able to claim delusion later on. I wanted her to see exactly the kind of man she was marrying. I wanted her to meet the evil that lived inside me and love me anyway.
And she did.
“Luca Benetti!”
What the hell?
I got up off the couch and went to go see what Francesca was screeching about. Francesca was standing in the foyer, access to the elevator lobby still opened. For whatever reason, she didn’t cross the threshold and left herself wide open for an audience. Of course, the only people in the lobby were Sensio and Emilio, but still.
“Jesus, woman,” I swore. “Why are you screaming like a banshee?”
Francesca narrowed her eyes at me, and she looked ready to kick my ass. “Did you know?” she seethed.
My brows rose and I jerked my head in surprise. “Probably,” I answered honestly. “But you’re going to have to be a little more specific.”
Her voice was low and lethal. “Did you know that the diamond in the engravement on my wedding ring is a goddamn tracker!” Her voice was an ear-piercing nightmare by the time she finished her sentence.
I was going to demand she keep it down because Remy was sleeping, but then her words penetrated my confusion.
The tracker.
That’s when I knew something was wrong.
Francesca and Robbie already knew their wedding rings came with trackers. The day Ciro married Robbie, Francesca had commented on Ciro’s personal engravement and how it was similar to hers, and that’s when Ciro broke the news to her that the diamond in Phoenix’s name was really a tracking device, and he thought the idea ingenious that he copied it for Robbie’s rings.
Francesca had not been happy.
So, this theatrical performance of hers was for a reason.
And it couldn’t be a good one.
“Now, now, Francesca,” I cajoled. “Relax.”
“Don’t you dare tell me to relax, Luca Benetti,” she spat scathingly, and I had to give it to her; she was a hell of an actress. “I’m tired of being treated like a goddamn prisoner.”
“You’re free to come and go as you please,” I pointed out.
“Well, then, a parolee, with a shitty parole officer,” she threw back.
“Okay,” I replied. “Why don’t you come inside, and we-”
“I’m packing my shit and getting my own apartment,” she announced and stomped back towards the elevator. The doors opened, and she flipped me off right before they closed again.
“Goddamn it!” I looked at Emilio and Sensio. “I’ll be right back.” Sensio nodded and Emilio smirked.
The second I was inside Phoenix and Francesca’s apartment, she grabbed me and dragged me into the gym. She ran all three showers and that’s when I knew this was bad.
“Francesca, what’s going on?”
“I…oh, God, Luca…” She looked scared and it was breaking my fucking heart.
I grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her, ready to lose my shit. “What the fuck is going on?”
“I…I was worried about you and Remy after yesterday…” She grimaced. “Ciro told us about…uh, your unexpected visit to the funhouse.”
Of course, he did.
“Anyway, I was worried and wanted to check on you,” she continued. “I went through the back stairs and…I overheard Sensio on the phone, Luca.” My mind went to this early morning when I had summoned Sensio to deliver some papers to Sal. They were documents from my meeting with our friend, the senator. “He was telling whoever was on the phone that he thought you and Remy were having problems. He also told whoever it was that you had taken her to the funhouse last night.”
Fury began to course through my body.
Sensio was my snitch.
“It gets worse,” she winced, but I couldn’t imagine how. “I think he was talking to your dad, Luca.”
I knew he was. “What makes you think that?”
“It could only have been a Benetti, and Salvatore and Leonardo aren’t threatened by you or vice versa.”
“Why could it have only been a Benetti?”
“Sensio got kind of cocky about something that was being said, because he said that it didn’t matter what you did. A Benetti fucking a nobody is still better than a Benetti fucking a cop.”
“What?”
“He said a Benetti was fucking a cop,” she repeated. “Luca, you know Leo and Sal would never sleep with a cop. They know if you ever got wind of it, you’d kill them.”
My mind was scrambling with all the implications of the one-sided conversation Francesca overheard. She was right, though. Sal and Leo would never get involved with a cop knowingly. And if they did, and found out, they’d take care of it. They would never risk