Kiss de La Notte - Book III (Mafia Romance)

Chapter Forty-Three: Web of Lies

WELL, WELL, WELL.

SHE'S BACK.

***

I'd killed a man.

Anthony Cafaro was dead.

And the night hadn't exactly gone according to plan, but I wasn't dead yet, so that was a plus.

Key word: yet.

This was the last thing I'd wanted to happen. If Giuseppe kept to his script that he'd killed Anthony, then blackmailing him over his situation with Lucius's sister Carmine then maybe this fallback could cover my own ass. But blackmailing a made man was a massive risk in itself, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to tell that Guiseppe was an unstable psychopath. I couldn't rely on him keeping his word. If Lazzaro La Notte found out that it was me who killed Anthony Cafarro, the ruse would be up: he'd kill me.

And then there was Lucius.

The way he'd looked at me. That dark glint to his hazel eyes as took in Anthony Cafaro's dead body. I'd thought I was dead right there on the spot. Then Giuseppe had spoken up and said that he'd shot Anthony, and that Anthony had attacked me. I didn't catch all of their conversation––the ringing in my ears was too loud as I reeled over the insane predicament that I had gotten myself into.

"Korinna." Lucius's hand pressed into my wet cheek, jarring me into awareness that I was no longer at the scene of the crime in the gazebo. We were standing in the parking lot of the event, surrounded by La Notte suits. People were loading into cars, leaving the venue. "

"Giuseppe said he attacked you," Lucius said. "He said if he hadn't intervened, Anthony would have assaulted you."

He seemed to be waiting for my response, and it unsettled me. I nodded, albeit, reluctantly, since I didn't know what Giuseppe had told him. The truth was, I didn't have to act like I was in shock over killing Anthony. I was. I could feel it in my limbs, which were stiff and braced for flight, and in my lungs, tight with anxiety.

Lucius lifted his hand, hovering the backs of his fingers against my back as he guided me to an armored vehicle. I had the absurd need to hug him. To touch him. To let him touch me back. Touch me everywhere Marcus had, everywhere Anthony has dared to tonight but never got the chance.

"I need to be my father. Are you going to be okay until I get back?"

My eyes snapped to his. He wasn't going to interrogate me.

He trusted Giuseppe.

More than I thought.

"You're going to go back to the lake house with Carmine and my mother," Lucius continued. "We will talk later."

He was being so casual about it, so cold, like this happened all the time in the La Notte family––hell, it definitely did. And that made him every bit of the psychopath that Marcos was. But I didn't want him to go. Lucius felt like my safe ground, the safest person I knew right now.

I was so fucked.

I needed to get the hell home.

The problem? There wasn't any service driving up into the mountains of the La Notte's winter log cabin, and before I could take out my phone, Lucius had handed me off to his mother, who wrapped me in her fur coat in a way that kept my hand from my purse.

She played the part of the consoling mother-in-law to be and began to tell me a story about when she'd first met Lazzaro, but again, I'd tuned out all of my surroundings.