Page 30 of A Beautiful Crime

Savio nods his head but my eyes cut to Luca. He wears a secret grin upon his face that doesn’t sit right with me. It’s as if the man enjoys the failures of his sister.

“Si,” Savio agrees. “I told my daughter the severity of the situation but she did not listen. I am deeply sorry for her behavior.”

“It was the media who spread lies, Savio. She did nothing wrong. I enjoyed our dance. Even wanted another.” I come to her defense and Luca stiffens. Savio settles back in his seat and looks at me with doubtful brown eyes.

“Really?” He questions stunned.

“Don’t tell me you believe everything you read, Savio. I never pegged you for a man to be that dense.” I know how Savio feelsof the word, and I know what he does to those he thinks that are. He would never tolerate a dense man.

His cheeks flame, and it resembles very much of his son. He then clears his throat. “I was told otherwise.”

I raise a brow. “By who?”

“An inside man of my own,” he responds tightly.

I want to roll my eyes but I don’t. I can guarantee the only inside man Savio had that night was his own god damn fucking son. He provided him with false intel.

“Well, whoever this inside man is,” I begin breezily before setting my hard eyes on Luca, “he was entirely wrong.”

Luca’s jaw twitches as his eyes pierce mine like the knives they are.

Savio claps his hands and feigns a broad smile on his face. “This is good news, no? You’re happy with my daughter. She knows of the arrangement, and will make a wonderful wife.”

I run my thumb along my scruffy jaw and consider what he’s saying. Such a fucking traditionalist mobster. Believing that women are only meant in this life to be perfect wives.

God, I want to scoff at how ridiculous his beliefs are, and then laugh at how out of touch with the times he’s in.

Women are not pawns on the chess board.

They’re fucking queens.

And you do everything to protect the queen.

Not wanting to argue, I agree with him. “I have no doubts that she will.” In full transparency, the type of wife Savio is suggesting, Carina would be terrible at. She’s not a docile woman. She has an attitude and she fears no man. She isn’t some mere kitten found off the streets who wants to be loved and have a home. Carina is a fucking wild lioness who can not be tamed.

I have no intentions of taming her.

I want to set her free.

Free from the gilded cage her papa and brother have placed her in, and free from the cage she has shackled herself to.

“Then what are your conditions, Constantine?”

“I want Carina to live with me immediately.”

He balks as I knew he would. This goes against every one of his precious traditions and ridiculous morals. “That is out of the question,” he fumes. “No daughter of mine will live with a man who she is not married to.”

I chuckle darkly. “And yet you’ll force a marriage upon her to a man she doesn’t even know.”

He simmers in his chair. His jaw clenched as he says, “It’s different. She knows her part in this world, Constantine. As do all of the women in our sector of The Famiglia. It has been that way for over a century.”

And that’s precisely why his Famiglia is dying instead of thriving. Stuck to old traditions and even older fucked up morals.

His late son, Elio, although crazed and a tad bit mad, saw that. It’s why he turned on his papa. It’s why he became a traitor to his Famiglia. He wanted a new one. One where he wasn’t tied to his papa’s rules and code. But his arrogance led to him being caught before he could even begin.

Yet his death brought a silver lining for me.

It has finally brought Carina to me.