“Fine.”
I took out my phone and texted Arthur’s number in an instant. The first text message I had ever sent my future father-in-law.
Thank you for the invitation. My fiancée and I gladly accept.
Tucking the phone back into the breast pocket of my jacket, I smirked.
Arthur Rossi tried to kill me.
He was about to find out that he was a pussy, and I was a cat.
With nine lives.
Two down, seven to go.
The next few days were all about talking to the media, raising awareness about school shootings, and milking every second of the incident. Nobody suspected it was an attempt to assassinate me. The kid—an Italian school alumni and a Marine on vacation who got cold feet and forgot how to aim—was in custody now, and insisted that it was video games that made him do it.
The day of the engagement party, Nem and I were to meet downstairs at seven o’clock. I took a shower and got dressed at the office but made it home in a timely manner. Leaving Francesca as prey for Arthur was no longer an option. Arthur was beginning to feel a lot like a loose cannon, and I didn’t want it anywhere near the smoothly operating machine called my life.
When I arrived on time, Francesca was waiting for me in a tight white gown that made my cock jump in a standing ovation. God, she was beautiful. And God, I was going to fuck her tonight. Even if I had to give her the foreplay she loved so much until my tongue fell off. The woman was delicious and ripe. And mine.
And mine.
And mine.
If I repeated these words in my head enough times, I could make it true.
I walked over to my bride-to-be, yanked her by the waist, and kissed her openly in front of Sterling, who was fretting with the hem of Francesca’s gown. The old woman nearly swooned when our lips touched. She’d known me my entire life, and had never seen me kiss a woman, in public or otherwise. Sterling twirled to the kitchen with a spring in her step, giving us privacy.
Francesca and I cocked our eyebrows in unison. Our bodies were mimicking one another, too.
“How are you feeling?”
She’d been asking me this a lot since the rally incident. I wished she wouldn’t. It served as a constant reminder that she was the spawn of the person responsible for it, yet she had no idea of her father’s indiscretions.
“Stop asking. The answer will always be the same—I’m fine.”
“To be honest, it’s not me who is worried at this point. Did you know Ms. Sterling eavesdrops on everything we do and say?” Nem scrunched her button-y nose.
I flicked her chin playfully. I found out about Sterling’s fascination with other people’s business the hard way. After masturbating in the room next door to Sterling at thirteen and a half, I found a box of Kleenex on my nightstand and a Practice Safe Sex brochure the next day. To Sterling’s credit, I would say I read the motherfucker twice and had never in my thirty years of miserable existence on this planet had sex without a condom.
“I wonder how she’d react when we do more than kissing,” my bride-to-be reddened, looking down between us.
Might want to reconsider that, darling. I have an erection the size of a salami and any audience be damned.
“I suggest we find out tonight.”
“How curious of you. You’d make a wonderful investigator.” She bit on a smile.
“The only mystery I intend to unfold is how deep I can bury myself inside you.”
“I can’t believe you’re a senator…” she mumbled to herself.
Me neither.
On that high note, we left, arm in arm.
The evening took a nosedive from the moment we set foot in Francesca’s parents’ manor. Not unexpected, but unsatisfactory all the same.
For one thing, as soon as we reached the Rossi estate, I’d noticed news vans swarming the neighborhood, barricading the main street, and causing a commotion of bystanders. Arthur had invited journalists and local news channels, and they, of course, came running to his doorstep.
A senator marrying the daughter of a mobster. It had more juice than a Big Gulp.
Determined not to allow Arthur to fuck up my life more than he already had, I opened the door for Francesca and escorted her into her former house, ignoring the catcalls from the reporters and the flash of the cameras from the photographers by their side. Once we got inside, Francesca clung to me like I was her lifeline, and I realized with dread instead of glee that, in a way, I was. Nemesis no longer saw this house as her home. I was her home now. And I was haunted beyond belief, ready to exorcise my need for her.
Her parents approached us, keeping a safe distance from one another. Her mother looked like she hadn’t slept in approximately two months, wearing too much makeup to hide the effects of her mental state, and Arthur looked an inch or two shorter. Since I had zero illusions about Sofia Rossi leaving her cheating husband, I had to deduce that I’d done just what I came here to—rocked his boat a little more and shattered another facet of his life.