Borrowed Bride: Chapter 33

“This wasn’t part of the plan!” Marco hisses at Fawn, grabbing her arm the second she greets us outside the old bakery she brought Dante to.

The building is smack-dab in the middle of the city and in Fawn’s words, it’s the perfect place to hold him. No one will be looking right in the heart of disaster, and I have to agree with her.

“No, it wasn’t part of your plan,” Fawn snaps back, jerking her arm out of his grip. “I saw an opportunity and I took it, okay?”

“What opportunity?” I ask before Marco can let out another frustration that might have Fawn turning us away.

She glares at Marco, then turns to me with a small sigh. “When I was in that apartment for Emilia, I took a look at Dante’s computer. There wasn’t much to go on, but I noticed he had Find My Device turned on, so I secured access and pinged his phone. Easy peasy.”

“Dangerous,” Marco mutters.

“Amazing,” pipes up Leo, but he’s quickly silenced by a glare from Marco and Fawn.

“Do you want to spend all night out here arguing about it or do you want to confront the fucker?” Fawn crosses her arms over her chest. “Because at this point, I’m good with either.”

Marco grumbles to himself and indicates for Fawn to lead the way inside. On our drive over, he kept telling me that it was a bad idea for me to come and that I should return to Freya, but I refused. I need to know why he locked me up for all those years, for my sake and my daughter’s.

Inside, Fawn leads us through the dusty, unused bakery and through a small corridor down to where the old kitchen is. Nothing in here has seen light for years, and the only scent, other than dust, is a faint, acrid stink of rye. Fawn has Dante tied to a chair near the old furnace and it’s no surprise that somehow she’s managed to stoke the fire and bring the flames to life. The light dances over Dante’s bruised face where he’s taken one or two punches.

“Oh there she is,” Dante spits. “The fucking whore. And who did she bring with her, huh?”

As Marco steps forward, Leo catches my arm and holds me back with him in the darkness. As much as I want answers, Dante is Marco’s father and he likely has a great deal to say to him, almost as much as Fawn, no doubt. My heart goes out to Marco as I watch his shoulders bunch up while he steps into the flickering light. Dante flips like a switch.

“Oh my son! You came! Thank God, thank God! Please, you have to help me. This woman, this crazy woman attacked me and killed my guards, then dragged me here. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but thank God you’re here!”

Marco doesn’t reply. He stops a foot away from his restrained father and folds his large arms over his larger chest.

“Don’t just stand there!” Dante pulls against his restraints and rocks his chair back and forth. “Kill her!”

“Why did you sell her?” Marco asks, and confusion flashes over Dante’s face.

“Sell her? What are you talking about? I don’t even know her!”

“You really don’t recognize her?” Marco speaks tightly, his voice small. “Take a good, long look.”

“Marco, my boy. Whatever she has told you is bullshit, okay? You can’t just stand there and let some fucking cunt tie up your own fat—” His words end in a spray of blood as Fawn punches him hard across the face. He coughs and splutters as she steps back, shaking her hand free of the pain.

Then Leo moves past me and steps into the light.

I watch the pieces slot together in Dante’s mind as he looks from Marco to Leo, and then to Fawn who regards him with cold disgust. The moment Dante realizes he’s been caught, really caught, his whole demeanor changes. He relaxes back into the chair like he’s at a bar, and a strange smile creeps across his blood-stained lips.

“I suppose I won’t be seeing the Ricci family for some time,” he says with a soft grunt. “Figures.”

“There’s so much I want to ask you,” Marco grinds out through clenched teeth. “But I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold back my anger listening to the bullshit that spews from your lips so you better start talking, and fucking quickly.”

“So this is it?” Dante snorts. “My own son goes behind my back and teams up with the fucking Simones of all people.”

“I know, I’m just as surprised,” Leo comments. “Isn’t it fucked up what brings people together?”

“You were tearing each other apart just last week,” Dante scowls.

“Actually, Leo and I haven’t been fighting one another for longer than that,” Marco says, and he rocks back onto his heels.

My chest aches like a large pressure has settled just above my breastbone, and the air in the room feels thin when I breathe. I want to touch Marco. I want to feel his warmth in my hand to reassure myself that everything is alright, because I’m scared. Scared that Dante may reveal something so awful that this shaky alliance will crumble. Scared that no matter what happens here, the death will never end.

I wrap my arms around myself and bite my lower lip, watching as Fawn punches Dante once again. This time she grabs him by the collar and hauls him upright, then grabs a fistful of his hair and jerks his head back.

“They have more patience than I do,” she growls. “So, start talking.”

“Fine,” Dante spits, spraying bloodied saliva up at Fawn. “What do you wanna know, huh?”

“Everything,” Marco says, and there’s a touch of pain in his voice. “Why did you sell Fawn? Why the fuck did you get into bed with the Ricci’s and the Russians? What the hell were you thinking?”

“Me?” Dante cackles suddenly. “What about you, son? Every step into power, you spat on the old ways and disrespected our traditions. The ways that have kept our family on top for decades were suddenly not good enough for you, and ironically it was all my fault. If your mother hadn’t died, you’d have grown up as bloodthirsty as me.”

A chill coils down my spine as Marco speaks. “Mom? How the fuck is that your fault?”

“Because you,” Dante yells, nodding at Leonardo, “were supposed to marry Emilia. Our families were supposed to merge with that marriage, and we would have become so powerful I wouldn’t have had to deal with the Russians. Instead, my wife had a few things to say about that and then she never stopped. She was so against it because she was stupid and couldn’t bear to be parted from her darling daughter.”

A union between Leonardo and Emilia? It’s hard for me to picture such an agreement since the two families have been fighting for as long as I’ve known them. It must have been very different back then.

“But your father, Luca Simone, it was the only deal he would accept. Those were his terms and he was a hard man. So I did what I had to do.”

Marco grunts like he’s been wounded. “Luca sent those assassins, didn’t he? The ones that broke into the estate that day? The ones that killed Mother and maimed Emilia and nearly killed me?”

“They didn’t break into the estate,” Dante says coldly. “I let them in. And then they were off their leash, and once they were finished with Emilia, there was barely any deal to be had. There was nothing left of her.”

Marco’s fist flies out as quick as a flash and strikes his father across the head with a solid sound of impact. The force knocks the chair off-balance and Dante crashes backward, landing on his bound arms with a cry of pain.

“Beating up an old man?” he rasps from the floor. “Maybe you’re more bloodthirsty than I thought.”

“How could you?!” Marco rages, grabbing Dante by the collar and dragging him back up. “How could you let that happen to your wife? Your own daughter?!”

“Things got a little out of hand, I admit,” Dante chokes. “I realized that your devotion to your sister made you easy to control, but Luca still saw you as being in the way. So he sent her.” He looks at Fawn like she’s the most hideous thing he’s ever seen. “Did she tell you she was sent to kill you?”

“Yes,” Marco growls, releasing his grip with a snarl of disgust. “She told me everything.”

My heart hammers painfully as Dante’s face twists. He seems to know that it’s completely over for him and now he’s just trying to sow discourse and leave behind pain as a final act of revenge.

“Stupid bitch fell in love, and Luca couldn’t bear to stomach the disappointment. It was him who sold her, not me. You understand?” He glares at Fawn. “It was your own father. I just took the pleasure of fucking that smirk right off your face.”

When Fawn launches forward with a scream, no one moves to stop her. She attacks Dante in a fury of punches, clawing and yelling as he mocks her assault. Marco lets her while Leo suddenly doubles over as if he’s winded.

“Dad?” he says weakly. “He wouldn’t, there’s no way because he …” He pauses and straightens up suddenly, then turns to Dante.

“That’s what he meant.”

“Huh?” Marco sends up a single glance.

“Remember I told you on his deathbed I overheard him talking about your family and sister? He was talking about Fawn, not Emilia. All those years, he knew she was alive and out there because he put her out there himself.”

“I’m sorry,” Marco says tightly.

“If he wasn’t dead, I’d kill him myself,” Leo grunts, then he moves forward and drags Fawn off of Dante.

Dante is a panting, bleeding mess. His shirt is torn open and blood constantly drools from his lower lip. One eye is swelling shut and his head drifts back and forth.

“You see?” he slurs. “No one’s family is perfect, but at least I never sold my own kid.”

“You tried to though, didn’t you? You were talking about marrying Emilia off before it was too late.” Marco starts to pace back and forth in front of his father. “I never did ask who you wanted to marry her to because I was never going to let you. But it was the Ricci’s, wasn’t it?”

Dante laughs and he sounds like he’s drowning.

“Then why me?” I step forward, my heart pounding ferociously beneath my chest. Each step feels like I’m walking on Jello from how hard my legs tremble. “You hid that I was alive. You hid that I had a child. You kept me a prisoner under the guise of safety. Why?”

Dante lifts his head and when we lock eyes, the faint back and forth of his head stops. “You,” Dante murmurs. “You were an impossible irritation. A piece I never planned for and in truth I just wanted you dead. But then I saw that baby. And I knew. In my bones I knew who the father was. It was the eyes, you see. I looked at that baby and I saw Marco’s eyes.”

My skin crawls and I clutch at my elbow to try and stem the sensation across my skin.

“But I couldn’t raise a baby.” He laughs at the thought. “Setting off the explosives in the safe house was supposed to erase two problems, but Marco survived and with that, you suddenly had use. You could do the raising until the time was right.”

“Right for what?” Marco demands sharply.

“You and Leo would kill each other eventually, then I would marry Gianna making our daughter legitimate. Then I’d marry Freya off to the Ricci’s, let them absorb us and power would be⁠—”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish. Marco is on him and there’s no stopping him. The fury he unleashes is unlike anything I’ve seen before, and it matches the flurry in which my mind races.

If Marco had died in that explosion five years ago, Dante would have killed me and taken my baby? And because he didn’t, he locked me up to care for her while waiting for Marco and Leo to kill each other off.

When he looked at my daughter, all he saw was something he could use.

I feel sick. My stomach churns in sharp circles as my mind floods with the awful future that was awaiting me, that I was completely oblivious to.

It hurts.

And as I watch Marco beat his father to a pulp, I catch a glimpse of the pleased look in Dante’s eye.

“Marco, stop,” I say, rushing forward. Marco doesn’t hear me, he’s so blinded with rage. As his arm flies back to punch Dante once more, I catch it and he freezes. When he looks at me, there’s such pain in his eyes that my heart breaks for him.

“Don’t,” I say softly through the tears building in my eyes. “He’s not worth it.”

“But he⁠—”

“I know, but he wants this. Look at him. He wants you to break while denying the one person who deserves to take his life.”

Marco pants heavily, then we look to Fawn who stares coldly down at Dante.

“What? Not got the balls to finish it?” Dante gurgles behind a smashed jaw.

“Nah,” Marco sniffs and he steps back, his shoulders heaving. “It’s not up to me.”

After a few silent glances, Leo, Marco, and I leave Fawn alone with Dante. We head out of the bakery and gather in the parking lot, giving Fawn the time she needs to put to rest a man who caused her such terrible pain. As we wait, I clean up Marco the best I can, wiping away the blood and trying to clean his busted knuckles.

We’re silent until Fawn appears thirty minutes later. She’s quiet but there’s something lighter about her. She stops nearby and looks at Marco. “Sorry I spent so much time trying to kill you.”

Marco chuckles. “Sorry my family fucked you up so much.”

“And ours,” Leo adds. “Our own father … Fawn, I’m so sorry.”

She rolls one shoulder and sighs. “This is gonna take a shit ton of therapy.”

“Will you come home?” Leo asks, taking a step toward his sister.

The hesitation is clear in her eyes. “Maybe. I need to think. Process.”

He nods and as they hug, I turn to Marco and cup his face. “Let’s go home. Let me take care of you.”

A new sadness weighs on Marco as he nods. “Let’s go home.”