Emilia (Part 1)(24)

“This is Sal D’Amico.”

I waved my hand in Sal’s direction, and he stepped forward, gripping Lorenzo’s hand in a firm grasp. His knuckles whitened, his lips thinned, and I saw the gesture for what it was—a warning shot.

“Nice to meet you,” Sal grunted out, looking a little irritated.

“Emilia, may I call you Emilia?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“You’ve been on our radar for years, and we’d like to officially offer you a position at San Luigi.” He pulled an envelope out of his black leather briefcase and handed it to me. “All the details are inside. While I’m confident you’ll find the offer to your liking, we can discuss the details over dinner.”

“Um, well…” I would have loved to dive into this feet first, but I had a lot to consider before I could enter into serious discussions with this man.

Sal edged forward, throwing his arm around my shoulder. “Emilia has dinner plans, but she’ll look over the details and get back with you. Your contact information is inside, right?”

Sal’s face was all hard, unforgiving angles, his jaw muscles working overtime, a complete one-eighty from his greeting after the performance.

“I leave tomorrow, and I will be traveling for a couple of weeks, so it has to be tonight.”

“Emilia needs to run this by her father before she can arrange a meeting.”

I took in a deep breath, tamping down the compulsion to contradict Sal and cause a scene. This wasn’t his business even if my dad had appointed him as my official chaperone after the incident at the warehouse. Sal kept me safe that day, so my dad rewarded him by sticking him on daughter duty. I couldn’t complain when it meant I got to see Sal nearly every day and I liked him. A lot. Even if he hadn’t so much as touched me inappropriately since that night in my room.

“She’s over eighteen, no?” Lorenzo shot back, the vein at his temple throbbing. “She can make her own decisions, and the offer includes a full scholarship, along with living expenses, so there’s not much to consider. Her needs will be taken care of.”

My heart vaulted against my chest. I wanted to scream yes at the top of my lungs. The offer bordered on being too good to be true. While I was an accomplished pianist, I didn’t have any notoriety outside of New York. I’ve never performed anywhere that would draw international interest, and that alone made me hesitate to come right out and accept the offer.

“Excuse us for a second. I need to talk to Emilia in private,” Sal announced, already hauling me across the room by my wrist.

“You overbearing ciuccio…Oh, I can’t believe you dragged me away like I’m incapable of…of…” I sputtered, seething. I glared at him for a long time, unable to form a coherent response.

“Em, listen to me,” he implored, his arms coming around me.

“No, you listen to me. I don’t need you telling me what options I can consider. I have a father to do that, and trust me, he doesn’t let me make a single decision by myself, and I’m starting to think you’ll turn out to be worse than him.”

He scoffed. “You can handle me. Compared to your dad, I’m a walk in the park. I don’t have any ulterior motives. What you see is what you get.” With every word, his mouth brushed against my ear, and his hands skated up and down my upper arms. A shiver rolled through me.

“Yeah, I’m not that stupid. I know you’re not as straightforward as you seem. You have secrets. You have motives. Everyone does, and you’re no different. I just haven’t figured out what your angle is yet.”

His calloused hands sunk in the back of my hair, and he tipped my face upward, forcing me to meet his eyes. His thumbs moved in a circular pattern near my temples. “Think about this for a second without going off half-cocked. Your dad would kill me if I let you go to dinner with some man without his permission, and I’m pretty sure he’d lock you in your room for weeks. You know how particular he is about accounting for your time. I’m not blind. I see how much you want this, but pissing off your dad right now isn’t the way for you to go about getting it.”

In my heart, I acknowledged the truth in his words, and it scared me. Would I ever be free of my father? Maybe I was spinning my wheels here. I could run away, join the circus, accept this scholarship, and none of it mattered. My father would always be right around the corner, sucking me back into his life and everything that came along with being at the center of the Trassato Crime Family. The restrictions, the expectations—all of it conspired to enslave me and permanently chain me to a future I didn’t want.