Contract War

Chapter 17

After bidding farewell to each of the family members we hit the road.

"Did you have fun with Papa Ricci, sweetie?" I asked Johnny.

"Yeah, he's really funny. He told me stories about how he killed a lot of bad men with his gun..." he finished off with a yawn.

All the colour drained from Derek's face and I stiffened beside him, but we didn't say anything. Johnny fell asleep a few minutes later.

Daniel who had been driving in front of us moved into the other lane and slowed down until he was driving right beside us. He flashed his lights twice, I imagined him saying 'See you later, slowpokes'. Derek reciprocated...they had just exchanged wordless goodbyes. Danny drove off, his lambo roaring into the night.

Derek chuckled.

I had feeling we would be in the middle of a car race right now if Johnny wasn't in the car and we didn't have bodyguards in cars behind and in front of us.

I stared out the window at the thick forest of trees we were passing and sighed. A thought popped into my head and I looked at Derek before asking him, "Do they know that our marriage was arranged?"

"No," he cleared his throat, "and they're not supposed to find out,"

"Are you too embarrassed about all of it?"

His jaw tightened. "No, Turquoise. I fear that if they find out then they'll start digging and they'll know about your relationship with Philip which they will see as some kind of threat,"

"And then?"

"I know my family, Turquoise, they're capable of wiping out someone's existence."

Oh.

I almost passed out at the thought of my boyfriend being wiped off of the face of the earth.

"I'm just glad they accepted Johnny into the family," Derek changed the topic.

"Me too." My mind drifted back to Roman Vittori's speech, when he said something about Derek becoming his consigliere.

"Hey, umm..." I really didn't know how to go about this issue, "have you thought about becoming Roman's consigliere?"

'And the phrase 'beating around the bush never existed' never existed,'

'ZIP IT.'

"Well..." he cleared his throat, "if I had a twin then it would definitely be Roman, that's how close we are...and if Roman wants me to officially become part of the mafia as his advisor then I would be honoured. Plus I figured that since my wife is already a mafia leader then I might as well tag along, it will make the English-Italian mafia powerful if we work together."

"I think you need to take more time to think about this,"

Why do I sound selfish?

"I might not have grown up around mafia pros but I'm not entirely clueless about what exactly goes down in the mafia,"

"I'm just saying, Derek, I don't think you really understand what exactly goes down in the mafia,"

"And what's that supposed to mean?" He was starting to sound really agitated.

"I'm only giving you a heads up because I see it now that the mafia is a no joke. I dived into it head first without a warning because I had no choice and I had no time to process anything. The mafia is nothing like in those fantasy novels, it's a place where you're forced to switch off your humanity and lock your conscience in the darkest dungeons of your mind. That's the only way to survive..." I let out a shaky breath and said, "and it might also be the best way to lose your sanity."