Antonio
“It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.” —Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
“You must be crazy if you think I’m going to stay here for another second.” Callie looked at me as tears welled up in her eyes. “I want to go home right now.” She stepped out of the bed and glared at me. Her face was full of hurt and distrust. So she’d understood I wasn’t the deep, sweet guy she’d initially thought I was.
“That’s not going to be possible,” I said, shaking my head, taking a deep breath. I knew she was upset and hurt, and I understood why. This wasn’t how I wanted her to find out some of my secrets, but eventually, she’d have to know. “I’m sure you want answers, don’t you?” I said softly, touching the side of her face.
She slapped my hand away and then pushed me. “Don’t you dare touch me!” she screamed as if I held a knife to her throat.
My eyes widened in surprise. She was definitely acting like a drama queen. And it was turning me on. I wanted to bend her over the bed and slide deep inside her. I wanted her to scratch my chest, my back. I wanted her to bite me. I wanted to have angry sex with her. Somehow, I didn’t think she’d go for that, though. I’d fucked everything up. I should have known my dad would have recognized her. I’d seen photos of her mother, and they looked very similar. Both had hauntingly beautiful and vulnerable faces.
“I want to go home, Antonio. I want to go now! You can take me or you can call me a taxi or you can have one of your goons take me, but—”
“One of my goons?” I raised an eyebrow and shook my head. “Isn’t that a stereotypical thing to say?”
“Isn’t what stereotypical?” she said, blinking in confusion, her anger forgotten for a moment.
“Calling my friends goons. That’s like assuming every Italian or Sicilian man is part of the Mafia.”
“But you are part of the Mafia, Antonio. Your dad is the freaking don, and you’re going to be the don one day, and I’m pretty sure guys like your friend Jimmy are called goons for a reason, because they do your dirty work. Oh, wait, but you do your dirty work, too.” Her lower lip trembled, and she paused. Her eyes searched mine for a few moments, and she grimaced.
“What is it, Callie? I know you haven’t finished saying everything you want to say.”
“Is that why you slept with me,” she said, “because this is a game to you? And I—”
“I didn’t sleep with you because this was a game.” I shook my head. “This isn’t a game. I didn’t want to hurt you.” Which was true, technically. I didn’t want to hurt her as much as I wanted to hurt her father. “I’ll explain everything to you, if you let me.”
“Explain what?” she said.
“Don’t you want to know why you’re here and how I know your mother?”
She had an obstinate look on her face, and I could tell she was debating whether or not to agree with my statement. It was obvious that she wanted to know. Who wouldn’t want to know? And while I’d give her the truth, I wouldn’t tell her everything, but she wouldn’t know that.
“I want to go home, Antonio.” She sighed. “I don’t care about anything else.”
“Just stay for the dinner,” I said, a dullness throbbing in my head. “Please.”
“I know you’re not saying please to me, jackass.” She stepped back and shook her head. “I want to go! If you don’t let me go, I’ll start screaming.”
“And who’s going to come and help you?” I said, annoyed, as the door opened.
“Hey, boss.” Jimmy walked into the room, and I looked over at him.
“Yes, Jimmy?”
“We got a call from Melba’s Pizzeria. We got some trouble again.”
“What the fuck is going on down there?”
“I don’t know, but also we got some problems with Lucio at Lupo and that Brigitte.”
“Okay, give me five minutes.” I was fucking pissed off at all these issues.
“Yeah, boss.” Jimmy stood there for a couple of seconds.
“Anything else, Jimmy?”
“Just wanted to know if everything was okay.” He looked at me, and then he looked over at Callie.
“Everything’s fine. Thank you.”
“It’s not fine!” Callie said, walking over to Jimmy. “I want you to take me home right now.”
“I don’t think I can do that, miss,” Jimmy said, shaking his head, “but I’m sure Antonio can—”
“I don’t care about Antonio. He’s rude. Take me home now or I’ll call the police.”
Jimmy chuckled at her words and then looked over at me.
I shook my head. “You can go now, Jimmy.”
“Yes, boss,” he said, nodding his head. “You have a nice evening, ma’am.”
“Thanks for nothing,” she said. Her eyes looked back at me reproachfully. “So he is your goon, after all.”
I took a couple of deep breaths. I knew she was mad, and I didn’t blame her, so I wasn’t going to show my impatience. “You need to know something, Callie.”
“What?” she said, shouting.
“My mother…” I held my hands up in the air.
“Yes?” Her face paled for a few seconds. “Please don’t tell me we have the same mother.”
“What?” My jaw dropped. Was she crazy? Did she think I was a sicko?
“Your mother. My mother. Please do not tell me they’re the same person. I couldn’t live with myself if—”
“I’m not sick. Callie, I may be a wolf and I may be in the Mafia, but I wouldn’t knowingly sleep with my sister.” I felt disgusted. “I can’t believe you would even think that.”
“I mean, I didn’t really think it,” she said, shaking her head, “but I don’t know, it’s not like I trust you anymore.”
I sighed. “Your dad and my mom had an affair.”
“What?” She blinked, looking confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that your father and my mother had an affair.” I gritted my teeth, trying not to get worked up.
“No, there’s no way. He absolutely loved my mom. He adored her. He hasn’t even dated anyone since she died. He—”
I took a couple of steps closer to her. Her entire body was shaking. Maybe I should have waited to give her this information, but I knew I had to give her something to get her to stay. “Your mother and my mother, they died on the same day,” I said.
“What? I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
“Your dad was with my mother, driving. I don’t really know the full story, but he got into a car crash. My mom died instantaneously.” I spoke the words almost as if they meant nothing to me, almost as if I hadn’t hated her father for as long as I could remember. “Your dad walked away injury-free.” My eyes bore into hers.
She shook her head in disbelief. “No, my dad wouldn’t do that. He… he loved my mom,” she said softly. “He loved her.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Callie, but your dad left the scene of the accident. He left my mom to die.”
“What? No, he would never do that! He’s a good guy.”
“He got a call from the hospital,” I continued, because the last thing I thought was that her father was a good guy. I stared at her face and beautiful features and felt sad for her. Her entire world was going to be turned upside down with this news. Her father was the only parent she had, and he was a disgusting human being. “Your mom had cancer, right?”
“Yeah.” She nodded.
“I don’t know exactly what happened, but he got a call.” I shrugged. “He rushed to the hospital to be with your mom. He did call nine-one-one from the accident, but he didn’t stay. He could have helped my mom.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying, Antonio,” she said, shaking her head.
“And then he went to the hospital,” I said, as if she hadn’t just spoken, “and your mom died, too.”
She stared back at me, unblinking. “So our moms, they died on the same day?” she said breathlessly. I could see her brain thinking. I knew she would be wondering what the connection was.
“Yes.” I nodded it. “Your father was responsible for two deaths, and I have waited my whole life to get my revenge on him.”
“But I don’t understand. What do I have to do with it? Or are you saying I’m to blame? What’s that biblical verse? ‘The sins of our father…’?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re just collateral damage.”
“So you did want to hurt me.”
“No,” I said and then paused. “Maybe not deliberately. I did want to use you to get to your father.”
“Is that why you kept bringing up my father so many times?” she asked softly, and I nodded. “You set this whole thing up, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“So was the ball even real? Do you really have to get married? Were all those women in on it as well?”
I shook my head. “No, the ball is real. I do have to find a wife. My father set that up. However, I knew that would be the perfect place for me to meet you.”
“I just don’t understand. How did you get me there? I mean, Valentina…” She paused. “Do you know Valentina?”
“Yeah, I know Vee.” I nodded. “She’s done favors for me in the past. Her father is an underboss for a Mafia family in Philly. We’ve been connected for a while now.”
She stared at me in disbelief. “So Valentina set me up. That’s why she never came back to the dorm room. Is she even a student?”
I chuckled. “I don’t really know what Valentina’s up to, but I did ask her to stay away from the dorm room.”
She stared at me in shock. “So everyone around me, they’re just liars. Is that why Gia wanted to meet up with me as well? Is she—”
“You met up with Gia?” I frowned. I hadn’t known that piece of information.
“Yeah, I’m sure you set that up, too.”
“No, she and I aren’t close.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “Well, I guess I understand why she’s no longer friends with you and your brother.”
“Did she tell you why?” I stepped forward, wondering if I’d finally get that piece of the puzzle.
“No, she didn’t. But I can imagine that she didn’t want to be associated with two psychopaths,” she said, shaking her head.
“You still don’t understand.” I reached out for her hand, and she pulled it away.
“Understand what, Antonio? That my dad and your mom supposedly had an affair and you took my virginity to make him pay?”
I stared at her, not answering. “Your father murdered my mother,” I said softly. “He had to pay.”
“How do you even know that my dad was the one driving or that… I don’t know, it was his fault in the accident or—”
I sighed. The thought had occurred to me that my father had set up the accident because there was no way he’d be humiliated by his wife. But the simple fact of the matter was my father would pay one day, especially if he had caused the accident. Her father had been the one driving. Her father had been the one sleeping with my mother, even while his wife was in the hospital with cancer. Her father was a disgusting human being. He deserved pain. “So, are you going to tell him?” I asked her, and she tilted her head to the side.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” she said, nodding slowly. “You want me to tell my father how you set me up and slept with me as this plan of revenge. You want me to confront him because you think that will be some sort of payback?”
I pressed my lips together. She was smart, very smart.
“I don’t want to see you again, Antonio, ever. And I’m not going to tell my father a damn thing.” She took a step closer to me and pressed her face up to mine. “So your whole plan, it didn’t work because my father’s not even going to know.”
“So you don’t care that your father’s a murderer?” I said softly, gazing into her eyes.
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“Why would I lie?” I growled, anger taking over my entire body.
“Because you lied to me about everything from the moment I met you. Fuck, you even had people I knew lying to me before we even met. I don’t trust you, Antonio Marchesi.” She shook her head. “Yeah, maybe I thought I liked you and maybe I thought you were someone better, but I was wrong. I don’t want to see you again. Now take me home.”
“You owe me a dinner,” I said.
“Why do you care if I go to this dinner with fucking Tommasso and whoever his daughter is?”
“Because,” I said, “I care.” I didn’t know how to explain it to her. I just wasn’t ready for her to leave my company just yet. I needed her to give me another chance. Because she was right; if she didn’t tell her dad anything, it would all be for naught. And while I hadn’t invested much money, time, or energy, this was my only plan. This was the only way I was going to make him pay. I mean, I could squeeze him in his wallet, which I’d already done, but he didn’t care about money. The only thing he cared about was Callie. “Little lamb, please don’t—”
“Don’t call me that,” she said. “I’m not a little lamb.”
“What are you then, Callie?” I said, reaching out and touching the bottom of her hair.
“I’m a lioness, Antonio. Listen to me roar.”
We stared at each other for a couple of seconds, and I could see that the girl I had met was gone. She’d transformed. Something in Callie had changed, and that made me regretful. She didn’t look at me with that spark of trust and intrigue anymore. She looked at me with anger and hostility. I felt something twisting in my gut. I didn’t want to see that look on her face. I wanted to see hope. I wanted to see belief that I was someone worthy of her. Even if I knew it wasn’t true.