A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family #1)

40. Vanessa

40

VANESSA

I wake with a gasp, like in a dream where you step off a ledge and feel like you’re falling, but upon landing, I’m not in my bed at all.

There’s a morning light that feels like it’s piercing into my eyes when I open them, it’s two minutes of rapidly blinking before I can look at my surroundings fully.

I’m in a metal chair, both of my arms and legs are tied down hard enough that I can barely wiggle them. My skull is pounding and there’s a sharp ache in my spine, which I equate to being knocked out in this chair for hours. I’m not wearing what I was at the engagement party, the green floor-length dress now replaced by a white linen one with intricate embroidery along the skirt and sleeves.

“What the fuck,” I mutter and turn my eyes to my surroundings. I’m in an office building that hasn’t been built out yet, all exposed ceilings and concrete floors.

I can’t see well out the windows from where I am, but we must be high in the city. It’s not one of our builds, an older one that’s been gutted if I had to guess by the condition of the exposed brick and cracked concrete. There’s a gutter around the perimeter of the floor where sheetrock used to be installed in front of the brick.

The floor is empty save for me and my chair, and if my eyesight isn’t betraying me, my dress and heels are in a dark green pile by the door. My skin crawls at the knowledge that someone changed my clothes while I was unconscious.

I’ve never been in trouble like this.

How did I get here? There was the engagement announcement—wait, no, I never got to see the announcement, did I? Did they give it without me?

Steps sound from down the hall and I wiggle in my bindings to no avail. Whoever tied me up knew what they were doing.

Cillian steps around the doorway wearing a clean suit, smart and fitted to him perfectly. I remember at once the kiss, the way he pleaded for me to marry him instead, the party— the party . What did they do without me there? Are they looking for me?

“You’re up,” he says, and I snarl at him, renewed strength in trying to break my bonds. They don’t budge, and my skin aches like a bruise beneath the rope. “Good morning.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I spit, followed by a slew of unbecoming curse words that he pretends he pays no mind to.

Cillian pulls up a chair from behind me and sets it down in front of mine. He sits on it backward, so his chest is against the bars of the seat back. He clicks his tongue.

“Darling, don’t fuss, you’ll bruise,” he says.

“Oh, and that would be an issue for you?”

Cillian tilts his head at a 45 degree angle, and leans closer. I smell his cologne and aftershave, heady and wrong. My nose burns. His hand reaches slowly for my face, and I want to bite it. He pushes strands of hair that had fallen into my eyes behind my ear and then slides an index finger down my jaw, then down my neck to where he touches the ruby necklace that still hangs above my breasts.

I spit on him, right in the face, and he doesn’t move, just smiles at me before removing a hankie from his chest pocket and wiping his face clean. I regret that I didn’t get more in his eye.

“Nessie,” he chides, and I almost spit again.

“Don’t call me that.” Any version of Ness is reserved for family and dear friends, not fucking maniacs who force themselves on me and then knock me out for not agreeing to marry them.

“I’ll call you whatever I like, bride.”

I still, looking down with new eyes at the white gown I’m wearing.

“I won’t.”

“But you will,” Cillian says.

“They’ll come for me. You think Mary will let you live after hearing what you did to me?”

Cillian laughs. “She won’t hear. You’re not going to tell her.”

It’s my turn for my eyes to search his face, trying to determine just what he’s getting at. “We’re going to elope,” he says. “Beautiful ceremony, an intimate one, just the two of us, the priest, and God. When we come back, they’ll be surprised, but so happy for us.”

“I wouldn’t marry you.”

“You wouldn’t marry your friend? The one everyone trusts, the brother of your sister’s husband, who’s been asking for months? Please. You’ll be able to sell it.”

“I refuse.”

“Do you think you are better than me, Vanessa? You were about to marry a stranger to get what you want from him. You were about to tie an innocent man to a woman who could never love him.”

I do think I am better than him, and I will not let him make me feel bad for asking an adult man to enter a consensual contract that would be mutually beneficial to both of us. He can’t make me feel guilty for sacrificing this.

“There’s nothing scrappy or self-made about you. You’re a selfish brat, and a bitch,” Cillian spits.

“I am better than you,” I say. “I can beat you in a fight and your business would be in shambles if Sean hadn’t married Willa. Without us, you’re just a fucking gangster.”

A muscle ticks in Cillian’s neck.

“There is one way you’re weak, dove.”

The pet name falls on my ears like acid.

“You care too deeply,” he says, like it’s simple math. “You love too much. You keep too many people close to you and it makes you weak.”

“Family is what this is built on,” I say, I’d yell if my throat didn’t burn so bad. “It’s what everything is built on.”

“No. You know better than most that loyalty must be paired with fear to last. Fear is what this is all built on. And you open yourself up to more fear than anyone should. It’s why you are not fit to lead, why you were never meant to.”

A carousel of faces flash through my mind; my sisters, my mother, Angel and Artie, Leo, Nate, Nate, Nate . How could I care for any of them less? My father was the strongest man I’ve known and he loved dearly, with everything. His love was his reason.

“This is what’s going to happen.” Cillian stands behind me and pulls my hair behind my shoulders, lightly running his fingers through the tangles. “You and I are going to get married. Lovely little ceremony, you’ll be sorry you couldn’t invite your family, but you were just feeling so trapped, and I offered, and you couldn’t say no. You’ll say that you’ve secretly been wanting me for years, you just didn’t want to tell anyone because you thought it might be weird, brother-in-law and all. You’ll say whatever you need to say to convince them.”

“They’ll never believe me.”

Cillian fists the hair he was playing with and tugs, pulling my head back until I’m looking up at him. I try to suppress a whimper from the pain in my already sore neck.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know how to act. You were prepared to convince a house full of guests that your engagement was a good thing. To a Russian whose family has only ever caused yours pain. I’ve known you for years, practically family, business partners. It’ll be an easier sell.”

He lets go of my hair and walks away from me, now typing something into his phone. I hope it’s his final will and testament because I am going to kill his ass with excruciating slowness.

“I will kill you,” I say. “I will never, ever stop fighting you. You can force me to marry you, but you will never have me .”

He glances up from his screen looking bored, then rolls his eyes.

“Look,” Cillian says after a few more moments tapping at his screen. He holds it out for me now to see and begrudgingly I do look.

It’s open to some app with two rows, one of names and the adjacent toggles that read “armed.”

My mind races over the names so fast it takes me three times to realize what I’m seeing.

Mary Bedroom, Guest House, Artie Room, Angel Room, Willa SUV, Sean Motorbike, Nate, Garden, Green House, Kitchen, Basement, Garage, the rows read, each a location where I am certain a bomb is planted, one of those damn little ones from the May shipment. The ones that went missing.

“You wouldn’t,” I breathe, and Cillian has the gall to laugh. A loud and brutal sound bursting from his chest.

“You have no fucking clue, do you?” Cillian asks and squats in front of me like he’s talking to a child. “Your family is a scourge, Vanessa. I never thought Sean should marry your bitch sister, but I wasn’t in charge then. They didn’t listen to me.”

I’ve never been one to bite my tongue, though sometimes I wish I could. “We gave you power.”

“You made us look weak .” Bits of spit lands on my face, but I refuse to wince. “We didn’t need to have an alliance; we were in better business without you. You act like you are so high and mighty, so many fucking morals for criminals—no skin trade, no organs, none of the shit that actually makes money.

“And we listened. My father was a fool, trusting like you, removed us from circles to get into your father’s good graces. Weapons are more lucrative than girls, he said, your dad’s words, and he believed them. Just went along with whatever he said. It made my father look like a feeble little man.”

“But he was right,” I say. “You’ve gotten into less trouble and doubled your profits over the last decade, how is that not gain?”

“Because now I’m your little bitch, Vanessa. I’ve been in the shadow of your ‘genius’ but you’re not a genius. You’re a novelty.”

I swallow down his words, the sting of them acid on my already dry and stinging throat. He’s lying, or he’s wrong and deranged, but part of me has always wondered when the party trick that is the woman mafia boss would lose its shine.

“And soon, you’ll be a wife. A mother. You think their patience will still be there when you have a kid at home being raised by your mother? You forget your roots, your tradition. You’re too American.”

There is nothing in my stomach but I’m moments away from heaving. From the shame and the embarrassment, from the hatred and sick loathing, and most of all, the fear that he might be right.

“We can be happy together, Vanessa.” Cillian puts his hand on my face again, tilting until my eyes are forced on his. The worst part is that he looks sincere. He really believes I could be happy with him? “I have wanted this for so long. You just have to see.”

I shut my eyes tight and turn my head until his fingers brush softly over my lips. It’s supplicating, intimate.

“You see the vision, don’t you?” Cillian asks, and I nod again before opening my mouth and biting down on the meaty part of his thumb, hard, until I taste blood.

Cillian’s other hand punches me in the head, my skull reverberating with the blow so much I let him go, a trail of saliva and blood trailing from the marks on his hand.

After a moment, Cillian makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. He’s too crazed for it to sound amused, though. He looks violent.

“I will have you. You will see that we are right for each other,” he says. “And if you don’t, you’ll get to choose who goes first.”

He holds the phone up again, reminding me of the screen, the dozen bombs dormant beneath my loved ones, cobras ready to strike and blow my whole world to pieces.

“Who will you choose? Angel? The teacher? Or maybe my brother first. Easiest to kill, not a blood relation.”

I’m going to be sick, but I force myself not to gag. I can’t show him more just how much he’s getting under my skin.

“I’ll let you think about it,” Cillian buttons on his suit coat, smoothing it out. “Wedding’s at eight.” I bite my cheek so hard it bleeds while I watch him walk away, leaving me alone in the building.