Page 28 of Marry Me Not
“A bomb. During a family gathering.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath me. Cosimo. Was he— “Oh my God.”
Rafe grabbed my shoulders to steady me. “Cosimo’s alive. So are his brothers and Vita.” His jaw clenched. “But Gino… Gino didn’t make it.”
I pressed my palm to my lips. I couldn’t believe it. It seemed like I’d just spoken to him at the engagement party. He was gone?
Rafe guided me toward the sofa and sat us down.
“Who did this?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet.” His expression hardened. “But whoever did just declared war on the Ferraros, and therefore on us.”
A war. The thought opened a cold and bottomless pit inside me. “Are we in danger?”
“I won’t let anything happen to you, Elena, or Cleo. Neither will Cosimo. He’s in charge now.”
In charge.
Cosimo was don.
Rafe checked his watch and stood. “I need to shower and head back out. Nero’s gathering the capos. We have a lot to coordinate with the Ferraros.” He paused, studying my face. “Your text said you wanted to talk?”
My hands curled over the edge of the sofa. It was hard to think. Hard to process the implications. And yet I had to.
With Gino dead, I had to assume Cosimo had full control over the family.
He didn’t want this marriage. He’d been forced into it.
Now there was no one to force him. He could call it off himself.
Which meant I didn’t have to say anything at all. I didn’t have to disappoint my brother.
Slowly, I shook my head. “It’s not important.”
He pressed a kiss to my temple. “Get some rest, Fabi. The next few weeks are going to be brutal.”
A dead don, a war on our hands, and an engagement that was about to be no more…
Brutal seemed almost too kind a word to describe it.
CHAPTER 10
COSIMO
The dim lightfrom the lamp on my desk was the only thing cutting through the darkness of my office. My head throbbed. The kind of pain that settled behind the eyes and refused to let go.
Dad was supposed to retire deep into his sixties. He was supposed to hand me the reins over a glass of bourbon in his office and promise he’d be a phone call away. Something like this was never part of the plan.
I hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time since the explosion. My memories of what’d happened were loose fragments kicking around my skull, refusing to order themselves in any way that made sense.
The pop of a champagne bottle. Dad placing the bonsai tree on the windowsill. Alessio’s blood covering my shaking hands.
I looked down. They still shook.
I clenched my fists to stop it.
Enough. Someday I’d have time to piece the memories together, but not now.
