Page 64 of Broken Vow
“Shady stuff,” I supply.
Some of the color returns to her face and she nods. “When Mr. Bellanti Senior passed, his sons wanted to be rid of his more…sordid affairs. So they forgave some debts to get them off the record, and then started negotiating with the Bruno family to sell off the gambling books.”
I lean across the desk and hold the page out, pointing to the line concerning my family’s debt. “And this deal?”
She glances at the number quickly and then clears her throat. “That deal was, um, kept out for some reason.”
“Ruby,” I ask, my voice devoid of emotion, “is this my father’s debt?”
Her eyes drop to the floor. “Yes, ma’am. It looks like it.”
A hollow feeling starts to gnaw inside me. “And the Bellantis were going to forgive it?”
“The Brunos wouldn’t have been interested in that one. They only wanted the debts related to the horse races or the auto tracks, so they told the Bellantis to keep the rest, cash in on whatever else was left. It was only around a million or so in personal loans. But Dante didn’t want to chase the money down, so he had them all forgiven instead. Or I guess, all but this one. I’m afraid I don’t know more than that.”
The emptiness yawns wide inside me as the solid world that I’d been so sure of drops away, leaving me flailing once more.
“Thank you, Ruby. You can go.”
She leaves without a word. I pull the mug of coffee on my desk closer, trying to warm my hands on the ceramic. My entire body feels like ice.
Dante…he organized all of it. If he didn’t want to forgive my father’s debt, he could have at least settled it.
In fact, if he had waited just a few more months, I would have been home from Italy already and firmly in control of the Abbott Winery’s finances and business operations. Dante could have approached me with a proposal—a financial one—and I could have brokered a deal to square my family’s debt that would have the Bellantis paid off in a year or two.
The Abbott women would have still owned our family winery.
If only my father had…
But now…
…oh, God.
I’ve signed it all away to Dante.
And that profit sharing he offered to me and my sisters—profit sharing that I’d been oh so grateful for—pales in comparison to the money we could have potentially been making if I’d been allowed to keep the winery and turn it around. But I didn’t know I was being played.
Dante played me.
A wave of dizziness washes over me, my hands get clammy, sudden nausea burning in my throat. I’m going to be sick.
I bolt from the office, barely making it to the restroom before I vomit up my breakfast. My middle heaves again and again until I’m spent. Washing out my mouth at the sink afterward, I realize that the golden palace I thought I lived in is really a gilded cage.
$286,000.
My father sold me, our family’s livelihood, and his daughters’ futures away for just over a quarter of a million dollars.
And Dante…God, what a fucking fool I’ve been. How expertly he’s manipulated me, every step of the way, from day one.
He made me believe he loved me, all so he could maneuver me into signing away my family’s fortune. Sure, he’s still attentive now, but how long will that even last? Clearly he gets off on having power over me. Controlling me.
I think back on how well he had faked being in love with me at the pressing event, even though he was furious at me. He was so very good at fooling people. A fucking expert at it.
Another memory comes to me: the image of Jessica through the window of the main house, on her knees, sucking cock. Dante, encouraging her in Italian.
He’s been lying to me the whole time.
Letting out a deep breath, I blot my face with a paper towel and look in the mirror.
Goddamn, I am so tired of the men in my life. And what a fucking fool love has turned me into. So eager for affection that I’d wrecked my life—twice now.
I can’t do this anymore. I need to get away. Far away. Somewhere Dante will never find me. Because I’ll never clear my head if I’m anywhere near him, or the Bellanti property.
On my way back up to the main house, I text Charlie and ask her to pick up Livvie at school and bring her back to the Nob Hill house. I promise to explain later.
In Dante’s room, once more, I pack a bag—quickly realizing there isn’t much to take, because I hardly own anything that Dante’s money hasn’t bought me. I take the bare minimum, along with my makeup and toiletries, and then I borrow a few hundred in cash from the home budget safe with a note that says it was me who took it.
Gripping the keys to the Jaguar for dear life, I toss my bag into the back seat and get in. I don’t look at the house or give what I’m about to do a second thought.
As I peel out of there, I leave the biggest dust cloud I possibly can on my way out of this hell.
