Page 68 of Vicious Intentions
I just need to think. Time is still on my side, even if I’ve grown as impatient as the Old Fox. I’ll come up with something eventually. I always do.
As if Karma herself heard my thoughts, when I turn my chair back toward the desk, for reasons I can’t explain, my gaze lands on the locked drawer containing Raffaele’s confiscated phone.
I’m not sure why I do what I do next. Call it destiny or fate. Call it an epiphany, dying to be born. Call it divine fucking intervention. Whatever force is behind my actions, I find myself leaning forward and picking up the one photograph I have of my brothers on my desk. Carlo, Niccolò, Raffaele, and I, frozen in time during one of the few moments of joy we shared together at Coney Island when we were young. I flip open the backing and take out the key I hid there six months ago. I then use it to open the drawer and pluck the phone from inside.
The moment I switch it on, I’m bombarded with message after message. There are even a few handfuls of voice messages mixed in with the slew of text messages. All of them from Annamaria Romano.
A part of me wants to ignore them all, while another part—the one that is starting to see an opportunity arise—wants to listen and read every message.
I spend the rest of the night gaining a better insight into Annamaria’s mind as she shares her innermost thoughts. At some point, I even grab my charger just so I don’t have to stop midway. Rays of sunlight from the early dawn begin to streakthrough the window when I finally reach the end of a month’s worth of messages, intended for absolutely no one.
At first, I thought the messages would be the ramblings from a disgruntled teenager, angry that the boy she had been talking to for the better part of five years no longer wanted anything to do with her.
However, that was not the case.
What I read and heard were the deep, dark and troubling thoughts that loneliness evokes.
The words of a young woman’s struggle to find connection to her own life.
The most raw and vulnerable expression of the human experience in a world as cruel as ours.
I heard a soul cry.
Somewhere halfway through, I had to remind myself that she is the enemy. That she is the beautiful, perfect lie her father flaunts as a prize. But after hearing such sincerity in her voice, such raw pain and anguish, even I can’t believe that’s true anymore.
Annamaria’s words were never meant to be heard by anyone else but her. And that is what makes them so honest. That’s what makes her real in my mind. And I really wish they didn’t.
As I lean back in my chair, my head resting against the headrest, I close my eyes as something begins to take form.
Opportunity does not vanish. It only changes shape.
You only need to look a little harder to see it for what it is.
Marriage is an effective way to ensure loyalty and bind rival organizations together for generations.
We need to strike at his heart. That’s the only way we will weaken him.
I almost feel guilty for using Annamaria’s tearful confessions to my advantage. But as I was reminded last night, marriages have always been useful tools in our world.
If I’m going to strike at the heart of the Romano clan, then I know exactly where to aim.
Poor Annamaria. I almost feel sorry for her.
Almost.
Chapter 14
Annamaria
Eighteen years old.
My hands tremble as I stare at my phone and see that every message I sent since my birthday last month has been read. Each one is time-stamped, right there in black and white, telling me that Raffaele spent most of the night inside my head, reading every thought I had emptied from my tormented soul.
I am beyond mortified.
The only thing worse than someone who has already told you they no longer want you in their life is having them read such vulnerable words and be met by such stark silence.
Though I can’t condemn his apathy. He made his position clear.
