The Power of a Woman: A Mafia Erotic Romance (24 page)

For hours, I’d let Laura drag me to all her favorite shops—shops that didn’t carry anything priced less than a hundred dollars. Fuck it, money was never an issue—we never worried about it. However, staying alive was. It was never smart to flaunt your money, especially if you want to stay under the FBI radar. My uncle had become a little loose in that department. When it came to Laura, money was no object. When it came to me, it was earn it before you spend it.

The goons my father had on our detail were flush with embarrassment at the stores we shopped in. We laughed our asses off knowing they were close behind and these stores were the last places they’d be caught dead in. Unless the filthy fucks were with their
gumar
. A fun little fact urban culture makes light of: Married to the mob, wives and “gumars”—girlfriends—were accepted and often encouraged. Totally disgusting, and if Stefan ever stepped out on me, it would be without the pair of balls between his legs.

Right after lunch, I received a phone call from Stefan, demanding I meet him at his condo. I told him I was out with my cousin, but he didn’t care. He told me to have her drop me off. He had no idea that Laura knew about him, but apparently, he didn’t care if she did. When I told Laura what Stefan had said, she became unglued with giddiness and eagerly drove me to his condo, efficiently ditching our tail.

“Laura, you can’t come up.”

“Like fucking hell I can’t. You can’t possibly think I’m going to just leave you here without making sure it’s safe. Your brother is missing. How do I know you won’t be next?” She wouldn’t take no for an answer and followed me to the elevator.

“He’s going to be pissed,” I said, using my key and pressing the button.

“Tell him you didn’t have a choice. And why would you want to be with someone who’d get mad so easily? He sounds very controlling and…” She hadn’t a clue. His control was what I craved. Her words vanished into thin air as the elevator doors opened into his foyer.

Stefan came around the corner, stopping in his tracks once his eyes met Laura’s. “What’s she doing here?”

“She wouldn’t let me come up alone. Said you might kill me or something.”

Laura scowled, mortified, and punched my arm, then turned a smile in his direction. “All fucking lies. I never said such things. I only wanted to check it out for myself.”

“Okay. You see it. He’s not going to harm me. You can go now,” I said, nudging her toward the elevator.

“No,” Stefan interjected. “She can stay. But we need to talk in private first.”

Nerves filled me, wondering what he could possibly have up his sleeve. I nodded to Laura, telling her to take a seat in the living room while I went to see what Stefan wanted. Maybe he wanted her to stay so she could drive me back home. That’s the only thing that made sense to me.

Stefan held my hand, dragging me to his office in the back of the condo. I’d never been in there before, knowing much like my dad’s office, it was off limits. But I followed him anyway, and took a seat across from him at his desk.

“I swear, I told her to go home,” I pleaded, catching the worried expression on his face.

“It’s quite all right. We will need a witness anyway.”

That caught my attention. “Witness? For what?”

He exhaled heavily and said, “Carlo wants us to be married. We must go today.”

I had to have heard him wrong. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll explain everything later, but right now, we need to go so we can get married.”

His callousness at the entire situation pissed me off. This isn’t the way to ask someone to marry you, or even the way you’d treat the woman you swear to love. “Have you lost your mind? No…just fucking no.” That caught his attention, his gaze turning fierce as it pierced mine. “You’ve kept me in the dark enough, don’t you think? And now you expect me to just jump at this ridiculous proposal? Fuck! It’s not even a proposal. It’s a demand.”

He hung his head, and I could tell he felt worn out and exhausted. This wasn’t the typical, controlling man I knew. He acted as if he’d been defeated, and I didn’t know if that was an insult to me or not. “Well, that’s how it was delivered to me. I wasn’t given an option. I wasn’t asked my opinion or how I felt about it. I’m just following orders here, Jordana.”

Tears pricked my eyes, but not out of sadness or rejection, they were completely born of rage and resentment. “How romantic. But this doesn’t make any sense. Why do they want you to marry me?”

“I told you, I’ll explain everything later.”

I leaned forward and slapped my hand on the top of his desk; the burning sensation in my palm didn’t even come close to the sting of rejection I felt. “You need me to marry you? Well, I need you to give me answers.”

“What do you want to know?” Everything about Stefan’s attitude was of a man who’d given up. His voice was soft, almost uncaring, and his posture portrayed one of weakness instead of the normal rigid and confident nature I’d grown accustomed to seeing.

I chewed on my lip, trying to sort through the unanswered questions that had been running through my head for weeks. “That night after the club, when you came after me, what happened? I don’t remember much before waking up in the morning. What happened after you took me out of the club?”

He smiled and shook his head, revealing the first glint of humor in his eyes since I’d shown up. “You passed out in the car. I took you to your house and helped you up to your room.”

“Where was my father?”

“He was there. He wasn’t happy that I’d brought you home, but when I pointed out how it could’ve been worse, he let it go. I told him I saw you out and you’d had a little too much to drink. After I explained how I had to fight off a guy that was a little too touchy, he seemed thankful and all right with it.”

“My dad caught you inside and let you leave with all ten fingers still intact?”

“What could he do, Jordana? Huh? I’d saved his son, and then I got his
very
intoxicated daughter home safely. It’s not like he had a choice seeing your head lolling and your shoes barely on your feet. He owes me.”

Fuck almighty, what a disgraziata I was. My poor father must’ve been so disappointed. However, I couldn’t let my shame distract me. “He doesn’t owe you anything. You know it and he knows it.”

Sounding bored and slightly annoyed, Stefan said, “Think what you will, Jordana. Your father doesn’t have beef with me. His issues lie with my dad. I’m an innocent bystander.”

I didn’t understand why my father never mentioned any of it to me the following morning, but I chose to ignore that nagging thought, needing other answers. “Okay, so what about Matty? Where is he?”

He took a deep breath and ran his fingers down his face. “He’s safe.”

“Yeah, so you keep saying. But where?”

“You know he has battled with gambling problems, but what you don’t know is that he’s also gotten himself into other addictions—drugs. My brother suffered at the hands of drugs, and it had cost him his life. I didn’t want to see the same happen to Matteo. Not to mention, if Italy found out about it, he’d never get the chance to be made. And since he’s the only Albanese son, the bloodline would end with your father. They’d never give it to you.”

Oh, fuck…drugs
, I thought
. How in the world did I miss that?
Guilt churned my now sour stomach. “Where is he?” I asked again, more stern this time.

“He’s getting treatment. No one knows where he is because it’s all done on the down low. I have him set up in an apartment in Jersey with the best detox team available. After he finishes that, he’s going to a secluded rehab treatment center to help him learn to live without the drugs. He’s using a fake name, and no one knows who he is. He’s safe. He’s getting help, that’s the main thing.”

“You make no sense, Stefan. You protected him and paid off his debt when he owed your family money, but then took the cash from my dad. You say you want to take over the families, so why get my brother help?” Nothing made sense anymore. Every time Stefan spoke, he only confused me more.

“The money I took from your father is paying for his treatment. It’s being used to help him start a new life when this is all said and done. It’s all going toward the greater cause.”

“That all sounds quite lovely for a man dedicated to helping people…but that’s not you, Stefan. You always have an ulterior motive. So what’s it this time? Why are you helping my brother? What are you getting out of it?”

“There are things you don’t know, Jordana.”

“Then tell me!” My patience had grown too thin to keep a calm tone with him.

“You think Carlo’s visit was random? Well, it wasn’t. You think I came back because my brother died? Well, again, you’d be wrong.”

“Stop speaking in riddles. I won’t marry you until I have all the answers,” I said, digging my stubborn heels in.

“Then you’d be going against the Father of Italy. You’d be defying Carlo himself. Is that what you want to do?” He leaned forward, pressing his elbows on his desk and steepling his fingers like I’d seen my father do too many times to count.

“Just tell me. I think I have a right to know what I’m legally getting myself into here.”

He hung his head, taking in a healthy breath before locking eyes with me once more. “I was approached by Carlo about three months before Nico died. He’d heard about my brother’s problems with drugs and came to me about it. I guess the issue had been brought up to my father, but he’d denied Nico had a problem. To top it off, Carlo isn’t happy with the way our fathers are running their crews. He’s not happy with our fathers’ old-school approach, saying we need to be relevant in these new days ahead. And he really isn’t happy with the Carraras and the way they’re doing business as if they don’t have to answer to anyone else. So he came to me, seeking help getting the families to be what they once were. But we needed to wait, to plan, because he didn’t want our fathers knowing his intentions before the time is right. That’s why I’ve been doing so much business behind my father’s back. He can’t know. And neither can yours.”

“So you were planning to come back even before your brother died?”

“Yes. But his death helped speed things along and get me back in the fold without raising eyebrows. So we went with it, seeing this as an opportunity for change. I think I know who killed him, but I need proof before doing anything about it. I’ve talked to Carlo about my suspicions, and he’s given me his blessing to handle it once I have irrefutable evidence. And I’ll need your help with that.”

I allowed myself a moment of happiness as excitement surged though my veins at the thought of Stefan asking me for my help, but I choked it down, letting him finish what he’d been saying.

“Everything is going according to plan, and that’s what Carlo wanted to discuss last night. I can’t give you everything, but I can tell you that he wants us married. He believes it’ll unite the two biggest families, and help the old world meet the new age. He wants me on top, but says I need a bride. You know how this works and why. You can’t be in this position unless you’re married.”

Fucking A, maybe Laura had been right when she’d said that I was nothing more than a pawn to him, and that thought gutted me. “So pretty much, it doesn’t matter who you marry…just as long as you have a wife. Am I understanding this correctly?”

“No, Jordana. I believe Carlo knew of our relationship prior to catching us together last night. I have no idea how, but it’s Carlo—no one knows how he finds out anything. But that’s beside the point. He says I need a bride if I want to be the head of a family, and he believes you’d make the perfect one to be by my side. You’re already in the family, so you wouldn’t question anything. Not to mention, he noticed the way we stood united, and he knows I would do anything to keep my family safe. We couldn’t be a more perfect match. It’s not just
anyone
…it’s
you
.”

“Yet I get no say so in this matter,” I said angrily.

He stood from his chair and walked around the desk before taking a seat on the edge in front of me. He took my hands in his and quietly said, “That’s not true. You always have a say.”

“Then why demand me to marry you instead of asking me?”

“That’s what you wanted? For me to get down on one knee and propose to you?” His head tilted to the side in understanding. “You love my demanding nature. Admit it. And I never thought of you as the girly type that would need some big, romantic gesture. I know I don’t care about all that…as long as I have you in the end.”

I didn’t respond or tell him that wanting a real proposal didn’t make me weak. Just because I wanted him on one knee with a diamond ring didn’t mean I’d become soft around the edges. I only wanted him to show me that it was what he wanted. That he’d chosen to spend the rest of his life with me, not because the Godfather had requested it. But it would be pointless to argue with him.

I nodded despondently and stood up, sliding the heavy chair back in the process. I was a garbage disposal of female emotions and didn’t have a clue how not to be offended by this turn of events. I was becoming everything I hated. I was fucked. Fucked royally by the family. “Am I wearing this, or do I at least get to change?”

He didn’t respond, only nodded toward the door. I went out to the living room, where I found Laura patiently waiting for us. At her feet were my shopping bags. I grabbed one and headed to the bathroom to change. Luckily, I’d picked out an off-white dress earlier, not having a clue it would be used as my wedding gown. It was in no way worthy of a ceremony, but it would have to do. And Stefan would have to accept it.

When I emerged, wearing my skin tight dress, the hem hitting me high on my thighs and the neckline showing enough cleavage it could give an old man a heart attack, Stefan’s eyes grew large and his mouth dropped open. It was a club dress, but I’d picked it out for him, knowing he’d never allow me to wear something like this in public. Well, I guess he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter anymore, did he?

“That’s what you’re wearing?” he asked, sounding as if he were holding himself back from saying more.

“I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy something nice. This is what you get with the time restraints on your demand. Take it or leave it. I didn’t get the proposal I’ve always dreamt about, nor did I get the ring I’ve always imagined, at least let me wear something I picked out on my
wedding day
.” I looked like a hot hooker, and felt like one, too. Fuck it all…