Chapter 7 - The Son Who Lied to Save Her
Dominic became frighteningly calm.
“Marco.”
One word mobilized the house.
Doors opened. Phones appeared. Men who had seemed like ordinary staff suddenly moved with disciplined purpose.
I stood in the center of it.
“Where is Rosalie?”
“We're tracing the call,” Marco said.
Julian paced.
“She has an apartment in Cambridge Salvatore doesn't know about.”
“He knows,” I said.
Julian stopped.
“How?”
“Because Rosalie never kept secrets as well as she thought.”
I remembered something.
A photograph she had sent me months earlier.
Rosalie standing beside a window, complaining about the ugly brick building across the street.
Behind her was a neon sign.
Porter Square Books.
“Porter Square.”
Marco was already moving.
Dominic caught my wrist as I followed.
“No.”
“She's my sister.”
“This time you stay.”
I pulled free.
“This time?”
His face hardened.
“Yes.”
“You don't get to become my husband and suddenly rewrite the agreement.”
“You don't get to become my wife and make me watch you walk toward a man who has already fired a gun in your direction.”
We stared at each other.
Julian looked between us and, incredibly, said, “He's right.”
I turned.
“You have lost voting privileges.”
Margot would have been proud.
Dominic almost smiled.
Then his expression changed.
“Aurelia.”
“I am going.”
He exhaled.
“Then you stay in the vehicle until we know it's secure.”
“Agreed.”
It was the first marital compromise of our eleven-day marriage.
Rosalie wasn't at the apartment.
But her phone was.
Placed deliberately on the kitchen table.
Beside it was an envelope with my name.
Inside was a handwritten note.
Aurelia,
I don't expect forgiveness. But if something happens, know that I finally tried to fix what I broke.
Below it was an address.
Dominic recognized it.
An old DeLuca property outside Boston.
We arrived shortly before midnight.
Police were already on their way, but Dominic wouldn't wait.
Neither would Julian.
The estate had been abandoned for years.
Rain streaked the windows.
Dominic entered first.
I remained in the SUV for approximately forty seconds.
Then I heard a gunshot.
Agreement terminated.
I ran inside.
The foyer was dark.
Voices came from the library.
Salvatore stood near the fireplace with a pistol.
Rosalie was on the floor.
Julian stood between her and his uncle.
Dominic faced his brother.
Nobody noticed me immediately.
“Twenty-three years,” Salvatore said. “Twenty-three years you spent pretending you're better than us.”
“I never said I was better.”
“No. You simply took everything.”
“I took responsibility.”
“You took Father's empire.”
“And dismantled the parts that should never have existed.”
Salvatore laughed.
“You became respectable.”
“No.”
Dominic's voice was quiet.
“I became tired.”
That silenced even Salvatore.
“Tired of funerals. Tired of frightened wives. Tired of children inheriting wars they didn't start.”
Julian looked at his father.
Something passed between them.
Salvatore raised the gun.
I saw his finger move.
“Dominic!”
He turned.
The gun fired.
Julian lunged.
The bullet struck the wooden mantel.
Dominic hit Salvatore before he could fire again.
They went down.
Marco and two officers burst through the side door.
Within seconds, Salvatore was disarmed.
Handcuffed.
Finished.
I ran to Dominic.
Blood marked his cheek.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
I touched his face anyway.
His hand closed around mine.
Behind us, Rosalie sobbed in Julian's arms.
For one second the room became strangely still.
Then Salvatore laughed from the floor.
“You think this ends anything?”
Dominic looked at him.
“Yes.”
“You'll always be a DeLuca.”
“Yes.”
“You can't erase blood.”
“No.”
Dominic glanced at Julian.
Then at me.
“But I can decide what it means.”
Salvatore was taken away.
Outside, dawn began turning the sky gray.
Rosalie approached me.
Her makeup was gone. Her hair was tangled.
For once, she didn't look like the beautiful Hawthorne sister.
She looked exhausted.
Human.
“I don't expect you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
She nodded.
“I deserve that.”
I studied her.
“You helped him.”
“Yes.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“You slept with Julian.”
She looked toward him.
“That part was real.”
Julian looked miserable.
“I know.”
She wiped her eyes.
“I thought being chosen meant I had won something.”
I looked at my sister.
“And?”
“It turns out being chosen by the wrong person isn't winning.”
I understood that better than she knew.
Dominic stood twenty feet away talking to Marco.
His jacket was torn.
Silver showed at his temples.
He looked tired.
When he caught me watching him, everything else seemed to disappear from his attention.
Rosalie followed my gaze.
“You love him.”
“No.”
She almost smiled.
“You're terrible at lying.”
“I've known him less than three weeks.”
“So?”
“So normal people don't fall in love that quickly.”
“Aurelia, normal people also don't marry their ex-boyfriend's father after eleven days.”
Fair.
Dominic approached.
“We should go home.”
Home.
The word startled me.
His house had become home without asking permission.
In the car, I leaned against the seat.
Dominic sat beside me.
His hand rested between us.
Exactly where it had the first night.
This time I didn't wait.
I threaded my fingers through his.
He looked down.
Then at me.
“Separate rooms?” I whispered.
His gray eyes darkened.
“That was the agreement.”
“Agreements can be amended.”
He was silent for several seconds.
“Aurelia.”
“Yes?”
“If you change this, I need to know it isn't because you're frightened.”
“It isn't.”
“Or grateful.”
“It isn't.”
“Or angry at Julian.”
I looked toward the front seat, where Julian was riding in another vehicle.
“Definitely not.”
Dominic's thumb moved slowly over my hand.
“Then why?”
I leaned closer.
“Because every man in my life tried to protect me by deciding what I should know.”
I touched his cheek.
“You're the first one who eventually learned to ask.”
May you like
Then I kissed him.
And for the first time since the ballroom, the silence between us asked for something.
