I looked over at Luca, and he was looking back at her with curiosity. He turned his back to her and walked out of earshot, and the rest of us knew to follow. Stacy and Molly stayed behind to keep guns on Denise while Marco, Gabriel, Willow, and I circled around him.
“This isn’t your choice to make,” I said immediately.
“Don’t let a little bit of stolen power force you into making a bad decision,” Luca replied, not with malice, but with sincerity. “This makes sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Willow responded. “Any idiot knows we want Dario dead. She’s preying on our hatred for him, and she probably is working with him. She still hasn’t explained how she knows all that shit about our family. We haven’t told anyone about Harpswell.”
“A handful of people outside us know,” Gabriel explained. “Stacy’s parents, their movers, our movers, and the security team in Maine. We could only keep it so contained. If the Binachis delved deep enough, it wouldn’t be difficult to find.”
“And that would explain how she knows about the kids,” Luca said. “The Binachis knew about that stuff before. That’s how they found you.”
Willow went quiet, but the clench in her jaw said she wasn’t happy. She looked at me, and I wrapped my hand behind her back and pulled her a little closer. “The reality is, we can’t trust her.”
“No one’s suggesting we trust her,” Marco said. “Believe me, I wanna put a bullet in her skull for bringing up Kelly, but we don’t have to trust her to know she’s got the same end goal as us. We can keep her on the outside of everything and use what she knows to our advantage. When we’re done using her, or sooner if she trips up, we just drop her. It’s as simple as that.”
Willow rigidified in my grip. I would have sent her away from the conversation if I thought she would go, but I knew she wouldn’t. “I agree that she could be immensely useful, but we can’t afford to be stupid. We’ll give her a little time to prove her loyalty, but we tell her nothing—nothing—important about family business. I don’t care if you’re just deciding what to do for lunch, keep it between us, is that clear?”
“Yes, boss,” Marco and Gabriel responded.
I eyed Luca. “Is that clear?”
Luca’s icy stare was back. He was no longer willing to play nice. “Fine.”
“And handle her with a fifteen-foot pole. I’m shocked. I honestly thought you guys were smarter than this, but at least don’t be alone with her or anything,” Willow quipped, and each of my brothers got a little irritated. She was right, so I didn’t say anything.
They walked back over to Denise after that, but Willow and I stayed behind. Wil
low shook her head. “Sandro.” I looked down at her, but she had a nervous, angry glare set for Denise as Molly and Stacy pulled their guns away. “This is a bad idea.”
9
Willow
It was a shame that all of my earned relaxation from Stacy’s yoga class had been completely wasted. It was stressful enough just dealing with Denise for that hour, let alone learning that the brothers were actually going to allow her into our lives. It’d been a tense night after we got back from the studio. Everyone’s feelings about Denise were different, but no one seemed to have the same level of anxiety about her presence as I did, apart from Alessandro, but he still allowed his brothers to goad him into the wrong decision.
I still wasn’t convinced that Denise just happened upon all the intimate information she had about our family. I still wasn’t even convinced that she didn’t purposely drop it to elicit a reaction out of Stacy and me, to begin with. Maybe she originally planned to just make nice with Stacy and eventually tell her the plan, but if she wanted an opportunity to negotiate with all of the Varassos in one room and knew we wouldn’t just grant her an audience, she certainly got lucky with how things led to that opportunity.
My head and back ached as I stretched from the warmth of my bed. It was the first official day since I took up permanent residence in the Varasso estate that I just wanted to stay in bed and hoped that nothing bad would come to find me. I even considered calling Alessandro in to lay with me. If I told him I wanted to make sure we didn’t do anything untoward but just wanted him there to help me sleep, he’d oblige. I tossed the blanket back and climbed out of bed, knowing such a luxury wasn’t one I could have right now, maybe ever again. It wasn’t just that Sandro and I weren’t together, it’s that he’d made a decision that significantly decreased the chances of all eight Varassos coming out of the fight with the Binachis alive. Letting one in, even just to the outer ring of our circle, was a hefty risk.
I opened the door to the bedroom and walked out, absent-mindedly headed for the kitchen, but when I got into the living room, I stopped short. Alessandro wasn’t there. He never woke up before me. I turned around and walked back down the hall to the bathroom, but the door was open, and the light was off. I peeked into the second bedroom, but it was empty, as well. I walked back into the living room and took a good look around it and the kitchen, but Alessandro was nowhere in the suite. My heart immediately leaped to panic, but then I noticed that Alessandro’s phone and computer were gone, and one of his suits had been pulled from the nearby closet. He’d gone to work and hadn’t waited for me to wake up before doing so.
My inclination was to be angry, but I realized how I didn’t really have that leverage. We weren’t together, after all, and once we were divorced, every day would be like that. The thought of waking up and not seeing Alessandro immediately brought a burn to my nose, and I had to swallow back the ball of emotions in my throat. My stomach started to twist, joining in the party with my head and back. I went back into the bedroom, doing my best to ignore them, and got dressed. I grabbed my phone and computer and headed up to Alessandro’s office.
I knocked but didn’t wait for an answer. I let myself in. My heart started to beat a little faster, mostly due to anger. Alessandro was behind the desk, and Luca, Marco, and Gabriel were situated in the chairs to the left of the desk. Sitting center on the couch, facing Alessandro’s desk, was Denise. All five pairs of eyes shifted to me as I walked in, and Denise gave me a see-through smile.
“Good morning, Willow,” she greeted, but I didn’t respond.
I shut the office door and started off toward my seat at Alessandro’s side. Luca cleared his throat with his arms crossed. “We agreed to keep the wives out of it.”
I glared at him as I passed. That was a paper-thin agreement if I’d ever seen one. Gabriel had already promised not to keep Stacy out of the business, Kelly wasn’t there, and Molly was the only one Luca trusted. I didn’t need to delve into the origins of that condition to know that Luca had probably posed it, or that he’d specifically done it to keep me out.
No fear of being ousted came to me, however, as Alessandro didn’t make any move to refute my arrival. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders at Luca and gave him a heavy, “Drop it.”
I sat in my seat, and Denise locked on me. “How are you this morning? What’s it like being the leading lady of the Varasso family?”
I ignored her once again. Maybe everyone else was going to be dumb about her involvement, but I had no intention of letting my guard down around her. In fact, I had no intention of even hiding that I hated she was there at all.
“Focus,” Alessandro ordered her. “What else can you tell us about your brother?”