Xander places his hand over mine and gives it a reassuring squeeze.
“Faking your own death, though? It’s …” Zeke sucks on his lip.
“Extreme?”
Zeke nods. “Kinda.”
“Let’s just say that the future my father had mapped out for me was so bleak and terrifying, even my actual death would have been a welcome relief.” I swat away the tear rolling down my cheek.
Xander squeezes my hand again. “No more secrets, shorty.”
I nod, ignoring the voice in my head telling me that we’ve barely even scratched the surface of my secrets. There are so many that I can’t share now, maybe not ever. “I was eighteen. I wanted to go to college like my high school friends, but women in my family don’t get to do that. We marry and we have babies. And I guess that’s not the worst life, not if you get to choose your husband, but my father had plans for me. I was going to marry Giovanni Santangelo.”
Zeke blanches at the name. “The former head of the Mafia?”
“Yeah. I was to be his virgin bride and give him many heirs. It didn’t matter to my father that he was fifty-eight years old.”
West scowls. “He wanted you to marry a man who was forty years older than you?”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t the worst of it. I could have dealt with that if he would’ve been a good husband and father, but Giovanni was the vilest man I ever met. We used to sometimes go to his house on Sunday afternoons, and every single time, there would be a crying woman leaving as we arrived. Always beaten and bruised. He used to laugh with my father about how much he enjoyed making them bleed.”
Zeke snarls, but Xander lays a comforting hand on his arm.
“Three weeks before our wedding was due to take place, Nico and I overheard him talking to one of his guards about the depraved things he planned to do to me on our wedding night. About how I would never leave his house again. He planned to keep me as his prisoner.”
West’s hands ball into fists. “Jesus, Lily.”
“We both knew then that I couldn’t marry him. I begged my father to find someone else for me, but he refused. And when Nico told him what we’d overheard, he just laughed, telling me it was all I was good for.” I press my lips together at the intense betrayal I still feel. The weight of those emotions used to threaten to crush me, but in the years since I learned the truth of my heritage and my true birthright, I’ve taught myself how to breathe through the pain. I was eleven when I discovered why Carmine Constantine, the man who claimed to be my father, hated me, so I shouldn’t have been surprised about his willingness to hand me over to the head of the Mafia or that he didn’t give a single fuck what happened to me after.
Zeke runs a hand over his beard. “So your father has no idea you’re alive?”
“None. If he ever found out, he’d have Nico and Dean killed for helping me. That’s why I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t put their lives at risk, not after everything they’ve done for me.”
“And Dean can be trusted?” West asks.
“Yes. He’d never betray Nico. He loves him more than anyone in the world.”
He hums, his eyebrows pinched together like he’s deep in thought. “And Giovanni? What happened to him?”
“Murdered in his bed about two months after I disappeared. Somebody slit his throat. When I first found out, I liked to imagine that it was my father who did it, finally stepping up to at least take some vengeance for me, but I suspect it was my brother.”
“Holy fuck, shorty. That’s some life you’ve lived.”
“Yep. So, you still want me?”
Zeke walks around the island and wraps his arms around me, dropping a tender kiss on the top of my head. “More than anything, baby doll.”
“I met you once, didn’t I?” West asks, drawing both mine and Zeke’s attention back to him.
My breath catches in my throat. “Yeah. I didn’t know if you’d remember me.”
Both Xander and Zeke frown. “You met before?” Xander asks.
West rubs a hand over his stubble. “I didn’t have any idea it was you until just now.” He sighs and directs his attention to Xander and Zeke. “It was the day we found out Carmine had stolen our entire casino investment. When I confronted him, he put a gun to my head. He would have pulled the trigger too, except a little girl came running in, clutching a teddy bear under her arm. She begged him not to kill me.”
Tears fill my eyes. That happened fourteen years ago, but sitting here watching West relive it, it feels like yesterday.