Red

C H A P T E R F I F T Y T H R E E

There was an usual calm within the safe house. Men waited, watching the hours tick by. I paced the floor, sweating, stressing, swearing.

What if it was all a lie?

Then I just played right into his hands and let him walk out of here.

“Ma’am, the alarms have been triggered.” Brussel informed me.

“Positions everyone, I want every gun pointing at him. Shoot on my signal only.”

The men all around me snapped into place. They lined the balcony above the entrance way. They stood in every doorway, every alcove, ready to shoot.

My heart thundered like someone held a microphone to it, amplifying the sound out of every speaker. I was both nervous and scared.

The number keypad for our security code beeped and I stood perfectly still waiting to see who walked through that door.

“Access granted.” The robot spoke.

My father stepped into the hallway, he appeared so normal. Like he was returning from the convenient store where he popped out to buy eggs and milk.

“Father?” The word slipped out of my mouth, it was thick with love and surprise and compassion.

I almost leapt forward and wrapped my arms around him but I knew he wouldn’t appreciate or respect me for that. So instead, I cried.

I couldn’t help it or hold it back. I hadn’t seen my father in over a month, I believed he was dead. I was overcome with emotion.

My father raised his hand to stop me. “Compose yourself Willa.” He ordered and instinctively I sucked air into my lungs and forced my tears away.

But then my brothers walked in, I broke down. Instantly running towards them.

“Oh my god, I missed you so much Willa!” Dante squeezed me half to death, Carlo practically pounced on my back. The twins lifted me in excitement and Antonio was standoffish.

“You’re acting like fools, pull yourself together.” My father spoke, causing Antonio to step aside. “We have much to discuss, catch me up one everything.”

Alessio spoke to Brussel, dismissing me like I didn’t just spend the last month and a half believing he was dead and single-handedly running his mafia. The men, our men, my men ... now looked torn on whose lead they should be following.

My brothers, all smiled at me in that same way. The sympathetic way which let me know they understood and wanted to comfort me but at the same time it wasn’t allowed. We were not allowed feelings or emotions in the mafia.

Ace hobbled in and stopped, leaning up against the door frame for support. His eyes trailed the men who all pointed guns at him but then they settled on me.

“So clearly we still have some trust issues.”

“Search him.” I ordered Angelo. He looked at my father momentarily, almost dismissing my leadership now that the real don was back. “Now.” I spoke with even more threat.

“Yes ma’am.” Ace allowed himself to be searched, all the while keeping his eye contact hooked onto me. “He is unarmed.” Angelo confirmed and I nodded.

“Grace?” He asked me directly.

“Come.” I walked towards the stairs and he took a few steps forward, dragging his leg.

“Upstairs?” He asked, holding his thigh.

“Too weak to climb the stairs?” He narrowed his eyes at me and then followed me up, very slowly.

“Leave us now.” I demanded the security that I had positioned outside my bedroom door.

They gave Ace a double look and then left without questioning my order.

Aces hobble got faster when he spotted Gracie laying in my bed sound asleep. He brushed her hair away from her face and kissed her warm forehead. He looked to be checking her over for any signs of physical injuries.

“Daddy?” She whispered, stirred from her sleep.

“Yeah sweetheart, it’s me.” He smiled softly.

“I love you daddy.”

“I love you so much beautiful girl, go back to sleep I’m not going anywhere.” She closed her eyes again, cuddling her bunny tighter.

He stood up and looked at me and I never for one second took my eyes off of him. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“No.” He smirked at me.

“You’d rather I pee on your carpet?”

“I’d rather not leave you alone where you could create a shiv out of my toothbrush and jam it into my neck.”

“It’s okay Red, you can drop it down. I literally just walked into my biggest enemies living quarters, unarmed and injured. I’m not a threat to anyone here. I’m not a threat to you.”

“I’m still not leaving you alone.”

He grabbed my hand and walked, with great difficulty into the bathroom.

“I’m not watching you pee.”

“I don’t need to pee, shut up.” He got a washcloth and dotted at the dried blood and cuts around his face, cleaning himself up. “You guys really destroyed a pretty thing.” He commented with the hint of a smile.

“You seem really calm considering you’re unarmed in the enemy safe-house.”

“You’re the only one who considers me an enemy red. Your family and I have moved past it. It’s all about business now. They help me kill Nikolai, I marry you.”

“Stop saying that, stop talking about me like I’m a business transaction.” He looked back at me through the mirror, continuing to clean up his face.

“Well, you kinda are.” He admitted. “Nothing compares to the emotions I felt the past two days.” He looked at Grace through the doorway. “I’m calm because she is here, she is unharmed. That’s all that matters to me.”

He ran the wash cloth under warm water and squeezed it out. Pink blood-stained water ran down the drain and he continued his mantra again, washing himself off.

He removed his trousers and assessed the dagger gash to his thigh. He rummaged through my drawers and got out a sewing kit.

I stood in the doorway as he threaded the needle, burnt the ends and hesitated to stab himself.

“I fucking hate needles, can you?” He held the needle out to me and I folded my arms.

“No.”

“Fuck, red. Why are you so mad? Your family are alive, I didn’t kill them.”

“You made me think that you did. You asked my dad if you could marry me without even talking to me about it first. Why do you think it’s okay to make decisions for me?”

“Because that’s the way of the mafia?”

I marched up to him and dropped to my knees, yanking the stupid needle out of his hand.

Without care I stabbed him and sewn his cut back together. He winced and swore and flinched and basically acted a giant fucking pussy the whole time but then I stood up and backed away.

“You made decisions for me like my opinion didn’t even matter. You controlled me without even taking into consideration what I wanted.”

He stood up and used the sink counter to support his body weight.

“Fine, what do you want?”

“I want to pick my own partner.” He wrapped his arms around me.

“So, pick me.” He kissed the top of my head and I pushed him away. He sighed, exhaustedly.

“And if I don’t pick you?”

“Then your father and me still have a deal. I’m sorry Red, either way these mafias are merging at our hands.”

“Fuck you Ace!”

He rolled his eyes.

“Jesus Red,” he swore. “You said it yourself, you love me and I love you, we have a deep connection. It’s a no brainer. You’re just being a stubborn little bitch because you don’t like being told what to do.”

“But you made this decision for me before you even knew any of that.”

“I always knew it.” He ran his fingers through his messy hair and then peered at me deeply.

“You know why I saved you as a kid?” I didn’t say anything, I didn’t even shake my head.

“Because I looked into your eyes and felt your soul. I saved you because I said to myself ‘that’s the girl I’m going to marry.’ I knew that at eight Red.”

“Bullshit.”

“And it’s why I turned down the Daria merge even though she had my daughter. I was waiting for you because as cheesy as it sounds, I knew you were my soulmate and soulmates always found their way back to one another.”

He stepped closer to me and tilted my chin up to meet him. “So, I’m asking you to pick me.”

I didn’t offer him a reply.

He glanced over at the bed. “Let’s go to sleep, you might feel differently in the morning.”