Not Mine to Keep (The Costa Family)

Two hooded men, in their thirties from the looks of it, surrounded Alessandro with switchblades in hand, and he was all that stood in the way of them getting to me. Well, aside from the old tree I was hugging and peering around.

Alessandro’s profile was to me as both men came straight at him, and without missing a step, he ducked the first assailant’s attempt to cut him, then flipped the second man to his back, the muddy dirt trail padding the guy’s fall.

There was a flash of quick movements, a UFC fight taking place before my eyes. I’d only ever witnessed such things on TV, but it’d never been two on one, like now.

It dawned on me I would’ve been here alone in the park with no way to defend myself had Alessandro not shown up at my doorstep, since I always did my best to ditch my shadows for as long as possible, assuming they were an annoying inconvenience.

I should’ve been terrified, knowing there was a chance I could die. But I wasn’t trembling. Not scared. Something told me Alessandro wouldn’t let these men get to me, no matter what. A gut instinct. That also meant I was starting to trust him, which was absurd. He was still a stranger, and his intentions were questionable at best.

Alessandro blocked another knifing attempt and sent the guy to the ground, trapping him between his powerful legs. He grabbed hold of his forearm and bent it back in a position that had the guy cursing. Hell, the man even let go of the knife to tap out as if he were inside an MMA cage instead.

As soon as the asshole was back on his feet, Alessandro laid him out with a wicked side kick.

“Alessandro,” I warned, letting him know he had the other bad guy on his six. On his six? Okay, that was Braden and his military talk in my head right now.

Alessandro spun around to face the second man, only to take a hit to the jaw. It was the first time I’d witnessed him struck.

He shook it off, and I’d swear he was smiling at the prick. Then he made a come-hither motion, beckoning the attacker while swiping the blood free from his lip with the pad of his thumb.

Something about Alessandro fearlessly handling these men while sporting a cocky grin, blood on his lip, had me . . .

Oh my God. No, no. I’m not my father’s daughter. I’m not his daughter. I’m not attracted to violence, and—

I squeezed my eyes closed, finding myself catapulted back to the past and a confrontation with Armani shortly after Mom’s funeral. He’d forced me to his home in Sicily and stabbed one of his own men for looking at me the wrong way.

Right after that, he’d cleaned the blood from his blade with a dinner napkin and said to me, “Nature versus nurture, Principessa. Your aunt may have raised you, but you’re still my daughter. You have my blood. Your mother’s. And she was no saint, either, trust me.” He’d stepped over the groaning man, and my back went flat to the dining room wall with every step closer he took. “You have your mother’s siren voice. And you have my strength.” He’d leaned in, drawing his face near mine, the smell of a vanilla cigar on his breath as he went on, “One day, you’ll experience a moment where it feels good to be bad. You’ll be turned on by the darkness. You won’t be able to help it. Because it’s inside you, just waiting to be unleashed. It’s part of you.” He’d grinned and held the blade between us. “You’ll become a DiMaggio in that moment, and you’ll accept who you are.” He turned to the side, offering me his profile. “Non c’è luce senza oscurità. There is no light without dark. Our family is a necessary force in the world to keep it balanced.”

“I’ll never be a DiMaggio, and I’ll never succumb to the dark,” I’d snapped out, finding my backbone.

I opened my eyes, landing in the present. Also just in time to see a third man coming from down the hill. He must’ve been waiting for these assholes, and since they’d yet to return . . .

“Alessandro!” I cried out, alerting him again. “Gun,” I added at the sight of the weapon in the hooded man’s hand.

Alessandro swiveled at the sound of my voice, and dammit, I’d distracted him, and the guy who’d been on the ground by his feet drew his blade and slashed him near the ankle. He cursed, as if getting cut were only an inconvenience, and in one fast move, dropped to a knee and swiftly disarmed the man. Once the third guy was close enough, my unexpected hero flung the switchblade with eerie precision, and it landed right in the man’s jugular.

I stepped back, sealing my eyes closed, only listening to the grunts and groans. Sounds of victory for one. Death for the others. And based on what I’d witnessed so far, I had to believe Alessandro was on the winning side.

When everything fell silent, I chanced a look, finding Alessandro holding the gun and three lifeless bodies on the trail by his feet.

I hesitantly stepped around the tree. “Are they . . . dead?”

Alessandro hid the gun beneath the back of his shirt. “I was trying to keep them alive for information, but they were stubborn, and I couldn’t risk them getting to you.” He knelt alongside one of the bodies and checked for a pulse, and I did my best not to look too closely to see exactly how he’d killed them. “All dead,” he noted after checking the other two. “Are you okay?”

He came to me, and I had the urge to fling myself into his arms, but I held back, and instead nodded while clutching my arms, searching for goose bumps that should’ve been there. Blood. Violence. Death. And no reaction. That was what scared me. Where was my desire to go throw up, like last night?

“I’m not his daughter. No, no,” I blurted, starting to panic. “This isn’t the moment I become . . .” I shook my head with a little too much intensity. “That moment will never come.”

He grabbed hold of my wrist, pulling my hand free from my other arm, and he was the one to snatch me against him, surprisingly holding me tight to his hard frame.

My cheek went to his chest, and the fierce beats of this stranger’s heart managed to calm my racing thoughts. “You must be shaken up. In shock. You’ll be okay, though.”

“You just killed three men, and I’m . . .” I eased free from his embrace. He let go of me, wordlessly picked up his hat from the ground, and dusted it off before casually slipping it on backward, as if he hadn’t unalived three people to save my life. “I’m okay. What is wrong with me that I’m okay?” I cried out, which probably sounded like the opposite of an “okay” thing to be doing.

“Like I said,” he began while looking around the park, searching for anyone who might possibly stumble upon the three dead bodies, “it’s just shock. You’re feeling numb. That’s normal.” He reached into his pocket and produced his phone.

“Who are you calling?” I locked my arms across my chest again, unsure what to think or feel right now. Maybe Alessandro was right? I was numb. It wasn’t because I was a DiMaggio and could handle what happened this morning. I was a schoolteacher. Musician on the side. Not mafiosa, not like Armani.

“I think one of your guards betrayed your father and gave up your routine and location to an enemy of his, or to someone hoping to take over when he dies instead of you,” he shared, bringing the phone to his ear. “And I’m calling Armani’s third-in-command to let him know what happened.”

“Gabriel?” I almost tripped over the foot of one of the men at the mention of his name. “Is he the one you said you owe a favor to? The one feeding you your intel?”

He nodded. “We go way back. Before he became a criminal.”

I lifted my eyes to the cloudless sky. The sunlight poured down over us, bathing us in the kind of light I didn’t feel I deserved. “Non c’è luce senza oscurità,” I said under my breath.

“There is no light without dark,” he translated, staring at me in surprise. “You speak Italian?”

“No.” My posture relaxed, shoulders slumping. “It’s just something Armani likes to say to me.”

He frowned, then narrowed his eyes, and I assumed someone was now on the other line. “We have a problem,” he said. “Three men just tried to kill her, and luckily, I was with her when they came. I tried to keep one alive for questioning, but I couldn’t.”

My attention skated to his leg, and I’d nearly forgotten he’d been cut. There was a subtle rip in the denim, and blood trickled down onto his white Adidas shoe. Not that he seemed to notice.

“I’m hiding the bodies before someone stumbles upon them, but I need a cleanup crew right now,” Alessandro went on.

Cleanup crew? I looked up at him as he held the phone to his ear with his shoulder and began casually dragging a body toward shrubs on the other side of the trail.

“Yeah. Call Armani. Tell him someone’s trying to murder his daughter, and I’ll be the one to get her safely to Italy. That also means you need to clue him in on the fact you think I’m a better fit for his daughter.” He came back for the second body, but at his words, I went before him and waved my arms in the air, letting him know I had no plans to go to Italy. “And tell him if any of his guards come for me or go near her, I’ll lay them the fuck out as a precautionary measure in case one did help send these hit men after her today.” He ended the call and shoved his phone in his pocket. “What’s with the hand-waving? Decipher it for me.” He gave me a genuinely puzzled look.

“I’m not going to Italy, is what,” I bit out as he dragged Dead Guy Number Two into the shrubs.

“Do you want to go into hiding? Because it’s not just your father who is after you now. What do you plan to do? Go to school tomorrow so another asshole can come into your classroom and attack you there?”

My stomach dropped. Fear. Yeah, that four-letter word snuck up on me this time, and fast, at the idea of any of my students being harmed because of me.

“That’s what I thought.” He busied himself with the task of hiding Bad Guy Number Three next, then snatched his phone, probably pin-dropping our location for Gabriel to send a “cleanup crew” our way.

What was this life I was in? Despite having shadows and Armani showing up from time to time, I’d been doing my best to live normally. To pretend I wasn’t who Armani said I was. Land of Delulu and all. What had happened today, especially with three dead bodies in my hometown, made Armani’s dark world impossible to ignore.

But there was still one other issue. One as pressing as the dead bodies ten feet away from me beneath the shrubs: Did I trust Alessandro was telling me the truth? Because what if this was all part of Armani’s plans to get me to marry?

“The only way I can protect you, if you don’t want to go on the run, is to marry you in Italy.” He cocked his head, his brows slanting as if the idea were more painful to him than it’d be to me. “So what’s it going to be? Running? Or are you becoming my wife?” His hands slammed to his hips when I remained quiet. “One way or another, you’re leaving Nashville, whether it’s voluntarily or over my shoulder.”