And that was the problem.
He’d wanted to go in for the kill—do it quickly and cleanly like a shark—only it was turning out to be so much harder than he’d anticipated. Particularly with Imma’s smooth, supple body pressed against his.
His chest tightened and, catching sight of his mother’s face again, he closed his eyes, wishing it was as easy to shut out the confusion he felt on the inside.
Could he do this? Could he actually pull this off?
They were the questions he’d been asking himself for weeks now—ever since he and Ciro had sat in that bar drinking bourbon.
Ciro was his brother and his best friend. There was less than a year between their birthdays, so he couldn’t remember a time when Ciro had been smaller, weaker, slower than him.
Maybe he never had been.
It had certainly felt that way for most of his life.
Opening his eyes, he watched his brother dance past, his hand wrapped around Claudia’s waist, his face gazing down into hers.
He looked every inch the devoted husband—and he would look that way right up until the moment when he told his new wife the truth and her world came tumbling down.
And, even though he would have preferred to take things more slowly, when the time came he would do the same to Imma. He wanted vengeance every bit as much as Ciro.
His heart stilled.
His father had not been a critical or judgemental man, but he remembered once as a child they had been in Palermo, and a stocky man with a sneering smile had got out of a car and Alessandro’s eyes had narrowed.
Sensing his son’s curiosity, his father had told him he was a man ‘without honour’. He had never forgotten the man’s name or his father’s words. Coming from his mild, gentle father, they had shocked him.
Now they choked him.
Cesare Buscetta had hounded and humbled Alessandro to death. He needed to pay for his crimes, and it was Vicenzu’s job—his duty—to make that happen.
‘Excuse me, Imma...’
It was Ciro, a small apologetic smile playing around his mouth. His eyes met momentarily with his brother’s.
‘It’s time for Claudia to go and change, and apparently you said you would help her—’
Imma was frowning, and she seemed dazed—almost as though she’d been woken from a dream. ‘I’m so sorry...of course I did. Would you mind?’
‘Vicè?’ His brother frowned too. ‘Imma’s talking to you.’
‘Yeah, I heard, bro.’ Feeling Ciro’s gaze on his face, he softened his voice and stared down at Imma until he saw a flush colour her cheeks. ‘I mind tremendously, but I’ll forgive you as long as you come right back.’
As she lifted her face and looked up at him his chest tightened painfully. He’d sworn an oath with Ciro and he was going to keep it—but it would be so much easier if she had eyes of a different colour.
Watching her walk away, he gritted his teeth.
It wasn’t fair. Why did her eyes have to be green? And not just green but the exact lush green of the Nocellara olives that grew so abundantly on his family’s estate. Olives he had helped pick as a child. Olives his father had nurtured and loved almost as much as he had nurtured and loved his family.
It was one of his earliest memories—that first time he’d been allowed to join his father and the other estate workers for the harvest.
He had been so proud when he’d shown his father his haul, and Alessandro had not so much as hinted that the fruit he’d picked was too small and not ripe enough.
It had been that way for his entire life—his father covering up his mistakes, never holding him accountable, always giving him another chance. He couldn’t even pinpoint when it had first started.
Had it been at school? When he’d got into trouble for trading tips on how to kiss girls in exchange for getting his homework done? Or when he’d got drunk and driven a tractor around the olive groves? He’d written off the tractor, and some of the estate’s oldest trees—but, just like on all the other occasions when he’d messed up, Alessandro had simply sighed and shaken his head.
Something bitter rose in his throat—the burning anger that had been swirling inside his chest since his mother’s distraught phone call.