A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family #1)

26. Vanessa

26

VANESSA

The night is not over after the auction, or after the four-course meal we were served. Instead, there is desert, dancing, and more talking. Always more talking. By the time either I or one of my siblings has spoken to everyone we needed to, my throat is sore from the ceaseless chatter; my cheeks ache from all of the strategic smiling I’ve done. My spine feels heavy, but I remain as composed and tall as I have since arriving.

Nate and Leo have been buzzing around together, talking to people, eavesdropping on conversations, or visiting the grazing table. By my count, they’ve both eaten half a dozen macarons.

“What are they up to?” I ask Mary as I take the glass of water she brought me. She squints up at the two men chatting over their desserts.

“I don’t know, probably gossiping. They’re obsessed with each other,” Mary says.

“Oh my god,” I start. “Are you jealous of Nate?”

Leo and Mary have always been two peas in a pod. I had no idea that Leo spending so much time with Nate could possibly feel like an attack on their friendship. I am trying very diligently not to laugh at this idea.

“No,” Mary says. “I’m offended you would even think that?—”

“Excuse me,” a deep voice says from behind us. Mary’s face hardens at the newcomer, and I’m surprised to see an Orlov when I turn around. The Orlov.

“Maxim Orlov. A pleasure,” I say, and hold out a hand to shake his. It’s not a lie, either. Maxim is the head of the Orlov crime family, and though his father was a piece of shit, I’ve only had good interactions with his only son. “You’ve met my sister, I know.”

“I have,” Maxim nods politely at my sister.

Mary, on the other hand, looks like she might want to burn his house down. Their conversation earlier tonight seemed cordial enough from her brusque report afterward, but I am certainly missing something.

“I hear congratulations are in order on an engagement?” I ask. His face goes grim.

“No, that didn’t pan out, unfortunately.” He sounds truly regretful at this. I don’t know if he was marrying for love, but I might guess it was to rectify his own lack of an heir.

Opportunity scratches at the back of my brain; he wouldn’t make a bad alliance. Maybe not even a bad husband.

I file this information away for later when he speaks again.

“We will be keeping an ear to the ground regarding your pest issue,” Maxim says. “I don’t mean to overstep, but I recommend you look inward. Sometimes adversary wears the mask of a friend.”

“I appreciate that,” I say. I do not believe that Maxim is the one sabotaging me, though he has family I am less familiar with. As for his comment about looking internally for the rat, it strikes closer to my insecurities than I think he intended.

“I wonder, Mary, if you’d like to dance?” Maxim asks.

I think she’ll say no, maybe even spit at him the way her eyes are blazing, but instead, she straightens her shoulders and hands me her glass before she walks past him to the dance floor full of guests moving together to the music. He gives me one last closed mouth smile before following her there.

How strange.

I haven’t spoken to Cillian since he was throwing shit around the warehouse acting like an ass, and I can tell by the smug grin on his face that he’s tipsy if not fully drunk from the open bar as he approaches me.

“Nessie, Nessie,” Cillian says when he stops by my side, too close. Whatever thousand-dollar cologne he has on fills my nostrils immediately in a way that makes me want to sneeze.

He’s been family for thirteen years, and most days I quite like him, but sometimes I loathe him. Usually at parties.

“Have I told you I love this dress?”

“You haven’t,” I say, unamused.

“Shall we dance? If we get lucky, we might see Mary stab the Russian.”

“Sounds like just what this night needs, an incident ,” I say. Cillian plucks the glasses from my hands and deposits them on the tray of a waiter passing by. I can’t even say no before his hand is on my back leading me forward. “You should go home, Cillian.”

“And miss the fun? I could never.” Cillian tugs me towards him, our chests almost touching as the song turns to a slower, swaying tune. He ducks his head near my ear, that whiskey breath hot on my cheek. “You look beautiful.”

“So I’ve heard,” I say. Cillian drags a hand down my bare arm and then, gripping my fingers, spins me once before pulling me closer. Ever one for theatrics . “You’re drunk.”

“And you, Vanessa, are the belle of the ball,” he says.

“Have you learned anything useful while sneaking into corners to ravish the wives of local politicians?” Cillian’s palm is dry, the skin coarse from years of weight training and fighting. I know scars crisscross the knuckles he is scraping lightly across my back.

“I think we should go home together tonight,” Cillian says, either evading my question, or ignoring it altogether.

“What the hell, Cillian?” I whisper.

“What? I think it’s time you send your yappy little dog back where he came from and call off the search.”

I glance over at said yappy dog, who stands at the edge of the room watching us with his hands in his pants pockets. Always with his hands in those pockets.

My eyes meet Nate’s for a second only before turning my gaze back up to Cillian’s.

“It’s not safe for him yet,” I say.

“Who cares? So he dies, you owe him no loyalty. You shouldn’t have brought him into your home in the first place.”

I swallow the lump that’s formed in my throat at the thought.

“We look good together,” Cillian says. “Hot.”

“Perfect reason to spend the rest of our lives married to each other.”

“Is it him?” Cillian asks, all levity gone. I don’t play dumb. “He’s a loser, Vanessa. What could he possibly have that you want?”

I shut my mouth and look away from those hurt icicle eyes. Cillian is a hardened man, one who knows better than anyone the kind of things I’m up against daily. He knows me, is loved by my family, and could accept me for all my flaws and misdoings. He wouldn’t offer a strategic advantage, but by all other accounts, of course I should accept his offer.

I look up at him again, his lips, his wide jaw, the scar beneath his left eye, and let myself imagine it. The white dress and black tux, him dipping me back for a kiss, rough hands roaming all over me. It would be a life of relative safety and probably one where I’d be happy enough.

It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? And it would solve so many problems; no mothers on my back, no risk of the betrayal that could come from marrying a stranger, and finally an heir. I haven’t had a relationship in years, just flings to let off steam every now and then. It could be nice to have someone.

“Ness,” Cillian whispers. His face is so close to mine, just waiting for me to close the gap between us.

A throat clears just beside us, breaking the bizarre moment. Nate stands, hands out of his pockets. “May I cut in?”

I look to Nate, holding my breath, and nod, already detaching myself from Cillian. Nate doesn’t take his eyes off me while a muscle in Cillian’s neck ticks. If there weren’t more than a hundred of the city’s most refined individuals around us, I would fear for Nate’s safety.

“Thank you for the dance,” I tell Cillian. “I’ll think about what you said.”

Cillian doesn’t speak, just cooks Nate beneath a hard stare before stalking away.

“Thank you,” I say. Nate slides one hand around my waist and lightly grips my fingers with the other. “It’s not that I needed saving, I just?—”

“It’s alright,” he says, and we dance lightly in a swaying circle. “It looked like he was talking business after that’s all you’ve done all night. You’re just tired.”

“Do I look tired?”

“No,” he smiles. “I just see it.”

I don’t ask what he means because he seems to see everything. He observes the workings of things and slips seamlessly into them. It’s why my mother loves gardening with him, why the kids adore playing with him. He sees people and meets them where they are.

“You see a lot of things,” I murmur. “I feel like I can barely see myself these days.”

He pulls me closer and shushes me. My chest is up against his like it was Cillian’s, but he’s so much warmer, like a blanket wrapping over me. I let myself melt into it.

“You’re holding your breath,” he says. “Tell me a story.”

I breathe out and he doesn’t mention that it is a bit shaky.

“Have you been to the chapel on Eighth?” I start. I can’t think about marriage, weddings, baptisms, anything, without thinking about that church.

“The tall one? Has a bell tower and stained glass?”

I crack a smile. “You’re describing every Catholic church in the city. But yes, it has those things.”

“What about it?” Nate prompts.

“Everything has been there. Willa’s wedding, Artie and Angel’s blessings, my father’s funeral.”

“I’m sure it’s beautiful,” he says.

I think of the ornate windows, pointed towards heaven, and full of stained glass that I used to stare at for hours of my childhood, tracing the iron lines over colored glass in my mind during weddings, mass, funerals, any time I could.

“There’s a big window of the Virgin Mary in the front of the church. It’s behind where the priest stands, so you can’t miss it. It’s just her. I used to love going to church so I could look at her for a while. When I was nineteen and engaged, I was so excited to get married there beneath her blessing. I didn’t love the man, but I thought I could eventually.”

“You were a baby.”

“Yeah,” I say on a breath. “But we knew by then that I was going to take over for my dad. We thought we had decades, but still, it was only a matter of time. I needed a husband.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That’s a lot of pressure for a kid.”

“I guess.” I nod. “I remember thinking that even if he never loved me, even if I was doomed to sixty or seventy years of a loveless marriage, Mother Mary would be there for all the big events, the baptisms and funerals, and she’d make sure I was still okay. That glass version of her would look out for me.”

“What happened? With the guy. You said he was intimidated by you, right?”

I laugh a bitter sound and feel Nate’s hand on my waist squeeze the slightest bit. I recall telling Nate veiled truths about my failed engagement the night of his cousin’s wedding.

That feels like a year ago, but it’s only been a few months.

“It was our wedding day, and I was in this big white dress—I looked amazing. It was Willa’s dress, she has the best taste—and I had these little white and pink butterfly clips in my hair that my dad gave me.” I recall how bright they looked against my dark hair and the way my mother and sisters painstakingly added them to my braided updo. “I looked like a princess.

“We went through the ceremony, kissed at the altar. He thought he’d won, and he pulled me into a room afterward to laugh at how I looked and tell me exactly what was going to happen now that he had me. How I needed to act and be, and he informed me that he would be the one to really take over after my father died. And he said I would never be able to do a thing about it, because I was his wife. And if I tried, he’d hurt everyone I loved.”

“Jesus,” Nate whispers. I shrug.

“I believed he would kill them, or take advantage of Mary, who was only sixteen then, or hurt the babies—Willa and Sean were living with us, Artie and Angel were just toddlers.”

“How did you get out of it?” he asks. The song we were dancing to ended and bled into the next. A cover of some romantic Ed Sheeran song that Willa loves. She and Sean dance too, all wrapped up in each other.

I inch closer to Nate, my mouth near his ear so I can speak quieter. Images of that day flash through my mind, images I’ve forced myself to remember, that I won’t allow myself to forget. First, I remember the back of his hand slapping across my cheek hard enough to smear my lipstick, then seeing my shocked reflection in the mirror.

Blood spilled over my lower lip, painting it crimson. You’re mine now. You don’t threaten me , he’d said, and I was so afraid. Afraid of what he would do to me, but more afraid of what he would do to them.

Clean yourself up , he said. We’ve got a reception to get to .

“I killed him,” I say. Nate tenses, but he’s still breathing, releasing a puff of air on my neck. It sends hot chills down my spine.

I remember what it felt like to stab the man through the heart, the smell that made my stomach lurch as he bled all over my white dress, cursing my name as he died.

“He was my first kill. I was protecting my family, and every time since has been to those same ends,” I say. I’m talking so low that I’m barely sure if Nate can hear me over the music and surrounding chatter. “And now he’ll never threaten me or my family again.”

The song comes to an end and the singer speaks into a microphone about picking things up a little bit for the last songs of the night. Nate breaks away from me like I might have burned him.

This is it, I realize; the moment Nate really sees me for who I am. My mouth creeps up into a sardonic smile as he backs away. Of course, he backs away.

He’s not meant for this world, no matter how comfortable he is around my family, or how well he’s pretended to be one of us. He doesn’t belong here, he could never belong here, and I see that in his rigid posture, his tight smile as we politely clap for the live band. The way he can’t meet my eye.

It’s clear to me, and now he’s gotten his reminder, too. This world isn’t meant for him.

It never has been.