A shiver went through me as he walked away from me.
I was on pins and needles throughout the ceremony, waiting for Don Angelo's big move, but it never came. Watching Jenny walk down the aisle with Don Angelo, a breezy smile on his face as they came my way, had my heart racing. Once they got to the end of the aisle where Luca and I waited, Don Angelo lifted Jenny's veil, kissed her cheek like a normal father, gave her away and then sat down and watched the wedding happen.
The fireworks only began after the ceremony ended. After Jenny and Luca left for the reception, Don Angelo was already waiting for me outside the church, holding the door of a limousine open himself.
"We wouldn't want to miss you at the reception. Shall we?" he said, indicating for me to get in.
I raised my head and looked around, considering my options. When my eyes landed on Scott across the road, my heart plummeted into my stomach. This was what I got for fucking trusting a fed. My distress was showing and I knew it. Had Don Angelo made Scott yet?
I made the split second decision to get into the limousine before Scott could get to me as a form of damage control.
Before Don Angelo could get in alongside me, my fingers were already flying across the keyboard of my phone.
Agent Jeff Brady: Why the fuck is Scott here? Do your damn part and keep him from the Cattaneo estate.
Shoving my phone back into my purse, I sat back as Don Angelo's presence settled next to me. When I looked to see what he was doing, he had his phone out too and was making a call. A welcome event, as it would give me a second to compose myself and figure out how to get away from him as quickly as possible. Or so I thought.
"I'm calling about the hit I put out on Jenny," he said and my head whipped over to him in shock. "Job's off. Repeat, don't kill my daughter," said Don Angelo, his cold eyes staring dead into my soul.
My hands shook uncontrollably in my lap and I knew I was pale in the face.
What the fuck was all that drama if he was just going to have her killed? And why did he decide against it? Was he bluffing about putting a hit out on her to scare me? Or was it a double bluff and he meant for me to know that he was going to kill her and there was nothing I could do about it? Fuck, he was in my head.
"Relax, erede. She'll live. Just like the deer you refused to kill on our first hunting trip. Remember?" he said, patting my hands with one of his.
When I was unable to pull the trigger, he acted like it was no big deal. Only to take me home and make me watch while he beat the living crap out of Collette as punishment. The next time, I killed the fucking deer. And the next time and the time after that. If Jenny was the deer, who was Collette? Only one name came to mind.
"I would have killed my own flesh and blood to get you to fall in line, but now I understand. She's not the reason you turned on me," he said, with an accusatory tone.
Were the games finally ending? Was he going to show his true colors or keep toying with me?
"She's not your weakness. Maybe fifteen years ago, but not now. Therefore, she's no longer of interest to me. People like us don't have weaknesses, do we, erede?" he said, taunting me, because he already knew the answer.
Paranoia got the better of me. When was he going to call me out on bluffing him? I much preferred that to whatever the fuck this was.
"No. Lucianos don't have weaknesses. You taught me that," I answered anyway, playing along.
"I'm impressed you still remember some of what I taught you," he said with a laugh that made my skin crawl, just as the limo came to a halt. "Remember how I taught you to wound a man without killing him?"
Flashes of me pumping lead into person after person, no questions asked, for Don Angelo went through my mind. I was barely thirteen when it started. That was back when I would have done anything to impress him. Despite picking it up quickly leading to precision in taking nonfatal shots, I never saw them again.
It fucked with my head so much that I couldn't help but wonder if I had killed them or if he did and wanted me to think I did. There was always the possibility that they lived, but he robbed me of that naivete early on. Making me spend years wondering if I was a murderer and we were the same. This is why I started doing the books. It took me hundreds of hours of studying and begging for books just to get started, but I made it happen. To give him something else to be proud of. To stop myself from turning into him.
I hadn't fired a gun at a live target in nine years. What the fuck was he playing at, bringing this up now after all this time?
When the door opened, Don Angelo got out of the limo and held out his hand to me saying, "For the record, you didn't need the dead man's switch to get what you wanted today. Stealing my money was brilliant. I was humbled by that hail mary of a power move. It could have crippled my empire. I would have handed you the reins if you wanted them after something like that. No questions asked."
I laid my hand in his and let him help me out of the limousine, but told him frankly, "I want nothing to do with your empire. You'll get your money once I get what I want, which is to go home."
He let this sit between us for a while as we walked through the doors of the Cattaneo household, then out of the blue said, "Home to Scott?" and my blood ran cold. "Because I think that's going to be tricky, since he's here," he said, watching panic flicker in my eyes.
I followed his gaze to where Scott stood, talking to Jenny. For the next few seconds, I stopped being able to hear and my vision became blurry. Then Scott looked my way and I became fixated on his brown eyes. Everything else just fell away.
Fuck that handsome face, those dimples and the silver tongue that had probably convinced Jenny to let you in the door, Scott Brady.
When I came to and broke eye contact, wanting to respond to Don Angelo, the father daughter dance was already being announced and he was going out to meet Jenny. Scott's gaze found mine across the room again and he broke out into a smile that made me weak in the knees. I wanted to end him for showing up here, but damn if it wasn't good to see him.
We did a little dance of him trying to get to me and me avoiding him like the plague. The last thing I needed was to be seen with him. I tried texting his dad again.
Agen
t Jeff Brady: Get your son the fuck off Cattaneo property.