Chapter 2
Warren claimed there had been an agreement between our fathers.
Not written.
Nothing so simple.
A promise made over whiskey fifteen years earlier, back when I was twelve and Preston was seventeen.
One day, a Hale would marry a Marconi.
The families would share influence.
Ports.
Routes.
Protection.
Warren called it tradition.
I called it convenient memory.
“My father never mentioned it.”
“He expected you to understand when the time came.”
“My father knew me better than that.”
Warren smiled faintly.
“Did he?”
That irritated me because it reached an old wound.
My father loved me.
He also believed families survived by burying certain decisions until children were old enough to inherit them.
Sometimes inheritance meant money.
Sometimes it meant unfinished threats.
I looked toward my senior capo, Enzo DeLuca.
He was sixty-two and had served my father longer than I had been alive.
“Did you know?”
Enzo hesitated.
There.
I hated hesitation from loyal men.
“Enzo.”
“There were discussions.”
Warren almost smiled.
I looked at my capo.
“What discussions?”
“Your father never promised your marriage.”
Warren’s smile vanished.
Enzo continued.
“He discussed an alliance. Then something happened.”
“What?”
Enzo looked toward Preston.
“Celeste Hale.”
Preston stiffened.
I felt the entire room shift.
Enzo had known Preston’s mother.
Not socially.
Personally.
“She came to your father twenty years ago,” he said.
Warren’s face hardened.
“You’re confused.”
“No.”
Enzo rarely raised his voice.
He did not now.
“She arrived at the Marconi estate after midnight with a split lip and one suitcase.”
Preston went completely still.
Warren stepped forward.
“That woman was hysterical.”
There it was.
Not denial.
I looked at Preston.
His face had lost its color.
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
“Did you know your mother tried to leave?”
His answer came slowly.
“No.”
Warren snapped, “She did not try to leave. She created a scene.”
Enzo looked at him with open contempt.
“She begged Lorenzo Marconi for protection.”
My father.
The man Warren claimed wanted a marriage alliance.
Apparently Celeste Hale had once begged that same man to protect her from the family I was almost marrying into.
I looked at Warren.
“What happened to her after that night?”
May you like
For the first time, he stopped trying to look offended.
He looked careful.
