We didn’t run into anyone as we left. Salvatore’s car waited just outside the front doors. The man who must have brought it around handed him the keys. Salvatore loaded the bags into the trunk and opened my door, not waiting for me to get in before he moved around to his side. He was clearly as anxious as I to leave.

We didn’t speak for the first twenty minutes of the ride back. Salvatore’s tension literally rolled off him.

“Dominic will fuck with you. You’re not to have anything to do with him, understand?” He didn’t look at me but kept his eyes on the road.

“Is that an order?”

That made him turn his head toward me. “Yes.”

“Or what, you’ll whip me again? Doors open this time?”

His grip on the steering wheel tightened, his knuckles going white. “Don’t push me, not now.”

“What the hell happened back there?” His face tightened even more. “I heard, Salvatore. I heard you stand up for me. I heard your father lose his shit.”

“Then you didn’t learn your lesson about snooping.”

“I wasn’t snooping. I was coming down to have breakfast, show my face. Show him he hadn’t won.”

Salvatore snorted and shook his head, the smile that appeared on his face sad. “You don’t get it, Lucia. He always wins.”

“I told you before, everyone loses sometime.”

“Not Franco Benedetti.”

There was such a weight to him, to his words, that it made me sad. Just sad. But I needed to ask one more question. I needed to know one more thing.

“He said something about taking care of Luke.”

Salvatore gave me a sideways glance. He didn’t answer my question, but he sure knew how to distract me.

“I’m going to let you out of your contract. Once all is said and done, and I’m boss, you’ll be free, Lucia.”

13

Salvatore

I couldn’t win. No one could. What I said to her, I meant it. Franco Benedetti would win. And everyone else would lose.

Lucia went straight to her room when we got back to the house, and I shut myself up in my study. She hadn’t talked to me the entire ride. Probably pissed at me, which I expected. I would deal with that later, though, because as soon as I booted up my laptop, I saw an e-mail from Roman regarding Luke’s activities.

Luke had been busy indeed, meeting with various members of the Pagani family in the tristate area. We knew that, though. That wasn’t new. It was the next part that intrigued me.

He was spending his nights in Isabella DeMarco’s bed.

That’s why it so surprised me to learn that I was wrong. That he wasn’t Effie’s father.

But that wasn’t the strangest thing. In fact, what I saw made zero sense.