Page 128 of Vicious Intentions
“Yes?”
“What are you planning on doing with me?”
He leans in, using his free hand to tilt my chin with feather-light care, until we are barely a hair’s breadth apart.
“Everything.”
Chapter 27
Matteo
Every head of family in the New York tri-state area is gathered in the same nightclub where my brother celebrated his induction. And just like that day, it all feels bittersweet.
“Look at the scowl on this man’s face!” Don Vitale chuckles, his drink sloshing dangerously close to the floor with each laugh. “You’d think he wasn’t happy with the coup he just pulled. Celebrate, young Donato. Every piece of your plan is falling perfectly into place.”
“He’ll celebrate when Vincent Romano is dead, and not a second earlier, isn’t that right, Matteo?” Don Cavaliere interjects, clinking his champagne glass with the Old Fox.
My jaw clenches at the way these men celebrate an accomplishment they had no hand in planning or executing.
Still, it’s neither their laughter nor their boisterous remarks that have me on edge. It’s knowing my woman is locked away back at my house while I’m forced to attend this party, once again parted from her.
Anna has been under my roof for over forty-eight hours, and yet it feels like I haven’t been able to spend any time with her at all. Not that she cares much for my company. In fact, every time I enter her room, she looks at me like she can’t quite figure me out.
Admittedly, her bewilderment is preferable to the hatred I expected to see swimming in her stellar blue eyes. Though it still pales in comparison to the loving look I yearn to see in them.
“Here, kid. At least drink something. You are the guest of honor, after all,” Don Rinaldi says, handing me a tumbler filled halfway with the most expensive whiskey Moretti has on his top shelf.
I stare at the amber liquid as if it personally offended me. I don’t want to be the fucking guest of honor. I want to go home. I want to tell Anna that it was me she’d been talking to all this time, not my brother. I want to tell her that everything we said—everything we shared—meant something to me. Because of those calls, I had beauty back in my life.
That’s what I want. To lose myself in her embrace. In her kiss. Not in this twenty-year-old Macallan. To hell with this eight-hundred-dollar whiskey. Anna is the only thing I want to get drunk on.
Cazzo!
“Now, now, gentlemen. Give Matteo some room. Let the man think rather than drink. The war is far from over,” Don Moretti says, placing an arm over my shoulder, leading me away from the celebrating crowd.
“The war hasn’t even started, and already they’re setting off fireworks as if it’s been won,” I snarl through gritted teeth.
“Let them celebrate this small victory, Matteo. In war, that’s all you get. Small victories here and there to keep you from abandoning it altogether,” he says, more lucid than anyone else in the room.
“You think they’d abandon me when the time comes to actually fight?”
“No, of course not.” He shakes his head. “Not now that you’ve set this war in motion and given them something worth fighting for.” He chuckles softly. “No. They’ll stand by you. They have complete faith in your ability to lead us all into victory. It would take some egregious act for their loyalty to ever falter.”
Like being in love with the very woman I used to start this war?
My poor Anna. The Helen of Troy of mafia wars.
“Let’s talk about better things. Tell me again, how has Romano reacted to you kidnapping his daughter? Any more news on that front?”
“As expected, it took him a day to find out she was in New York. I just received word he’s flying over tomorrow night and that he wants aconferenzawith my father.”
“Your father?” Moretti laughs. “Yes, good thing Carlo is still alive and well to attend that parley.”
“I knew I had kept him alive for a reason.” I smile, letting something colder slip through.
“Yes, you did. And good on you for that. When will this sit-down take place?”
“At the end of the week. Romano wanted it sooner, but Don Vitale needs more time to get his affairs in order.”
