SWNOVELS When She Loves: Chapter 23
We pull up in front of a brick building in the Lower East Side. “We’re here,” Nero says. “Sit tight. I’m going to come around to help you out.”
“That’s really not neces—”
He’s already climbing out and slamming his door closed.
I sigh and try to clear my head. It’s my first day at work, and I need to focus on that instead of psychoanalyzing my husband, but Nero managed to confuse me even more. That was probably his intention.
The consigliere walks me to the front door of the shop and presses on the doorbell. “I’ll be nearby. Call when you’re ready to go home.”
“You’re going to wait around all day?”
“Just until Sandro gets here to keep watch so I can grab some lunch.” He gives me a very male grin. “I’ve got a friend in the area.”
I roll my eyes. “Just when I thought you might be more than a barbarian in a suit.”
“Wouldn’t want you to think too highly of me. Rafe might get jealous.”
The lock turns and a woman opens the door. She must be Loretta. Her hair is the same color as Rafaele’s—black with hints of hazel in the light. She and Nero share a quick embrace and greet each other in Italian, but the consigliere doesn’t stick around. He pats my shoulder as he brushes past me and walks back toward his car.
Loretta’s attention moves to me. She gives me a slow once-over and pops her gum. “You looked different at the wedding.”
I shrug. “Left the diamonds at home.”
She doesn’t laugh, and the expression on her face is not exactly friendly. She must be younger than Rafaele since she’s still unmarried, but the heavy makeup she wears makes her look older.
The wind picks up, and she tugs her sweater tighter around her.
I peek inside the shop over her shoulder. It’s filled with bolts of fabric, and there’s a crooked mannequin in a skirt and no top by the register.
“Are you going to invite me in?”
Her eyes narrow. She pops her gum again and then moves aside. “Come in,” she says.
I follow her inside and take in the dusty shelves. The place smells of mothballs and old leather. The register is near the front, and there’s a small desk in the back corner with a laptop, a printer, and a stack of invoices. Another desk beside it holds a sewing machine.
Loretta leans against the register. “Rafaele must really want me to fail if he sent you here,” she says, her tone riddled with mistrust.
Okay, rude. My jaw hardens, but I don’t take the bait. “What’s going on with this place?”
She gestures vaguely at the space around us. “Not enough customers. I bought up all this stock more than a year ago, and it’s been sitting on the shelves ever since. These are good fabrics. High quality, not the kind of polyester crap you see in stores these days. I thought there’d be demand for it, but it looks like everyone just wants to buy off the rack.”
I glance around again. “Do you have a catalogue?”
She shakes her head. “I have pictures of what I’ve made in the past. You can look at them over there.” She points toward the desk at the back.
I spend the next few hours poring over the photos. There are a ton of them, dating back as far as five years ago.
It’s clear Loretta is an exceptional tailor. The intricacy on some of the pieces rivals that of high-end fashion houses. But it’s not hard to see why someone would become overwhelmed. There are so many options here, and so many different styles. It’s almost impossible to choose.
I put the photos back in the boxes they came from and walk over to Loretta. She’s working on a skirt at the sewing machine. “Have you thought about creating a collection of styles? Maybe changing them out every season?”
She doesn’t look up from her work. “The vision for the shop is to create one-of-a-kind pieces. Everything custom-made.”
“You can still do customizations. People can select the fabric, buttons, make small adjustments to the styles. But it would help them understand what they can get from you.”
“Whatever they want. That’s the point.”
“Sometimes too much choice is overwhelming. Not everyone is a clothing designer. There are plenty of people who want high-quality clothes, but only a small subset of them know enough about fashion to tell you exactly what they want made.”
Loretta looks at me, her eyes narrow. “That’s not in line with my vision.”
“Well, your vision isn’t working. Why not try this?”
“Because I’m not going to redo my entire business plan based on an idea you just pulled out of your ass. What do you know about this? I’ve been working on this business for two years. You showed up two hours ago, and you’re already telling me what to do. Do you think you’re smarter than me?” She scoffs and shakes her head.
My walls surge right up. “Why are you being like this? I’m trying to help you.”
“You spit on everything my family stands for. Tradition. Honor. Virtue.” She shakes her head. “You get married to my cousin, and the first thing you do is spend his money. What? You don’t think we heard about that? You’re spoiled and vapid. I don’t need your help. I knew this was a waste of my time.”
Frustrated, I grab my purse and march out of the store. Rafaele might be manipulating me, but he’s right about not letting people talk to me like that. The wind nips at me as soon as I step outside. It’s barely past lunchtime, but Nero’s already back here.
He sees me from the car and frowns. “Done already?” he asks as soon as I get in.
“Yes.” I can feel his gaze probing the side of my face.
“How did it go?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
A beat passes. “Look, Loretta can be a bit prickly. Don’t take it personally.”
Yeah, right. Everything she said to me felt pretty fucking personal.
I sniff. “I’m not.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
Frustration rings deep inside my bones, so I take it out on Nero. “Are you my driver or my therapist? Can you just take me home?”
I force myself to look at him and immediately feel guilty for snapping like that.
But Nero just shrugs. “All right. Your mother called. Wants to see you.”
“Why?”
“Maybe she’s worried about you after the attack.”
That’s doubtful.
“You can say no if you don’t want to,” he offers.
I don’t want to, but I could use a distraction after my disastrous first day. I’m not in any rush to tell Rafaele how poorly it went.
“Fine. Take me there.”
The city is gridlocked, and it takes us nearly an hour to get to my old house.
When we arrive, a servant I don’t recognize opens the door.
“Mrs. Garzolo is waiting for you in the living room,” he says. “Mr. De Luca, may I offer you some coffee?” He leads Nero away to the kitchen while I go search for Mamma.
Passing through the grand foyer, I briefly note the picture frames on the round foyer table. There are three. One of me and my sisters, one of the whole family, and one of just my parents. They seem perfectly normal, but I know the smiles in them are all forced. Mamma and Papà have always been big on appearances and little else.
I find my mother reading a magazine on the sofa. When she hears me enter, she puts the magazine away and stands. Her gaze scans over me, her nose wrinkling.
I know exactly what she’s thinking. My casual outfit is too sloppy. My hair’s not sufficiently styled. My makeup is too sparse.
Thank God, I don’t have to deal with this every day anymore.
She walks up to me. “I heard you were hurt during the shooting.” There isn’t a hint of warmth in her tone.
“Why did you want to see me?” I ask, knowing she’s not really concerned for me.
She sniffs, probably displeased at how quickly I saw through her facade. “Your father is waiting for you in his office.”
Irritation inches along my skin. So it’s Papà who really wants to talk to me, but he knew I’d never show up if the invitation came from him.
I clench my jaw. I want to speak to my father as much as I want to go back to Loretta’s shop. But I’m already here, aren’t I? Might as well see what this is all about.
Papà’s office is a place of bad memories. It was here where I saw him hurting Gemma. But I know he’d never dare to raise his hand to me. Not now that I’m married to Rafaele.
I push the door open. Stefano Garzolo is sitting at his desk, a stack of papers before him.
He looks up. “Come in and close the door.”
I step inside and take a seat in a chair across from his desk. “What do you want?”
“How’s married life?” he asks, a hint of mockery in his tone.
My eyes narrow. “Did you summon me here so that you could rub it in?”
An insincere smile cuts across his face. “Not at all. I want to know if Rafaele is treating you well.”
Better than you ever did. Married life is growing on me, but my father is the last person in the world I’d confess that to, so I say only what he expects to hear.
“I gave up my independence and freedom. I can never go to college like I wanted to. I will never have the career of my dreams. How do you think it’s going?”
He nods, his eyes flashing with satisfaction. My stomach curdles. It’s like he gets off on thinking I’m miserable.
“Well, maybe you don’t have to spend the rest of your life with Messero,” he says slowly.
I frown. What is he talking about now?
He brushes his palms over the desk. “I want to make you an offer.”
“What kind of an offer?” Outside, a raven croaks like a bad omen. My eyes dart to the window in time to see the bird fly by.
“My retirement plans have changed,” my father says. “I’ve decided five years isn’t enough for me to do what I’d like to do as don of our family.”
“And what is that exactly?” As far as I can tell, he’s spent decades lining his pockets, hosting parties at La Trattoria, and acting all-important.
There’s a reason he went to jail—one of his capos turned on him and spilled the beans to the feds. Why? Because my father got greedy. He kept asking for bigger and bigger cuts and squeezed his own men too tightly.
“I want to finish getting rid of the rats, rebuild my ranks, and bring the Garzolo family into a new era. New businesses, new partnerships, new points of leverage.” He steeples his hands in front of him. “It’ll take some time, but the future is looking bright for Garzolos.”
Quickly, I start to put it together. What he’s saying is that he has no intention of letting Rafaele become his successor.
“You want to stay on as don.”
He lifts a shoulder. “I’m fifty-four. My father retired at seventy. I’ve still got plenty of time to bring our family back to the top of the food chain in this town.”
“Rafaele will never allow this to happen. You made a deal with him. He gave you five years.”
Papà nods. “Which is why Rafaele needs to go.”
My blood runs cold.
Of course. I should have known Papà would want to have his cake and eat it too. Use Rafaele to get himself out of prison and then find a way to get rid of him before his five years are up.
Anger kindles inside my chest.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Your husband is an impenetrable fortress. I’ve tried to find his weaknesses, to find some way to get leverage, but so far, I’ve found nothing. He’s got all his capos under his thumb. They all say he’s a control freak, that he doesn’t feel emotions and cares about no one, that he can kill anyone and anything around him if they get in the way of his plans. They’re all fucking terrified of him.”
A chill runs through me. Rafaele would never hurt me. Or would he? Am I being naive thinking that my famously brutal husband won’t ever show that brutal side to me?
I push the thought away. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Help me find something that I can use against him. There has to be something. You’re in his house, in his bed. Eventually, you might learn things about him that no one else knows.”
My eyes widen. I can’t believe this. “You want me to spy on him?” I laugh. “You’re crazy to think I’ll help you.”
My words don’t faze him. It’s as if he expected me to say just that.
“Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself. If you help me take him down, I’ll give you your freedom.”
I scoff and shake my head. “Yeah, right. What does that even mean?”
He leans back and crosses his arms over his chest. “I will formally disown you. You can go live with your sisters in Italy or move anywhere you want. Help me, and you can live your life as you wish.”
My breath hitches. It takes me a moment to convince myself I heard him say those words. He just offered me the one thing I’ve always wanted.
Freedom.
A way out of this life and this world.
My father’s expression turns triumphant. “What do you say?”
There’s no way he means it. Is he really this desperate? Desperate enough to try to make a deal with me?
I shake my head. “You expect me to believe you after you just told me you plan on breaking another deal you’ve made? I don’t trust you. How can I be sure you’d let me go if I help you?”
His lips curl into a sneer. “Your mother and I tried to make you into a palatable human being, but we clearly failed. You’re a fucking nuisance. I’m happy Rafaele took you off our hands, and I sure as hell want nothing more to do with you after I get rid of him. I’ll put you on a plane and hopefully never see you again.”
A bitter taste floods my mouth. He knows trying to flatter me would have done him no good. I wouldn’t believe him.
But this I believe. My father hates me as much as I hate him. If he kills Rafaele, I’ll be a widow with a questionable reputation. I’ll be of no use to him.
His words echo through my head. If you help me take him down, I’ll give you your freedom. He wants me to join him in betraying Rafaele. To help him find a way to murder my husband.
My limbs feel numb.
Even my dreams aren’t worth that price, are they?
I shouldn’t be entertaining this. I’m tempted to laugh in his face and call him an idiot for letting me in on his plan. To see how he’ll react when I tell him I’m going to go straight to Rafaele with this information.
But another part of me holds me back. The part that wants to at least consider the possibility of being with Gemma and Vale. Of being free of all of this.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
The words taste like poison on my tongue.