Kon (Trassato Crime Family Book 2)(57)

“That boy?” I glared at her. “He has a name, Mom. It’s Konstantin. You know that. Don’t pretend he’s some distant stranger. He’s Evie’s brother.”

She folded her arms around the waist of her black dress. “Are you going to come down and talk to them or should I send them up here?”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“At least come down and say hello to Emilia.”

“What? Emilia’s here?”

“Yes.”

“How’d that happened?”

Emilia was Dominick’s daughter. She was five years younger than me, and she had disappeared the night before her eighteenth birthday party. Dominick pretended as if she didn’t exist. His house had been stripped of all her pictures and he’d turned her bedroom into an exercise room.

Until two years ago when I overheard my mom and dad saying she had married some guy in California I had assumed she was dead. We’d never been overly close. She kept to herself, barely interacting with anyone at family events other than Letizia, and she disappeared from our life right after Emilia. My mom claimed Emilia was introverted because she lost her mom when she was thirteen years old. To me, she came off as dark and full of disdain for all of us.

“I’m not sure. Dominick doesn’t confide in me.”

“Fine. I’ll come down, but only because I want to see Emilia.” For the first time in my life, I felt a weird kinship with her. My family was suffocating me, and I suspected she might be able to relate.

Before I made it to the great room, Gian pulled me into my father’s mostly abandoned study. Inside, Dominick sat behind the desk, his imposing demeanor and dark scowl claiming it as his own. Behind him, Sal and Tony stood on either side of him like centurions, their backs to the wall, one hand tucked inside their jackets, poised to kill any threat to the head of our family.

“Carmela.” Dominick’s gravelly voice echoed through the room. “Please take a seat.”

I glanced back at my brother, and he merely nodded his head. He’d given me the cold shoulder since he discovered Kon in my hospital bed. His betrayal and refusal to support me made my heart ache.

I slid into the chocolate leather chair across from him, and Gian took the seat next to me. I had no illusions this meant he was on my team and intended to support me. Dominick ruled this family with a heavy hand, and whatever I said right now wouldn’t alter the outcome.

“I’m disappointed in your refusal to honor your dad’s wishes to marry Nico,” he started. “We’ve protected you and gave you unprecedented freedom after Rocco’s death. We’ve let you have your design business you didn’t think we knew about. We permitted you to live in the city until your dad died. We gave you a little leeway in your relationship with the Trincher man. However, all of that is over. You’re going to do the right thing now.”

“What’s that?” I asked him, although I already knew the answer. I wanted him to spell it out and make it absolutely clear that he expected me to marry someone I didn’t like or want as though we lived in the Victorian era, not the twenty-first century.

He tugged on the cuffs of his white shirt and slid his suit-clad elbows across the glossy desk. “Let me lay it on the line for you. I’m hosting an engagement party for you and Nico in three days. You will marry him by the end of the month in a small ceremony in your backyard. The plans are already in the works. We don’t need or want your input. All we need from you is for you to slip on the dress purchased for you, walk down the aisle, and say ‘I do.’”

“No. I won’t marry Nico.”

“It’s been decided, and considering your behavior lately, you’re lucky marrying Nico is the only consequence.”

“Gian.” My head whipped to the side, my eyes meeting his. “You said you’d support me. That you wouldn’t make me marry Nico. You’re supposed to be on my side. You’re my brother.”

“I’m sorry, Carmela.” The skin under his eyes looked bruised. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. He looked like crap. “You’re marrying Nico. There isn’t a way out of this. I can’t keep you safe anymore. You need to be under someone’s protection.”

“This is ridiculous. You don’t have any evidence that person targeted me, yet you’re keeping me under lock and key like a prisoner, and now you want me to marry some guy neither of us likes so I’m safe. What about happy? Do you care if I’m happy? Or is this all about assuaging your conscience and ticking off some mental checklist so you can get to your perfect little life while mine continues to burn?”