Chapter Thirty-Three

“She doesn’t deserve you. You deserve someone who chooses you!” Dad shouted.

The door swung open and Anna stumbled in, dressed in a wedding dress. Some of her mascara was smudged and her cheeks were flushed.

She froze when she spotted me. I sank down on the bed, my legs suddenly too weak to carry me. Fuck. I’d never been a fucking weakling.

She didn’t move from her spot in the doorway. “You’re really awake.”

I forced a smile. “Yeah. I missed your wedding.”

She stepped in. “I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

I frowned, hope blooming in me. “You couldn’t what?”

“I couldn’t say yes. I knew it would have been better for the Outfit and that I was being selfish, but I couldn’t say yes to Clifford. I’m not married.”

“You left Clifford at the altar on your wedding day and dashed off in your dress like a runaway bride?” I smirked, but my insides were exploding with emotions. Fuck. Anna had chosen me.

Anna rolled her eyes and huffed. She still hadn’t moved from her spot in the doorway.

“Why couldn’t you marry him?”

Anna gave me a pleading look. “You know why.”

I had absolutely no intention of making this easy on her. Not after what she’d put me through. “Enlighten me.”

“Because of you, Sonny. Because I love you even if you annoy me more than any other person ever does.”

I chuckled and opened my arms. Anna rushed over to me and half fell into my arms. She wrapped her arms around my middle, hugging me tightly. It took me a moment to realize what Anna had said. She’d admitted her love to me. I pulled away a few inches, scanning her face.

Dad cleared his throat. Both he and Frederica watched us in embarrassment. “We’ll give you some time to talk.”

Dad stepped back, exchanging a look with Frederica before the two of them left the room and closed the door.

I ran my hand over Anna’s hair. She must have had it in an updo for the wedding but most of the pins had fallen out by now. “I’m sorry it took me so long to cancel the wedding. I should have done it much sooner.”

“You should have. Of course you picked the worst possible moment. I’m sure your father is already planning my beheading.”

Not that I cared. Knowing that Anna could finally be mine was worth an early grave.

She lifted her head, her eyes soft and actually glassy. “I thought I’d lose you. I was terrified. The idea that you might not be there anymore… I couldn’t bear it.”

“I’m alive, and I have no intention of dying anytime soon.”

“Ever,” she said firmly.

“I definitely intend to die before you, because I sure as fuck don’t want to live without you.”

Anna shook her head with a small smile. “This is macabre.”

I cupped her cheek and pulled her in for a kiss, wanting to taste her without the fear of getting caught, without the knowledge that our togetherness was doomed to be temporary. There was no expiration date for our love anymore. No wedding that hung over our heads like a Damocles sword.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, not nearly enough when a knock rang out.

“I fear this might be my mother,” Anna said with an apologetic smile.

Valentina came in as if on cue. She was still dressed in a dark green evening gown, with an elegant updo and high heels. She was dressed to celebrate her daughter’s wedding, but instead, she visited me in the hospital for what I knew would be a very unpleasant conversation.

Valentina’s face made her displeasure very clear. I couldn’t believe that she’d stopped the wedding alongside Anna. One thing was sure, she hadn’t done it because she wanted Anna and me together.

“Let me have a word with Santino,” she said, and her voice was pure steel, not brooking an argument.

“Mom.”

“Anna,” Valentina said sharply. “You and Santino have been playing your father and me for a long time, and I think it’s my right to talk to Santino now. I want to hear his take on things.”

I gave Anna an encouraging smile. I was a big boy. I could handle her mom.

Anna slinked out but not before giving her mother a pleading look. I doubted it made much of an impression.

I had to admit, I would have preferred a confrontation with Dante at this point. Valentina looked like a lioness determined to protect her cubs and she had every intention of ripping me apart.

“Did you lie?”

I raised my eyebrows, trying to figure out which instance she was referring to.

“When I talked to you shortly before we flew to Paris, you said you had absolutely no interest in my daughter and only saw her as a job. Were you lying? Did you already have an affair with my daughter at that point? Maybe even before she was of age?”

“There was nothing between me and Anna before she turned eighteen,” I said immediately, which was mostly true. “And it was my determination to keep a professional relationship with her, so I didn’t lie that day.”

“But you knew she was interested in you, and you weren’t completely disinterested.”

My first instinct was to lie, and I probably would have done it if the thought that Valentina might become my mother-in-law one day hadn’t crossed my mind.

If Dante didn’t kill me for sleeping with his daughter and ruin the bond with the Clarks. I didn’t want to start a possible family bond with a lie. “Yes, I did. But I was sure I was strong enough to stay professional.”

“You weren’t,” Valentina said in a clipped voice.

“Anna is a very strong-willed woman. She knows what she wants and how to get it.”

“So you’re saying you couldn’t possibly have resisted her advances and you’re not at fault?”

“Oh it’s my fault. I fell in love with Anna, and I pursued her once I realized it. I enjoyed the time we got to spend together in Paris and I hated the idea of her marrying Clifford.”

“You love my daughter?”

“I love her more than anything. If I’d woken in time, I would have stopped the wedding myself. Hell, I would have pushed Clifford aside and married her myself.”

Valentina regarded me in silence for a moment before she gave a satisfied nod. Then a small smile spread on her face. “If my husband doesn’t kill you, I’m sure I can eventually make peace with you.”

“Thanks?”

The door opened again but this time it was Dad. The tension in his body told me he wasn’t alone. He gave Valentina a quick nod in greeting before he moved to my side and sank down in the chair that he’d occupied for countless hours in the last few weeks. Dante stepped in after him. I stifled a groan.

Valentina headed toward her husband and whispered something in his ear before she slipped out. Dante’s expression was absolutely unreadable.

“You have a lot of explaining to do,” Dante said as he stepped into the room. “Give me a moment with your son.”

Dad didn’t budge. I’d never seen him refuse a direct order from his Capo. I touched his arm. “Grab a coffee. You look like hell.”

Dad rose from his chair but still didn’t leave.

Dante didn’t say anything, but his jaw tightened.

“Dad, I’ll be fine.”

Dad stepped back and slowly walked toward the door. Dante nodded at him, then said, “I’m a man of honor, Enzo. I have no intention of harming your son.”

Some of the tension left Dad, and after another glance at me, he finally left.

“The last few weeks were enlightening. And the last few days in particular so.”

I had to stifle a grin. I really wished I’d witnessed Anna saying no in church. That was my biggest regret right now.

Dante narrowed his eyes as if he could see my excitement.

“How long has this been going on?” Dante asked in a voice I’d heard during interrogations before. I was treading on thin ice, but I had no intention to deny my feelings for his daughter.

“I never touched her before she was of age.”

“So you waited for her birthday to touch her?”

“No, I never intended to extend our relationship past professional but Paris changed things.”

If I had to die for this love, then I’d do even that. I wanted Anna. I’d downplayed my feelings for this woman for too long. I’d taken several bullets for her and I didn’t regret a single one, nor would I ever regret a single moment with her. I’d dreamed of them while I’d been in a coma, if you could call it dreaming or hallucinations, and those precious moments had helped me pull through. I’d wanted to add more memories with her to my life.

“I’d like to know what happened. No more lies, and I should tell you that I already talked to Anna.”

He was trying to put me in a corner, and make me worry about what Anna might have shared. Anna could keep a secret, if she deemed it safer to do so, but her mind worked quite different from mine. She might very well have decided that sharing everything would be the safer option for me.

I looked Dante in the eye. “I won’t share intimate details with you.”

“And I’ll thank you for that,” Dante drawled, but I didn’t miss the threatening undertone. I couldn’t blame him. If Anna were my daughter and I had found out about her bodyguard doing the deed with her, I would probably have smashed his face in. I was lucky Dante was controlled, though this might only mean a later but harsher punishment for me.

“Anna and I share a special bond. She’s a woman that doesn’t take shit. She doesn’t shy back from telling me a harsh truth or telling me that I’m full of shit.”

“I’m sure she’s had plenty of opportunities to do so.”

I wasn’t sure if Dante had meant it as a joke. His voice had been hard and dry but for some reason I thought he’d actually been a tad ironic.

“Plenty,” I agreed with a grin, remembering all the times Anna had given me fire for something I’d done. She’d never backed down. “She made me realize what my life had been missing. I needed a woman with a spine of steel and confidence and goals of her own. A woman who wouldn’t take shit from me. I know Anna won’t ever let me treat her badly and I’d never do it. She’s a woman that makes me want to worship her and that’s truly a new experience for me. I can’t imagine being with anyone else, and I haven’t been since we set foot in Paris. Anna is the only woman I want to be with. I want her to be mine, truly and openly. I want everyone in the Outfit to know she belongs to me.”

Dante walked over to the window, a contemplative look on his face. “You realize that would equal marriage.”

I smiled. “Oh yes.” I couldn’t wait to finally bang a married woman I was actually supposed to bang. I didn’t voice my very inappropriate thoughts and decided to keep them for Anna on our wedding night. I couldn’t wait for her surely fiery reaction and the amazing sex afterward. “I want to marry her.”

Dante’s expression didn’t look very forthcoming. This was probably a bit too soon, and definitely too much for him to stomach considering Anna’s wedding to Clifford had failed only today.

“Our family is based on trust. You realize you aren’t off to a great start if you intend to become part of it. You’ve been lying to me and my wife for years.”

“I know. And believe me, I wished the situation would have been different. I’d hated every moment of secrecy, of pretending Anna was nothing but a job when she was my everything. I’d never understood why my dad hadn’t even dated a woman years after my mother’s death, why he refuses to this day to marry again. I hadn’t understood the love he’d felt toward my mother and that he still feels for her. But now that I have Anna, I understand what it means to lose someone you love. When I’d thought Anna would marry Clifford out of duty to the Outfit, I’d been sure I could never fall for another woman again.”

I paused, realizing that Dante too had lost his first wife and had then married Valentina. Had I put my foot in my mouth again? Anna would say it was my biggest talent, and I was starting to believe she was right.

Dante was watching me intently, his cold blue eyes making me feel very on the spot. I rarely gave a shit what other people thought of me. But Dante held Anna’s and my future in his hands. “You and Anna could have run off together while you were in France. It would have taken a while for me to become suspicious and by then you could have found a hiding place.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Anna would never leave her family, not even for me, and I’d never ask her to do it. And I wouldn’t leave my dad and sister either. Our family had already suffered enough and I wouldn’t add to that. Not to mention that I was absolutely loyal to the Outfit. “That was never an option,” I said firmly. “Anna and I have one big thing in common, our love for our family, and our pride for the Outfit.”

I could tell that Dante believed me and that my answer had mollified him the tiniest bit. Maybe he’d been worried that I was ripping Anna away from him and the family.

“I want to keep doing my duty to the Outfit. I’d never run. And I want to become part of your family. No matter what you ask of me, I’ll do it. I’ll prove my loyalty to you, Anna, and the Outfit over and over again if I have to.”

“I expect nothing less,” Dante said. “First, you can help me contain the damage that was caused today. I think your past endeavors might be helpful in this regard.”

Anna must have told her father about my affair with Dolora. “Maybe.”