Chapter 14 14.
"You said you'd tell me," she whispered, wrapping her hands around him.
"I'm waiting….tell me about her."
“Wait, dear still recollecting events.” Salvatore lay back against the pillows, his chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm while elena remained draped across him, her skin still breathing from the lingering friction of their bodies, her head resting just above his heart.
Salvatore’s hand, which had been idly tracing the curve of her spine, stilled and slowly he let out a heavy breath.
"Sofia was your father's wife, Elena. But she was the only person in this city who actually understood what the word 'honor' meant.”
Your father? He misused it. To him it was only a currency to buy power. But your mother, she respected it to the fullest."
Elena sat up slightly, pulling the sweat-dampened duvet to her chest to cover her nakedness. The moonlight that shone through the fortress windows made her eyes look like polished amber.
"If she was so honorable, why did she leave? I mean….Why did she let me believe for twenty years that I wasn't enough to make her stay?"
Salvatore turned his head to look at her, his blue eyes now bulging. "Because she was trying to save you from becoming what I am and what your father is."
He shifted, wincing as the movement pulled at the fresh stitches in his side.
"Your mother was a journalist, Elena. I'm sure you had no prior knowledge. Years back, She was working on a story…something like an exposé that would have buried the Morettis, the Romanos, and the Volkovs in the same grave.
Something that would have brought our combined mafia groups down.”
“Ohh, wow—-”
“Yunno, the stubbornness runs in the blood.”
“Yeah, I think.” Elena said, a chuckle surfacing on her lips.
“Well, She had found the paper trail of the first Russian deal—the one where your father traded Italian port rights for Moscow’s protection and a massive infusion of blood money."
Elena felt a chill run down. "That's one big evidence!, ‘The Mafia’ could have been rotting in jail by now.”
“But who could she possibly be running from? I mean that's hell of an evidence, I'm sure the press should have been able to protect her.”
"She was running from Michael," Salvatore said his jaw tightening so hard she heard the bone click.
"He found out and gave an order to erase her. In turn he made a deal with the Volkovs. Handing over to them the research she’d gathered, and in exchange, they took the 'problem' off his hands.”
“I never thought he could do that, yunno, I had alot of things against him but this…”
“It's unforgivable!”
“You were very little then, though. I remember—”
“Wait—you knew me as a kid?”
“You mean, babysit you? Yeah.”
“What?.” Elena gasped, holding her hand over her mouth.
“Anyways, your father told the world she was a cheat and a runaway so that even if she ever crawled back, nobody would believe a word she said.”
Salvatore reached for his phone on the nightstand, his fingers tapping the screen until a grainy, blurred image appeared.
“Here, take a look.”
It was a photo taken from a distance, through a telephoto lens. It showed a woman in a heavy wool coat, her back partially turned, walking through a snowy market in a village that looked gray and forgotten. But she had turned her head just as the shutter clicked.
“Her eyes—” Elena's brows raised.
“Beautiful like yours?” Salvatore replied, leaning in to give her a soft kiss.
"Well, this was taken six months ago in a village outside St. Petersburg," Salvatore whispered.
"She's not—shes not really dead?”
“Yes, dear. Exactly.”
“After digging deep, I found something. They keep her alive as leverage, just in case the Romanos ever get too loud."
Elena’s hand shook as she touched the cold glass of the screen. " So She's alive. All this time, ooh how relieved I am.”
"And Dmitry knows you know, he had doubts about you," Salvatore said, his voice turning grim.
"He knows she’s the only reason I’ve been hunting the Volkov line. And now, he has the daughter too. He thinks he can use you to finally make her break—to tell him where she hid the 'Black Box’---
“The black box? What's that?”
“The Black box is the final piece of evidence that ruins every man in this game."
A sharp, rhythmic knocking at the door made the room quiet, you would even hear a pin drop. Elena jumped, grabbing her silk gown from the floor, while Salvatore’s hand instinctively dove under his pillow, emerging with the cold steel of his Beretta.
"Boss," Luciano’s voice came through the thick wood, sounding strained. "We have a problem.”
“What's that? By this time of the day, Can't it wait?”
A courier just arrived at the gate. He had a diplomatic escort. Russian plates."
Salvatore sat up, ignoring the way his wound hurt in the fresh bandages. "Bring it in."
Luciano entered, his eyes fixed firmly on the floor to avoid seeing the disarray of the bed. He held out a thick, cream-colored envelope embossed with a gold double-headed eagle. The seal of the Volkov family.
Salvatore tore it open with a brutal flick of his thumb. As he read, his face went from cold to lethal.
"What is it?" Elena asked, leaning over his shoulder, her hair brushing his skin.
“Here, take a look.” He handed the card to her.
“It's an invitation, an invitation to the Volkov Winter Gala in Moscow.” Elena said out loud.
The invitation Elena held looked like any other high-society invite, but the handwritten note at the bottom was a death warrant:
"To the happy couple. Since the world now knows of your 'devotion' through the evening news, I invite Don Salvatore and his beautiful fiancée, Elena, to celebrate their engagement in my home—.”
“How? What's he trying to do?” Elena stopped reading the invitation, glancing up at Salvatore.
“I look forward to seeing the gracious beautiful couple by my doorstep. Fail to show, and the 'Ghost' finally sleeps."
“The ghost?” Who or what's that supposed to mean.” she muttered, asking no one in particular.
"Engagement?" Elena directed towards Salvatore. "He’s calling our bluff. He knows the 'undercover' story was a desperate lie to keep the police from shooting."
“I think best, you make an appearance sir.” Luciano chipped in.
He's doing more than that," Salvatore said, standing up and walking toward the window, his naked body silhouetted against the moon.
"He's putting us on a stage. If we don't go, he kills Sofia. If we have to go, we have to play the part perfectly.”
“Exactly, that's what I'm trying to say sir!, you have to be the most obsessed, in-love couple the world has ever seen, even while surrounded by people who want to put a knife in your ribs."
“I'm afraid, you have a point Luciano.”
He turned to her, raw passion still visible in his gaze. "You wanted the truth, huh?”
“Well, here’s what I suggest. We go to Moscow and we pretend I’ve claimed you. That's nothing is fishy and while they’re watching us play house, we find your mother."
Elena looked at the gold-embossed card, then at the man who had just finished ruining her and saving her in equal measure.
“Well, maybe what happened earlier was a rehearsal.” Elena said, standing up from the bed to meet him by the window. Her left hand held the duvet she wrapped her body with and her right hand extended to caress his chest.
“Uggh-hh.” Luciano cleared his throat.
"How do we prove it?" she asked, her voice steady. "Dmitry isn't a child. He's not going to believe a few smiles and a hug."
Salvatore turned back to face her, his hand reaching out to tilt her chin up, his thumb pressing into the soft skin beneath her jaw. "We don't just prove it, Elena. We make them feel the heat.
“From the moment we step on that plane, you aren't a reporter. You're the future Queen of the Romanos. You’re the woman who tamed the monster."
He leaned in, his lips brushing hers in a soft kiss while his scent overwhelmed her senses. "I'm sure you can do that, Elena. Can't you look at me in a room full of killers and make them believe you’d die for me?"
Elena wrapped her hand around the gold necklace Lucia have her. She thought of the woman she wanted to see badly and her father’s betrayal, and the way Salvatore’s body had felt inside hers just an hour ago.
"I've been writing stories my whole life, Salvatore," she whispered, pulling him back toward the bed. "Let's give them something to last a life time. But if we’re going to be engaged—”
“Shhhush,” Salvatore crossed his hand over her mouth. “I want the world to see the chain I'd put around your finger."
“I sure want the ring.”
Salvatore’s smirk returned, dark and dangerous. "Oh, you'll get the ring, Elena. But remember once everybody believes you’re mine, there’s no going back to the way it was."
"I stopped looking back the moment I picked up that gun," she said in a whisper.
She pushed him down onto the bed, straddling his lap once more. She leaned down, her lips inches from his ear. "Now, tell me more about Moscow. Tell me how a Romano proposes to a woman he’s supposed to hate."
Salvatore’s hands gripped her hips, his fingers bruising her skin. "He doesn't propose, Elena. He takes."
He surged up, his mouth finding hers in a fierce kiss.
"Luciano!" Salvatore yelled over Elena’s shoulder, never breaking eye co
ntact with her.
"Get the jet ready. And call the jeweler. I need something that can be seen from space."
"Yes, Boss," Luciano’s voice came from the hall, followed by the sound of retreating footsteps.
Elena looked at Salvatore, her heart racing. "We're really doing this."
"We're doing it," he confirmed, his hand sliding up to cup her breast.