.” She blinked several times, confusion in her beautiful violet eyes. “Nobody touches you but me.” I grabbed her around the throat, pressing gently just so she understood how serious I was. “You touch another man… and you sign his death sentence. I’ll kill any man that you touch.”
Her eyes went to Ella and then shifted to Cassio. “He’s your husband,” he muttered.
“I take it back, Grace,” Ella murmured low, her eyes watching me warily. “You should abstain. He’s fucking crazy.”
Damn fucking right, I was crazy. Jealousy simmered like red rage through me.
“What were you doing with him?” My voice was sharp.
Grace froze and swallowed hard, her gaze guarded.
“I needed something,” she murmured.
To my surprise, Cassio came to her rescue. “Did you take something out of his pocket?”
Her head snapped to him, but she didn’t deny it. “Yes, the keys to his place.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. She must have been in a great state of shock to be answering questions without snapping at either one of us.
“Why?” I tried hard to keep my head cool. Despite my age, I had to admit my father was right. I had a hard time thinking rationally around my wife.
She licked her lower lip nervously. “I need a copy of my parents’ will.”
That was not the response I anticipated.