“You’re not fucking replaceable like goddamned batteries, Santos. Just tell me that you don’t want to and fucking own up to it already.” My heart was hardening by the second, and I didn’t even reprimand Marco for lighting up in the house and passing me the lit cigarette with the water glass from my nightstand to ash in. Tony could fuck himself on his rule today.
Santos clenched his fists as he glared at me until he finally spit out his reply. “Vinnie wouldn’t give a fuck if you were my wife, Eden. I thought you already understood that from our conversation last week! You’d be expendable right along with me. Tony would be best, but he said you were against it, so that leaves Vanni or Marco. None of us would be anything except ecstatic to be your husband, but we all want you safe, and I’m not that option!” His shout was punctuated by what I took to be Marco’s grunt of agreement.
I turned to look at him, questions in my head that I was afraid to ask, but he answered them anyway.
“He’s right, Edie, but I wasn’t going to push you into anything you don’t want to do or dissuade you from finally getting what you should have gotten years ago. You and Santos were it, we all knew it, so it doesn’t hurt any of us to let you have that now. We’d have made it work, still will if that’s what you decide.” The last was directed more at Santos than me, and I had a feeling that Santos would be the one at the business end of the shotgun if he refused to comply with my wishes.
I almost laughed at the notion of it, but sadness crept in because they were both right. Tony was in the same shoes I’d been in before Santos had spilled the truth. None of us were particularly good at managing words when our emotions were high, which explained Tony’s sourpuss attitude on the porch. Juggling all their asses was going to be hard work. At least Marco was somewhat levelheaded.
He got up to crack the window as I smoked and tried to figure out what to do. In the end, I couldn’t decide at all.
“Why do I even need to do this? Tony was just pissed that I was baiting him. I think we’ve established that I’m not going anywhere.” At their silence, I glanced from one to the other and dropped my cigarette in the glass to put it out. “What? Did something happen?”
Santos shrugged and rubbed a tattooed hand through his close-cut hair. “It might have been a spur of the moment thing, Eden, but it’s not a bad idea at this point. Everyone knows you’re important to us, but Vinnie is still willing to use you. It would force his hand on the subject without causing a rift we can’t afford right now.” He hesitated, looking at Marco before fixing his eyes back on me. “We’re done waiting around, baby. Things are only getting worse, and I’ll need to do my job soon.”
“How are you planning to do that when you’re under house arrest?” Then it dawned on me as I handed the glass off to Marco. “Vanni can get around the monitors, can’t he?” It wasn’t really a question, but I had more important issues than Giovanni’s tech skills. “You’re going after Rodrigo. When were you going to tell me this?” My voice was strained from all my crying, but on top of it, my throat felt strangled by my fear. He’s going to get himself killed.
“As soon as he makes his presence known, yes, I am. It would already be done if we knew where he was, but he planned this takeover for a long time and knew what he was doing.” His tortured blue eyes met my green ones while I contemplated all the ways their plans could go wrong. Not to mention he was talking about murdering his own father. Could he even do it?
I crossed my arms, hurt and anger warring in me equally. “So what, you think you’d leave me a widow? Or you want to make sure I’m taken care of if you’re not around to do it?”
“Both,” he gritted out, crossing his arms across his chest, making his t-shirt strain with the move. “He had my house hit yesterday. I’d already moved most of what I didn’t want to part with here, but that’s a pretty fucking clear sign that I’m dead to him. It’s also something we can’t ignore without losing face or we taking the chance of more men defecting to his side.”
The blood drained from my head fast enough to leave me dizzy. There was a very real possibility I would lose him again. It was a good thing I was already sitting down, or I’d have fallen on my ass. Will any of us ever get to be happy?
I excused myself to shower and asked if they minded putting my lunch in the microwave until I could come down to eat it. Seemed I had decisions to make, and not only about who I was going to marry.