Luca's pov
Just like I suspected, Amanda wasn't Cara's biological mother. No real mom would treat their daughter the way the woman treated Cara, except if they were deranged.
My muscles tightened more and more as Grigori relayed more points to this discovery, my body thrummed like live wire in my ergonomic swivel chair. Anger progressed inside me, my stepmother really put Cara through a lot. I was enraged for the poor child who had grown to hold the heavy weight of the emotional residues of her terrible childhood. It made me want to find Amanda and waterboard her for every time she hurt my woman.
This anger burst out in crackling energy, filling up every corner of my office when Grigori started speaking about some foster brothers. Amanda's sons.
"Pause, backtrack."
Grigori scratched at his nose. "There'd been several reports by neighbors on how badly Amanda's two sons, Diego and Mario bullied the Signorina. Reports that were heavily denied by the donna."
"No father?"
Grigori shook his head. "Died in a car accident two years after the Signorina was taken in."
"What about the social worker assigned to Cara?" I asked in a deathly calm voice even though I could already guess the answer.
"She was also in on it. Buried every record of the reports at the new donna's request for a couple of bucks."
My jaw screwed shut and an angry curse squeezed out of me.
Cara had no ally as a child, none of the people entrusted with her protection were on her side. She had been totally alone, had been mistreated with no one to save her. A sharp feeling of something strikingly similar to empathy pierced right through my heart, it ached with sympathy and burned with rage.
I wanted to hurt who had hurt her, all of them.
"Where is the social worker now?"
"She passed away three years ago from liver cancer and is survived by no one. No kids, no husband, no siblings."
In other words, she was alone to her very painful end. Karma had done the work for me, excellently at that.
That left Cara's asshole foster brothers and her witch of a foster mother. It would be easy to deal with the bastards, there wasn't a lot my father could do if I suddenly made them fall off the face of the earth. But with his wife, I'd need to be more creative. The evil hag was still his wife whether it made my insides prickly or not.
I'd just have to teach her a lesson through her sons.
I spinned slightly in my swivel. "What do I have to know about these Diego and Mario?"
"Mario dropped out of college when he was twenty, joined a local gang and is now serving a lifelong sentence for the first degree murder of a rival gang member. Diego on the other hand used to be a dealer before he cleaned up and got into CSU. He's now studying for his Juris Doctor degree in the University of Amsterdam, fully funded by the old don."
A fucking criminal trying to rebrand as a lawyer, interesting.
"Get someone to keep an eye on them until I decide what to do with them."
"Yes don. Do I also get someone for the new donna?"
"No need. Also I want to track Cara's childhood before the blasted family."
My voice dropped into a low growl. "And Grigori?"
"Don."
The look I gave him was full of warning. "Don't ever refer to her as donna in my presence again."
He blanched. "Forgive me, this would be the last time."
"Good." Amanda may be my father's new wife but she'd never be worthy of the title of donna. It was reserved for my late mother alone and she was never going to be replaced, especially with someone like Amanda Torello.
I dialed Sergio's number the second Grigori left the office and just like always, the soldier was prompt with picking the call.
"Where's she?"
"She's still in school, don."
"Have there been any suspicious person slinking about?"
"No, don. No one. We're still keeping an eye out regardless."
I heaved a heavy breath. "Good. Do that. Also, make sure to let me know when she returns home."
"Will do that boss."
I hung up and fell back into my swivel, spinning it to the side, my eyes shutting and my hands curling tighter around my phone.
Cara was safe today again, no wandering Polish prick with a vendetta or fucking Russian enforcer had gotten to her up to this point. It calmed my blood yet rattled my nerves at the same time.
I'd first light the streets of Chicago on fire before I let something happen to her but it couldn't stop me from worrying like a paranoid mother.
Worry, it was one feeling I hadn't been exposed to until I met my stepsister. I've never had to worry about anything in my life, not my first fight, clash with rivals, not the burden of being don of Cosa Nostra.
Yet, here I was, obsessing over the safety of a small blonde with zero security consciousness.
A wry smile turned up my lips. My bambina was so bad at it that someone ten inches away could be gearing up to shoot her and she still wouldn't catch on but the second a person thirty feet away starts talking shit about her, she would know. And she'd confront them because she never let anything go by her.
My brows snapped together as I pondered on the last bit. These days, it seemed like she was doing a lot of that, letting things go by her. I see her looking at me like she had something to say but she never does, I sense her wanting to ask questions but deciding against it.
Letting things go.
It frustrated me to no end. Her trusting me was a huge step in my game plan of making her fall in love with me, I couldn't own her completely when she reserved a huge part of her. It drove me mad that I didn't know what ran through that pretty head of hers.
"Just what in the world do you hide from me Cara mia." I puffed out with exasperation. My patience was running thin waiting for her to open up to me all on her own. I was never the one for patience.
"Don Salvatore, this is Donny from the security team. My apologies for bothering you but we have a situation here at the VIP entrance." A frantic and equally pissed voice sailed through the intercom on my desk.
I frowned as I reached for the device and pressed the talk button. "What is the situation?"
"The Irish boss' brother is demanding to see you, refusing to leave until he does."
My frown deepened. "Let him in." I instructed after a brief consideration, wondering what the hell Cadain was here for.
It took less than three minutes for the fucker to burst open my door and storm into my office with four of my soldiers at his tail.
I waved them up and they bowed and filed out, but not without eyeing the Irish fucker first.
I spinned my swivel back to it's original position. "Why are you here, McKell?"
Cadain glowered at me, eyes blazed with anger for whatever reason. "Revoke your decision to renounce the marriage."
My eyebrow shot up.
Cadain stepped closer. "Cara and I should marry as previously planned."
My smirk doesn't match the heat simmering low in my chest. "Quite bold of you to barge into my club, cause a ruckus while demanding to see me, barge into my office then make a more ludicrous demand."
"You can't stop us from being together." He snarled, hands balled at his side.
"You're a delusional fuck if you think Cara is with you on that."
"She will learn to love me."
Sweet Mary, mother of God. I was one second away from shooting him between the eyes. My teeth were clenched when I said, "not your call to make."
"Not yours either but here we are."
I regarded him with a long, cold look, the thought of him sinking into the Atlantic ocean as dead as a dodo growing more and more appealing.
"I will forgive your insolence just this once. You're very lucky you're related to the Irish boss. If not, you won't be leaving here the same way you walked in, alive."
Fear permeated his features but he quickly masked it with his foolish anger. "I leave for Ireland for a while only for you to go back on your word!" He all but cried like a hurt child.
I drew in a wound up breath. "There was no word to begin with. I never promised you anything."
"The wedding date was set!"
"Without my approval. Your family chose to treat it as more than what it actually was, which is a proposition from your end."
Cadain turned away to rub roughly at his face. "We were going to help you." He whipped around to face me again. "I was going to take Cara to Ireland and keep her safe."
A caustic smile appeared on my lips. "I expressly remember telling you that I didn't need you to do either." I pushed to my feet and moved to the large window panes.
"I'm not going to let you take Cara from me."
My gaze shot to him, chilling and dangerous. "You should leave while I'm being nice."
A sardonic chuckle left his lips. "You think I don't know you want her for yourself? You think I don't see the look you give her? The way your eyes follow her whenever she's in the room."
I don't know how it happened but the next second, I was away from the window and right in the face of the bastard, my hand fisting his coat, the other pressing the muzzle of my gun under his chin.
Cadain went pale with fear, shocked at how quickly I'd one upped him.
"You seem to have forgotten who you're speaking with." I said before smacking him with the grip of my gun.
He tumbled to the floor, his hand coming up to where I'd hit him.
"Was that enough reminder for your stupid brain?"
He looked up to glare at me but said nothing.
I trained my gun on him. "I could shoot you for the disrespect you've shown me, send you back to your brother with a bullet stuck in your arm." I cocked the gun and he scuttled back.
"What do you say Cadain? Want to run your mouth some more? Give me more reasons to make you bleed by my gun?"
He swallowed tightly and shook his head, albeit grudgingly.
"That's what I thought." I said, tucking away my gun even as I fought the urge to make good on my promise. The audacity of the dipshit to challenge me right on my own turf, for what was mine. He was lucky he was directly related to an ally, if he were to be just another cousin, he'd be leaving here in a bodybag.
I thought back to what he'd said, that Cara would learn to love him and I kicked him in the ribs just for the sake of it.
"I hope you've learned your lesson today." I ignored his wheezing and yanked him up before pushing him to the door.
"Now leave before I change my mind about shooting you."
He staggered for the door, hesitating for a brief moment before disappearing and closing it behind him.
I punched the wall the moment the door clicked shut and that was because I knew. I knew what that linger had meant, what it stood for.
I may have gotten Cadain clocked for disrespecting me but it did nothing to quell his desire to chase after Cara.
Cadain would be back again and this time, I might actually get to kill him.