Mafia Betrayal

Chapter Twenty Six

Luca

I paced around our bedroom, sure I was leaving a trail on the carpet. Charlotte was in the shower, had been for almost thirty minutes right now. I didn't want to intrude, but every few minutes I pressed my ear to the door, waiting for some kind of sign of life. It wasn't like I thought she was suicidal or anything so drastic—I was just worried. She was like a zombie after I let her talk to Grant and acted completely out of character.

I never should have let that happen. The entire time Charlotte showered, I went back over it in my mind, chastising myself for letting it get out of hand. I never should have gone against my better judgment and just sent her home the second Carlo found her at the safe house.

Her defiance infuriated me, but it didn't even seem to make her waver. She was hell bent on speaking with Grant and by letting her; I set a dangerous precedent.

Now she would think that my orders were open for discussion and that if she just pressed long enough, I would give in. That couldn't happen. Not this time around. I was keeping her out of the business for her own good, and for Layla's, and Charlotte needed to learn to respect that.

She was the one adamant about her and Layla staying away from the danger. How the fuck was I supposed to manage that if she kept challenging my decisions at every turn?

I understood her compulsive need to talk to Grant. I knew none of this was easy on her and that she expected some kind of peaceful closure from seeing and talking with him. That wasn't what happened, though. In fact, he only seemed to make things worse and now Charlotte was in a spiral I was praying I could coax her out of.

The way she cried in my arms today was like nothing I'd experienced with her before. She was broken and hurting in unimaginable ways, and I didn't know how to fix it. How to help. I could see how much she needed that release, and if anything good came from today, it was that she got it. Everything she'd been feeling over the last few weeks came to a head, and now, hopefully, she could move past it.

Charlotte didn't want to be controlled, but she also didn't know the first thing about the Mafia or how to we functioned. Sooner or later, she was going to have to accept that my word was law around certain things, and not everything was a discussion. It wasn't only for her safety, but for the safety of everyone else, too. I couldn't afford to be worried about her going rogue when I had a mafia to run. If she wanted out, she had to stay out. It was all or nothing.

She whipped that gun out from Marco's waistband like a professional, but she nearly killed us all in the process. Everything that happened today was just one more indication that Charlotte and Layla needed to be separated from my work. Involving her in any capacity was like bringing a knife to a gunfight. She was completely over-matched—fatally so.

Today could have had a much different outcome. Everyone was safe, thank God. But that was by a pure stroke of luck. The way that bullet bounced off the walls, any of us could be dead, or at the very least seriously injured.

Charlotte needed to understand all of that, but I wasn't naïve enough to think I could handle this how I normally would. Thanks to my father and the world he brought me up in, violence was my go to all the time. I'd witnessed women in the mafia beaten to a bloody pulp for much less than what she'd done today, but that wasn't me. My dad ruled our house with an iron fist, and I swore I would never become that.

I wasn't like him. I didn't need my fists to solve this for me. I lost brief control over the last few weeks, but that would never happen again. I'd stop at nothing to make sure it didn't.

If I was going to work things out with Charlotte, things had to change. I had to change. Charlotte was my equal, not the meek and helpless little thing I first appraised her at. For the first time in my life, I was going to explain myself. Maybe if she knew my reasoning, it would help her understand the gravity of all of this.