The more I think about it, the more I realize that I may be wrong about my father not being as ruthless as them. He is, after all, willing to hand over his own flesh and blood to them to keep himself in power and to get a cut of money.
“Sweetness.” Fernando tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear. I love the rough texture of his fingers on my skin. There are so many things I love about this man. I only just found him. I can’t lose him already.
“Please don’t leave me,” I whisper.
Fernando would die to keep me safe, and that means making sure the Frangiones never touch me. But they would hurt me if they took him from me. They’d shatter my heart, and I’d never be able to put that back together. I can’t let that happen. I’m just unsure of how to stop it.
“I would never leave you. In this life or any other.”
“As sweet as it is for you to say that, it also doesn’t reassure me that I’ll get to spend the rest of this life with you.”
“Everything I do will always be for you, Bianca.”
“Then know this.” I turn so I can face him while I’m still buckled into my seatbelt. “I’ll follow you if you leave me.”
“Bianca.” His face grows hard, but that look he’s wearing doesn’t scare me. It might terrify everyone else, but not me when it comes to my Butcher.
“I’m only being honest with you.”
“What if you carry my child inside you even now?”
My breath hitches. “That’s not playing fair.”
“No, that’s playing honestly.” He cups my cheek as he leans in to kiss me. “The only people to die tonight will be the ones that dare to take you from me. But I too need to be honest with you.”
“Always.” That had been our deal.
“You might see a side of me you’ve not prepared for. Hearing stories is one thing. Seeing them unfold in front of your eyes is something different.”
“Isn’t that the fucking truth,” Gilly mutters from the driver seat.
“Did you really microwave someone’s eyeballs?” I thought maybe some of the stories were a bit exaggerated. But it’s becoming apparent that none of them were.
“Yes, I made the message very clear that day,” Fernando says with no remorse.
“What message was that?” I ask.
“That it doesn’t matter if you’re a man of God to a congregation you preach to every week. If you touch or do other things to children, not even God can protect you from the Butcher,” Antonio answers.
“Father Fantoni.” I gasp. He’d up and disappeared. I suppose that explains it. He always did give me the creeps.
“What families are coming?” Fernando asks as I still try to wrap my mind around him offing Father Fantoni. The evilest of people hide in plain sight. It’s funny how my Fernando is sweeter than anyone knows, but they all stare at him as if he’s the devil. If anything, he’s an avenging angel.
“Of course her father. The only backing he has at the moment is the Frangiones, but the DaVincis will be there as well.”
“Nick DaVinci?” I’ve seen him a few times before.
I don’t think he ever noticed me. His attention is always on his wife or any business at hand. There have been many stories about him too. He rules with an iron fist but is fair. He also walked into a wedding and shot a groom dead moments after the man had gotten married before he took the widowed bride for himself. He’d wiped the Tuscani family right off the map. People don’t even speak that name any longer.
“Yes, I’m sure Marco will be with him,” Gilly adds. Everyone knows of Marco too. It’s rare to be thick into this lifestyle and also be a lawyer, but he manages to do it. He’s Nick’s brother-in-law.
I grip Fernando’s hand when we pull off the highway and down into a warehouse district. I made Angelica promise me that no matter what happens, she’ll take care of Fernando and my little fur babies. She brushed it off, saying I’d be back to do it myself.
I take a deep breath feeling the cool metal of the gun my sister strapped to my back before I left, telling me not to let anyone know I have it. She took her time to show me how to use it correctly–something her own husband had been training her to do.
Gilly pulls through a giant metal door into one of the warehouses. I see a handful of cars parked all around. Groups of people stand next to each of them. Another follows us in. The second we clear the door, it starts to close.
Today, I will be strong. Fernando has told me so many times that I am in my own way. I want to really prove that not only to him but to myself too.