Giovanni (21 page)

“What about Nunz?” Antony asked.

“That’s the odd thing about it, Nunz had no backlash for Kim’s mistake.”

“He should have. It was his daughter which means it was his responsibility to make sure she understood the rules and surrounding families.”

“I’m aware,” Gio said. Taking a breath, he then went on to explain to his father about the things Franco had said to Kim, the bit of information he learned from Cody, and what he thought it all might mean. Antony took it all in in silence. “You sent me here because of your suspicion Franco was going to come in on his father, and not for our family, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t like the way he talked,” Antony said instead of answering outright. “He was too arrogant with his father still in his spot. You three boys would never talk like that if you were frightened of me coming back on you for it—you all are, I might add. I like Max, so maybe I’d enjoy having him around for a few more years.”

“Max invited me to stay in Vegas for a couple of more months to help straighten out Franco,” Gio added.

“That speaks volumes on his own uncertainties, even if he doesn’t realize they’re founded just yet.”

Gio scoffed. “You heard Max at the meeting. He’s letting Franco have more leeway, now.”

“And he’s suffering for it, too. He said that as well, son. I think that says a lot.”

Antony laughed.

Gio’s annoyance perked. “What in the fuck is funny about this?”

“I was too busy worrying about keeping the cracks in our family from being shown that I wasn’t looking for the cracks in others. These things make the difference, Gio. They make it big.”

“How big?”

Antony took a deep breath. “I have to hang up the phone now, Gio. You have to do this by yourself. I can’t be your father here. I have to be the Marcello Don. You broke the rules, so now you figure out a way to fix it.”

“Dad—”

“I’m buying one ticket now for the 9AM morning flight from Vegas to New York. It’s the soonest one available. I’m sorry about that. There will not be a first name on the ticket, only that it’s designated for a Marcello. Someone will be at the airport to pick up whoever gets off that flight and they will be delivered directly to my home. Is that clear?”

It was an olive branch, Gio recognized. If he couldn’t save himself, he could surely save Kim. Antony was offering to help in that way.

“Yeah, I got it. Anything else?”

“How long do you think you have right now?” Antony asked.

“Early tomorrow morning for sure. Franco expects her back tonight, but it’s taken care of.”

“If, as you say, love is the most important thing about her to you, then you need to keep her safe. There are other rules, son. You know them. Use them.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“I have to go, Gio. I can’t be involved in this any more than I already am. It’s going to take years to repair the damage you’ll cause between you and other families for this mistake.
Years
. Other made men will find it hard to trust you. Everything in the business is going to be so much more difficult than it was before when it comes to you. I have no doubt you will understand the gravity of your errors in due time. Be careful.”

The phone call hadn’t even had time to disconnect fully before Gio realized what his father was saying.
Years
. Antony said Gio would have to work for years to repair his reputation to the Cosa Nostra and other made men. That meant his father seriously believed Gio would make it out of this alive.

It didn’t even matter. Gio had to make a plan for the present and keep Kim alive.

• • •

It was a while later before Kim finally emerged from the bathroom. Despite having felt so restless when he was on the phone with his father, Gio had practically rooted himself to the end of the bed, sitting there with his head in his hands. His thoughts were a jumble, his heart raced, and his lungs couldn’t take in enough air, but he had a plan.

That was more than he had an hour ago.

Kim stood in the bathroom doorway, dressed in the same outfit from the night before. Wet and wavy strands of her hair were flipped to the side as she rested her hip against the doorjamb.

“We’re in a lot of trouble, huh?” she asked.

Gio nodded, looking her over. The swelling from the bruise on her cheek was retreating. It still pissed him off like nothing else to see it. A redness rimmed her blue eyes. She’d been crying, clearly. “I’m sorry.”

“What, why?”

“I love you. People who love other people shouldn’t do things that make them cry. That’s not okay.”

Kim cocked her head to the side. “You didn’t make me cry.”

“Didn’t I? If you’re crying over the situation, I put us in this, too. It’s the same thing.”

“No,” Kim said quietly. “I was crying because of me, Giovanni. Because if I had just been smarter, I could have avoided all of this. I acted like a stupid girl, thinking I was so intelligent. Why not show off a little for my friends? I knew better, not in the sense of who owned the casino, but what I was doing.”

“A thousand people walk into casinos every day and count cards. It’s a shitty byproduct of the business. What you did isn’t anything new. Besides that, I’m pretty sure if Franco hadn’t cornered you at the casino, it would have happened in a different way. He had plans, that much is clear. And you’re not stupid. I don’t want to hear that bullshit coming out of your mouth again.”

Kim rolled her eyes, giving him a look in the process. “Get off it, Gio.”

Gio stood from the bed, walking across the room until the two stood toe to toe and Kim was looking up at him. “I’m serious. You and me, we’re something. We’ll figure it all out in time, but right now, we’re just something. So in a way, that kind of makes you mine.”

“I’m starting to get sick of this whole men thinking they own me thing people have going on. No one owns me, Giovanni. I’m my own fucking person.”

“Doesn’t make you any less mine,
Tesoro
.”

Kim’s lips pursed and Gio immediately wanted to kiss the annoyance away. He did just that, tipping up her chin with two of his fingers. Soft and slow, he kissed away her stress and aggravation, feeling the silkiness of her mouth moving with his until she melted into his chest.

“I just want to be me,” Kim whispered when Gio rested his lips to her forehead.

“With me, you’ll always be the best you. I promise.” 

“It was stupid, though.”

Gio shrugged. “So what? Stupid is a lot of things. Like a man who breaks the only rules he’s ever followed in life for something silly and crazy like love and still can’t find an ounce of regret for it. Even if it kills him.”

“What are we going to do?” Kim asked.

Gio’s shoulders tensed. The fear seeping into Kim’s voice burned up his spine. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”

“I—”

“No, listen to me, please. I don’t want you to be afraid, Kim. Ever. Not today or tomorrow, or years from now. Not of me or any other man. I’m sorry I put you in a position where you have to feel that way. You don’t deserve that and I should have known better. I did, actually, but I didn’t care. That was my mistake. I’m going to start correcting that now.”

Kim stayed silent.

“You love me, yeah?” he asked, grazing his nose along her cheekbone.

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to love me tomorrow, in a week, or next month, right?”

Kim nodded. “Too little too late to deny it. What’s the point, Gio?”

Gio took a breath, willing his nerves to calm. This was not the way he thought he would be proposing this question. Literally. “I might have broken the rules, but they still have to follow them. Just because I betrayed the family’s beliefs by messing around with you, it doesn’t make me any less of a made man. It doesn’t change the oaths I took. They can never take that away from me, just end me. Do you understand?”

A shiver shuddered through Kim. “I don’t like where this is going.”

“Do you know the rules the Cosa Nostra lives by?”

“I’ve heard them,” she confessed. “I probably shouldn’t have.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “There isn’t really one that’s held in higher esteem over the others. They’re all treated the same. Some can be bent a little if it benefits to do so—like not being seen in clubs and such. I own three. Many others do, too. But there’s one rule … it’s never bent even a little.”

“So, how does that help us right now?”

Again, Gio’s nerves grew. “If something were to happen between now and tomorrow before I can get you on a flight to New York, it might be the one thing that would save you from being hurt or worse. All wives of made men must be treated with the utmost respect. Regardless of that man’s standing in La Cosa Nostra, his wife must be treated as a man would his own wife.”

Kim froze in Gio’s arms.

“I want you to marry me, Kim. Today.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m as serious as a goddamn heart attack,
Tesoro
.”

“That’s not even funny, Gio. That’s … stupid, it’s crazy, and no.”

“And it would work. It would. Please, just—”

“No,” Kim repeated a little stronger. “Why would you even think it would be okay with me to ask me like that now? I won’t marry you because it might keep me from having to face consequences. How is that any different from me having to marry Franco because of what happened before? I would still be forced into something.”

Gio took a step back from Kim, needing the space. Her immediate rejection hurt, but he understood where she was coming from, too. Honestly, he hadn’t clarified his feelings on the matter properly to make her understand why he wanted to marry her, either.

“If you could ask me for anything right now, what would it be?”

“That doesn’t matter, Gio. It has nothing to do with this.”

“It has everything to do with it. Tell me what you would ask me for.”

Kim crossed her arms, glancing downwards to the floor. “I don’t know.”

“Sure you do,” he murmured. “Anything, Kim.”

“Maybe it’s not just one thing.”

“Okay, so tell me.”

“I would ask for you to make this go away. So I wouldn’t have to see Franco again, or worry about him taking me back. I want to be safe and happy. I want someone who loves me.”

“Anything else?” Gio asked.

Kim laughed a tinkling sound. “You’re not a magician.”

“Maybe I could try to be,” Gio joked. “Come on, tell me what you want from me.”

“It’s silly.”

“Nothing about you is silly to me,
mia
amore
.”

Shifting from foot to foot, Kim chewed on her lower lip before finally saying, “I’d want to go back.”

“Go back?”

Gio’s confusion must have been clear to see because Kim shook her head and laughed again. “Yes, go back. To that first night we met. Because it was easy and you didn’t know. I wouldn’t have done it differently so I guess it wouldn’t change a thing, but I’d go back and do it again.”

A smile crept over Gio’s lips. Perhaps Kim’s desires weren’t all that far off from his own, after all. She just didn’t realize it.

“You know I can give you all of that but the last one, right?”

“It’s not that simple, Gio.”

“Why the hell not? All you have to do is marry me.”

“Because I want you to have it, too. You can’t guarantee me that tonight. Why am I flying to New York tomorrow, anyway, huh?” Kim asked, cocking a brow.

Gio swallowed the lump lodged in his throat. “Because you’ll be safe there no matter what.”

“Even if you don’t get there, right?”

“Don’t,” Gio muttered. “That’s not how this is going to end.”

“But that is the purpose of me going. Deny it.”

Gio couldn’t. “It’s the best place for you to be while I clean up shit here. Whether you agree to my proposal or not, you will be on a flight tomorrow morning. I just have to get you through the night and at the airport. That’s all.”

Kim shuddered. “What if I said no?”

“You will be on a flight tomorrow morning,” Gio repeated. “This is one thing I won’t discuss or argue about with you. You’re going where you will be safe and Franco cannot touch you again. I’m only giving you what you want, Kim.”

“And the marrying thing?” Kim asked.

“It’s a good backup—”

“It’s too ridiculous for me to even give it a proper response.”

“You didn’t let me finish,
Tesoro
.”

Kim’s glare stung. “What’s there to say, Giovanni?”

“I’d go back, too,” he told Kim, hoping to God she would finally get it. “But I’d listen to the cues my heart was trying to get through my fucked up head. When I knew you were someone, and I didn’t care, that should have been a clue to me there was something about you I might have wanted to know or even keep.

“I might have been mostly sober that night, but my head was still waiting to detox from the hell I’d been putting it through for years, so I wasn’t listening clearly. By the time I was able to get my shit in order, I already loved you. Don’t you remember what I told you that night, Kim?”