"Alright, then." Aidan was already mentally in his bed as he left the office, so the reality of that job being over seemed to wipe him out.
The ride home was quicker than normal, and he almost dreaded going inside. He didn't want to have to deal with this shit. He was a few chick a night fucker, but he couldn't even think about going out to score. Fuck … he was losing his damn self over a woman who was over him. He'd think about that shit tomorrow.
He put his hands in his pockets to find the key to his apartment and in that pocket he found the sparkly diamond bracelet that he was trying to give Lucca when it all went south. He held it up to the light and was again amazed at the clarity of the stones. He wasn't a jeweler, but even a blind man could tell this wasn't just your regular mass market jewelry.
Holding the treasure in his hand, he wondered what he was supposed to do with this. One thing he knew for sure was that these little quirks of fate were signs and even if he didn't normally believe in them, he was going to believe in it now.
Here he was with a big ticket item in his hands, and he had to get it back to her. Maybe she'd not noticed it was missing yet. He'd followed along in the paper and knew that the funeral was a closed event with only close family and friends, but that was going on tomorrow. He wouldn't break into the funeral. Aidan wasn't a religious man, but he respected what other people chose for their religion.
Setting the piece on his side table, he went to sleep and hoped that all would be figured out when he awoke.
He was bone tired and miserable, but he couldn't get a wink of sleep. It was like the bracelet was calling to him and wanting to return to its owner. That's what he would do; he'd wait a few days and then get back so he could give her a chance to receive the offering in the spirit in which it was given … like a man who was going to have to live without oxygen and was trying with all he had for a few more sucks to fill his lungs.
With a plan in his head and Lorna's jewels in his hand, he could feel himself drifting off. He hoped his girl was going to get a bit of rest because he was coming back with a vengeance. Would it be a fight? Maybe … but would it be worth it? Hell yeah.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"So how does it feel … knowing that the man you spread your legs for killed your cousin?"
Lorna Giovanni had been listening to her father ask questions like that for the last 29 days. The exact amount of days that her beloved Lucca had been killed. There was no reason to try to explain that her; she didn't really have a title for him. It didn't help that Aidan had been the hit man that was sent to kill Lucca and met her by trying to pump her for information. They'd ended up doing a whole lot of pumping, but of another kind.
"Just eat a little more, princess, and then he'll let you go." Her mother whispered to her looking like a ventriloquist. She never knew how her mother could talk without looking like she was talking while she was doing something else. Lorna knew that her mother had been married to the head of the local mafia for over 42 years, so she guessed she shouldn't have been that surprised that the woman had a few tricks up her sleeve. She wondered if she'd be able to help her not want to kill the man in her sleep.
"Thanks, Mama," she said to her mother not even knowing what she was thanking her for. Looking down at her plate, she decided to try eating a bit of food, but the hostility in the air and her anxiety had made eating impossible. She'd lost 23 pounds since the day her world had darkened, and although at any other time she'd have been throwing a ticker tape parade, now she just didn't give a damn about anything.
"You have no answer for me, princess?" How her father made that pet name sound like profanity she didn't know, but it turned her stomach. It wasn't until recently that she'd even liked that title even though people had called her that her entire life. That was just another thing that Aidan had made special for her.
"I've been here, in this house, for almost a month practically on house arrest." Lorna had taken about as much as she planned to from this man. He could have sat at the end of the table with his plate of lasagna and glass of red wine, enjoying the meal and sitting with all 5 of his children peacefully, but that would be too much for Antonio Giovanni. "I've listened to your mean words and your hateful glares because maybe in some way I felt I deserved them, but it ends today."
"Oh, is that so?" Her father wiped his mouth on the fine linen napkin, and he piped up in his chair. It looked like he'd been waiting for a fight, and that was fine because she was about to bring it.
"Yes. You've locked me out of my home, closed my boutique, and kept me in this high priced pumpkin shell you call a home." Lorna heard the gasps around the table where her four brothers and mother sat staring at the two of them like they knew that this conversation was about to get heated.
"A high priced pumpkin shell? That's a good one. I allow a daughter of mine who snuck off to be with a killer the generosity of my house, and this is what I get?" Her father loved to get himself worked up over injustices that he'd made up in his mind, and the laughing he did as he was speaking sounded like mocking. "Not only snuck off with him but warned him about family business. Let him be free so he could then kill your cousin."
Her father was standing up and yelling now, and the ‘Alright Pop' that everyone was saying from around the table sounded like the murmuring of a crowd. The red face and the bulging veins at his temple made her fear his death if he didn't settle down.
"It wasn't like that, Papa." Lorna tried to keep her voice at a respectable level. "You've never listened to what I've had to say. You've made up your mind about what I did and why I did it, and then you closed the case. I'm 27 years old and I've made some mistakes, but I didn't have anything to do with killing Lucca. No one loved him more than me."
She was looking down at her lap, so she heard more than saw her father sit back down in his seat. When she took a chance to scan the table, she noticed that everyone was looking down into their plates like it took an advanced degree to clean their plate. Her Papa was looking at her like he didn't know who she was. Lorna understood that. She had changed in the few weeks she'd known Aidan.
"May I be excused," Lorna asked her mother because if she asked her father and he said no, it was debatable if she would end up in jail or a mental facility.
"Yes, honey." Her mother was a sweet woman who only wanted peace for her family. It was probably where Lorna had gotten her desire for clean living and nonviolent tendencies.
She went up to her room and closed the door longing for the two bedroom home she had before this whole fiasco started. It was bad enough she had nothing to do with her days, but her nights were long, lonely, and boring as well. This is the reason why she wanted to have her own shit. Her father wouldn't have been able to lock her out of her own home and business if it was actually hers. She was such a hypocrite in saying she didn't want to be a part of her father's business, but she didn't mind accepting the fruits of his criminal labor. His money paid for everything and was probably a money laundering facility.
Falling on her bed, her mind went to where it normally went when she had a few minutes to herself … Aidan Barnes. That black haired, green eyed devil had given her more experience in three weeks than anyone else in her whole life. The talks they had when they finally opened up to each other made her feel close to him. From his life in foster care feeling alone and abandoned to his life with this club that seemed to fill that void. He was working hard to find a way around the Lucca situation, but if her father was telling the truth, Aidan had shot Lucca in cold blood as soon as he met with him at their warehouse.
It didn't make any sense to her. Aidan had told her that there was another man there that had followed him from a tracker his club put on his bike. Was that a lie? She knew that he made up tales about where he'd been and who he was when she met him, but she only recognized it because she, the eldest daughter of the local mob boss, was well versed in making up a new story for her existence. A lie, was a lie, was a lie … she knew that, but she felt like they were too close for him to do that to her, especially since he knew how much Lucca meant to her.
She was so wired up. There was no way she was going to be able to calm herself down if she didn't stop beating herself up about loving a man who'd killed her greatest protector and friend Lucca. All her life she thought she had intuition on her side. She knew things about people … sometimes it was just a feeling, and other times it was just as clear as if the person yelled out their personality type. Aidan was a lover she knew that for sure and whomever else he'd killed, it didn't touch his desire to do good when he thought it was the right thing to do. But somehow she'd missed something or maybe he was such a psychopath that believed his own lies he'd fooled her.