Scorned Vows: An Arranged Marriage Romance (Scorned Fate)
Scorned Vows: Part 2 – Chapter 31

“Whoa. Are you sure we didn’t bring home a doppelgänger?” Dario asked. All pairs of eyes focused on my wife’s departure. I jerked my head at Rocco and my soldiers to accompany her to the attic where I was sure she was heading.

My mouth curved with humor and bemusement. “I always wondered when Natalya slipped and said something out of character and it’s turning out it was very much in character.”

When the door closed, Ange collapsed into the seat in front of my desk while I returned to my chair. Dario sat opposite Ange. The boss, the consigliere, and the underboss. We had business to discuss. The business of Natalya was at the forefront.

“You should have informed me immediately, so the family could prepare for all consequences,” Ange said. “What if you were caught in Danvers? You abducted a woman and a doctor. We don’t want scrutiny so close to our online poker games.”

“In case I hadn’t made it clear, my wife is a priority over everything else. And don’t turn it back on me. The family owes me this. That night my wife was giving birth, everything I did was for family. The night my wife disappeared, where was I again? Making sure the family would be clear from the Russians. So don’t tell me I’ve done nothing for the family, including brokering deals with everyone—things you have no interest in doing. Our real estate business is thriving, and we’re trying not to grow too fast because you’re not pulling in enough money for us to clean. So don’t put this back on me.”

“How are you going to bring her back from the dead?”

“I’m assuming you’re talking about it figuratively, because there never was a death certificate.”

“Her parents held a funeral for her in Palermo. There’s even a gravestone. They said it was insulting that you didn’t attend.” The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end when I remembered the time Vincenzo told me they were going ahead with the funeral. He said it was the right thing to do because we didn’t know what happened to Natalya, and it had been two months. They said, what if her soul was languishing in purgatory because she didn’t get the blessing from the church?

“What? So they would have an opportunity to kill me?”

“You still think that?”

“Ange, in the mafia’s history, how many double- and triple-crossings had led to a mob boss’s demise? Une Famiglia doesn’t exist anymore. At that time of the funeral, I had the Galluzo under scrutiny.” It was also the time I thought Natalya had betrayed me when I’d found out how her parents erased the school hacking from her records. “Regarding Natalya’s reintroduction as my wife, I hope to give her more time in case her memory comes back, but I don’t see how I could keep this news from leaking out. I, for one, would hate to give our enemies enough time to plan their move.”

“You’re going to risk your wife?”

“I won’t coerce her if she doesn’t want to.” But I could tell she was as desperate as I was in replaceing out what happened to her. Who our enemies were.

“You have to tell her parents. And Carmine.”

My mouth wanted to curl into a snarl. I hated that motherfucker. If I had solid proof that he was involved, I’d fly over to Italy and kill him myself.

“We keep a lid on this for now and see how much control you have over your men.”

“Then why did you parade Natalya in front of them?”

“You did surprise me with this visit.”

“You expected me not to question why you have one of my capos specifically deliver a fully tricked-out laptop to your house? Why you’ve been avoiding my calls, and why I replace out you were not where you said you were four days ago?”

“I’m glad you came down here to replace out yourself.”

“Was this a test?” Ange surged from his chair and homed in on me like a rabid Rottweiler. “If you think I’m not capable of leading under you, then why keep me?”

“Sit down,” I enunciated. Dario sat forward, ready to intervene, but I leaned back and clasped my hands over my torso. “A test? Maybe. You’re my underboss, Ange. The capos are your responsibility. The last time you ignored two of them, they were making deals under you with the Russians that cost me two years with Natalya. And you wonder why I don’t hold you responsible for my wife’s disappearance?” The more I thought about his role in this or his lack of oversight, the more I wanted to murder my own blood. “If you weren’t my brother, if we didn’t share so much together, you would have been in that basement with those stronzos. That’s why I tapped one of your newer capos to deliver Natalya’s laptop. To see if you’re paying attention.”

“And did I pass your test, then, almighty brother?” Ange asked sarcastically.

“I’m satisfied.”

I could tell he was still fuming. I could see it in his darkened gaze. I missed the days when we settled our differences by beating each other senseless on the mat. Ange used to be my sparring partner in mixed martial arts, but after Emilio declared me boss, we drifted apart. Now we just stared at each other until one of us gave in. It was always Ange. Because I was still the boss and he’d have to kill me before I wavered. My brother took his seat again. “What do you want me to do?”

“Do damage control as much as possible. Can you handle that?”

“Exactly what is it you want me to handle?”

“I’m going to ignore Vincenzo and Carmine until I figure out what Natalya wants to do. They will have heard rumors by now.”

He nodded.

“Ignore all inquiries from Orlov. We don’t owe him anything.”

“Good,” Ange muttered. “But he’s been calling me about the Game of Bosses.”

“He’s been blowing up my phone about that stupid game too.”

“You sure you don’t want a rematch?” Ange grumbled. “Maybe he’d be less of a pain in our asses.”

Inwardly, I was amused. The Russian just stole a shipment of vodka from Ange. No money off the family because it was Ange and his capo in charge of it who were paying it back.

“I don’t have time for that shit.” Not to mention, I didn’t feel like training for it, but it seemed I hadn’t lost the skill and instincts, judging from how I handled Brad Bailey.

“Koshkin, if he calls me, will be hard to ignore, so I’m handling him,” I told Ange. “Eventually the Chicago PD will hear about it. Detective Voss is in charge, but it’s become a cold case in the last year.”

“You want me to handle him too?” His tone was brusque.

“No. That’s going to be trickier.”

“Because you kidnapped a doctor.”

I woke up my computer and turned my screen to Ange to show Gleason on the patio reclining on a lounger, sipping a drink. “Does it look like I kidnapped him? His voicemail says he had a family emergency. That should clear us for now.”

I made the mistake of looking at Dario. We both had our poker faces on, but Ange had been around us too long not to know we had more information. “There’s a catch…”

Dario tried to keep his mouth straight in the ensuing twitchy silence, but a chuckle escaped his lips. “There might be someone out of our control with knowledge of the abduction.”

“I’m not replaceing it funny,” I snapped. I didn’t want a reminder of that fucker’s mouth on Natalya. “We’ll handle him. Do nothing.”

“Why?” Ange persisted. “I can send a couple of men down there and—”

“Brad Bailey is not to be touched,” I told my brother. “Do we have an understanding?”

Ange grinned and sat back. “Understood.”

“As your consigliere, I don’t approve of you giving Ange Brad Bailey’s name.” It was the first time Dario got me alone and away from my brother. It was an afternoon of meetings and catching up on business. Ange was clearly unhappy that Natalya was the focus of my attention just when we had big games lined up. It was the first time since Natalya’s disappearance that I’d given him so much control over them. He’d been hoping I’d be in Chicago, but I reminded him I’d monitored the last ones while I was in the mansion.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” I rocked back on my heels while sipping the thirty-year-old scotch Ange brought with him. It was part of our last shipment from a cult distillery that recently closed. “I told him he’s not to be touched.”

I wanted Brad Bailey dead, but not by my hands. His heart wasn’t black enough for me to kill him without guilt.

“You said nothing about not burning down his coffee shop with him in it.”

“I gave Ange simple instructions. I don’t want to micromanage.”

Dario gave me one of his disapproving looks. “You’re better than this, Luca. You think this won’t get back to Natalya? Even if you said you didn’t give the direct order, the buck stops with you.”

I exhaled a heavy sigh. “You’re no fun. If you must, be specific with Ange and tell him to leave Brad Bailey and everything that belongs to him alone.”

Dario squeezed my shoulder. “Good call.”

“Vaffanculo,” I muttered.

Dario barked a laugh and left my side in search of my brother. It had become more crowded. I was sure Nessa and Martha were cursing me, but they should lay the blame on Ange for this gathering. I caught Gleason’s gaze. He was in a conversation with one of the capos, but he raised his glass to me. I gave him one bottle of the expensive scotch. It should fetch at least 8k a bottle and we had two hundred cases. We could make twenty million easy. More if we auctioned them.

And that was why I was the boss. Ange’s default was to force liquor stores to carry them or sell them to the many high-brow restaurants in the area. Why make distribution harder when the world was our market?

In my peripheral vision, a figure appeared at the top of the grand staircase and demanded my attention. I turned to it, to them, and my whole world became clear.

Natalya was in a slim-fitting navy-blue dress I remembered her wearing in Paris. At her side was Elias in sailor’s clothes. The pull of my wife and son was irresistible. I lowered my scotch on the side table, and my strides headed in their direction. I ascended the steps, eyes unwavering with Natalya’s. She stood unsure at the top of the grand staircase. Then our wiggle-some boy drew my attention. He was urging his mother to join the party.

Yes, I was as excited as my son.

“It isn’t quite seven.” Her voice was breathless. “I wasn’t sure if I should mingle with all the men. I don’t see their wives. And I googled…”

I reached her at the top of the steps. “I’ll send them all home if I have to. I want to spend dinner with my wife and not stare at their ugly faces.”

“I’m not intruding?”

I gave her a reassuring smile. “Not at all.”

“Papà…up.” Elias made a wanting-to-be-carried gesture. I plucked him from Natalya’s side and settled him on my left arm while offering my right one to Natalya. She hesitated for a brief second, and then she clasped my elbow.

Together, we descended the steps. Why had we never done this? When Vincenzo and Elena had been here, I was already with the men, leaving the women to their own activities. I cursed my idiocy. My wife had become an afterthought. Someone to beget with heirs.

“I’m feeling very self-conscious,” she whispered.

All eyes were on us. It was like a spotlight was following us down.

“Get used to it,” I told her. “We should entertain more.”

She cast me a look that was a cross between incredulity and irritation. “Luca, these past few days…”

“I don’t want to discuss them. I’m not asking for a performance rating. Just let me do what I feel I should have done as your husband.” I lowered Elias to the floor, and he immediately spotted Ange.

“Ziiiooo!” he yelled and stumble-walked toward my brother. Ange high-fived him. Tony was in the crowd and made his way to my son.

“Elias is more at home in this crowd than I am,” Natalya said.

“Let’s loosen you up.” I guided her to the kitchen where the impromptu bar was set up.

“I could strangle Ange,” was the first sentence Martha uttered when she saw us. “I was ready to order pizza.”

“Why didn’t you?” I didn’t care what my brother thought. My house wasn’t a restaurant and this unscheduled visit, even when I half expected it, didn’t mean my staff should drop everything and cater to their needs.

“Really?” the housekeeper said, looking doubtful. “You would have been okay with that?”

“Why are you looking at me?” Natalya asked. “I’m not sure I’m in a position to make decisions in this house.”

Failure and confusion etched her panic-stricken face.

Fuck, I didn’t want her pressured at all. “You’re not. Calm down.” I poured her a glass of Barolo. “Drink this.”

She accepted the wine without hesitation, took a guzzle, and in her haste, the liquid sloshed over her fingers.

Christ.

“Natalya.” I infused my tone with the calm she should be feeling. The uncertainty in her eyes killed me. “This isn’t on you.” Martha realized her error and moved away.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“No.” She made a face. “You always seem preoccupied with what I eat.”

She mentioned this in the past, but this last time gave me pause to ponder why I did that. “Let’s go outside—”

“But your guests—”

“They’re not guests, they’re family—”

“Elias…”

Shit. I looked at Martha. “Can you check on Elias? He’s with Tony and Ange.”

Martha waved us off, and I didn’t wait for anyone else to stop me. Business had been concluded.

We left through the kitchen side door that led to the gardens where there was a fountain with an angel. We had several of these scattered around the property. But since we had more effective ways to scan for wiretappings and bugs nowadays, we found less and less use for these garden ornaments.

Right now, the falling water provided a soothing sound, which I hoped would alleviate my wife’s nerves.

“How do you like your laptop?” I asked.

Her face brightened against the moonlight filtering through the clouds. Her eyes came alive. A distinctive gleam of confidence shuttered the doubt in them moments ago. “Impressive bells and whistles. I approve of the processor and the memory. The graphic card is nice.”

“Nice,” I repeated dryly. “It was all top-of-the-line.”

“I don’t need top-of-the-line for what I do.”

“And what is it that you do?” I found myself asking a question that wasn’t for small talk. I genuinely wanted to replace out everything about my wife I never had the chance to explore. It also explained in a roundabout way why I kept asking whether she or Elias had eaten.

“I’m not sure yet,” she mused, staring off into the distance. “To be honest, even when you gave me the laptop, I felt something missing.”

“I’m not sure what programs you want to download. I’ll leave that up to you.”

“It’s just so much work to redo what I had on the laptop we left in Danvers.”

“You have all the time to do it here. The connection is very secure.”

“Give my kudos to your IT team. I did surface-level hacking…”

My expression must have changed because she laughed.

“Let’s call it ethical hacking, and that was one thing I did back in Danvers and the surrounding towns.”

“You’ve acquired quite a list of clients.”

“I’m the cheapest,” she returned, looking away.

“You could have charged more, but you didn’t want to draw attention to yourself.”

I sat on the edge of the fountain, encouraging her to sit beside me. She glanced back at the house.

“They’ll manage,” I interjected before she could say anything.

“But dinner…I heard Nessa was making spaghetti and meatballs.”

“She knows those guys are sick of spag and meatballs.”

Her burst of laughter surprised me. It was the laugh I’d often heard from her when we were in Paris—open and uninhibited—which became more and more scarce further into our marriage because I killed it. When Elias had been a month old, I peeked into the nursery one day and that was the last time I’d heard it. My unworthiness only grew stronger, but I refused to give up. If only I could replace out how to make her laugh like this often.

She took a sip of wine, but her cheeks were round with her smile. “Nessa is the quiet one, but she’s full of surprises.”

“And vindictiveness,” I muttered.

“Luca!” she admonished.

“It’s true,” I sighed. “I’m not saying I don’t deserve it from her.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, just the sound of the fountain keeping us company. A rumble of thunder indicated an impending storm. The chatter inside the house and random roar of laughter provided background noise.

“They might be looking for us.”

“Martha knows where we are.”

“Well, Nessa surely doesn’t want us to miss dinner.” She stood and moved to go inside.

I remained seated and said, “My preoccupation with whether or not you’ve eaten is born of expectations.”

Her back was to me, but I could feel rather than see the stiffening of her spine. She slowly turned around.

“I don’t think I truly apologized, Natalya, but I’m sorry for being a shitty husband. If you get your memory back and you remember every single time I let you down, every time I returned to Chicago and made it feel like I abandoned you, I’m truly fucking sorry.”

“What does this have to do with—”

“With food? Because that was the expectation I had of myself as a provider. As long as I gave you and Elias the basic necessities—food, clothing, shelter—I’d done my duty.” I pushed up from my seat and walked toward her.

Staring into her upturned face, I noted how her mouth was slightly parted, and her eyes sparked with curiosity. Because here I was, Luca Moretti, confessing his boundaries and the secrets of what made him tick. Or used to tick.

“I considered love a weakness. But I had no problem receiving it. To me, better for people to love me and give me their loyalty than for me to love them and become my weakness.” It was like an expulsion of my sins. Of the selfish protection around my heart.

“Oh, Luca…”

“I manipulated you to love me. I did it with all knowledge and calculation. Don’t look at me with pity.”

“I’m not. I’m just wondering how I fell for that. I didn’t think I was so gullible.”

“You love romance movies and books. I used Paris as a backdrop.” I regarded her intently. “But I wonder now if that was a front.”

“I like science fiction and fantasy movies. I do love it when there’s romance with action.” She drained her wine. “I might try reading a few of those books in the attic. They looked like I bought them from a thrift shop. Maybe they were my mother’s?”

Her question was beyond hilarious. I threw back my head and laughed. It took almost a minute before I could say anything without choking on laughter. There were tears in my eyes. “Elena Conte…would never read that. I doubt if there’s a romantic bone in her.”

“Was my relationship with my mother that bad?”

I ran the back of my hand down her cheek. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t shy away. That was progress. “Don’t worry about that right now.”

Her shoulders rose, and her whole person deflated on an exhale. “When I was in Danvers, I was content and had moved on, thinking I was lucky to escape with my life. But now, there are so many possibilities. Things are not clear between us. I’m not sure if I should trust you, but deep down, I can tell, you’re not a bad person. Your morals are questionable.” She puffed a laugh as if it was an inside joke. “But I’ve seen you with Elias. There’s good in you. You’re shaped by your environment, the family.” Her mouth twitched. “I finished The Godfather one, two, and three. And I googled you.”

“Heaven forbid.”

“We should go back in or people will notice.”

As if on cue, Nessa appeared. Of course, she ignored me and signed to Natalya.

“She said if we want any spaghetti and meatballs, we better go inside.”

“We’ll follow soon.

“Natalya.” Her attention returned to me. She’d been responding more and more to her name and I refused to use Rayne because she was never Rayne to me. The thunder sounded closer, and it reminded me of another time I let her down.

“You don’t have to mingle with the family if you’re not comfortable,” I said.

“Luca.” The way she said my name was uncompromising. It was a tone I’d never heard her use before and it made me pay attention, like I was about to be pushed off a cliff. “I’m tired of babying this amnesia, and Doc Gleason might not agree, but I want to replace those assholes who did this to us. If you think exposing my return to the public would facilitate our enemies making a move, then do it.”

She nailed me right in the eyes and continued with steel in her voice, “I can sense it. You want to use me, but you’re afraid of what it would do to my recovery. Since I met you, I had this feeling that the other shoe is about to drop, and I’m tired of waiting for it to do so. It’s not the way I want to live. The rest of my memory is there. I just need that one trigger. I can feel it.”

Natalya and I were on the same wavelength. “The trigger might not be in there.” I nodded at the house.

“Where?”

“After this circus, I want you to come with me somewhere.”