join Luca when Frankie announced that she’d walk, so it was just her and me in the room. Ciro and Luca had made their exits, making sure they left separately. We’d remained at the hospital together for too long as it was.
I looked down at her as I grabbed her chin and held it between my fingers. “Listen to me, and listen carefully, Francesca,” I said. “We are going to walk out of this room, and we are going to walk out of it as a couple.” She automatically opened her mouth to argue, but I squeezed her chin hard enough to cut off her objection. “You are going to walk out of this room with me as Francesca fucking Mancini, you got me?”
She had questions, but common sense finally settled in. Frankie knew something was going on even if she didn’t know exactly what. “Okay,” she quietly agreed. “But once we get to your place, you better explain to me what’s going on, Phoenix.”
I had every intention of letting her know what was going on. I just wasn’t sure if she was going to want to hear it. Hell, I knew she wasn’t going to want to hear it, but it made no difference. And in the privacy of my place, she could rant and rave all she wanted. “I promise,” I replied.
She snorted. “That’s reassuring,” she huffed. “Because your promises mean so much, right, Phoenix?”
I ignored the barb because I deserved it. At the heart of all this mess, I had lied to her. I had kept secrets from her. I had made decisions that impacted our lives without her input. It didn’t matter that we had all betrayed her. I was the one she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with. I had obligations to her that Ciro and Luca hadn’t, therefore, my betrayal stung ten times worse than Ciro’s or Luca’s and I understood that. It was the reason I was giving her so much leeway. It was the reason I let her leave. It was the reason I let her be gone for so long.
But none of that mattered anymore.
A new era was coming upon us and a new kingdom was coming about. A kingdom that would be led by Luca Benetti with the backing of Ciro, me, and Frankie, even though she didn’t know it yet. That’s why she needed to walk out of here with her back straight and her head held high. She needed to walk out of here like the Mafia Princess that she was.
And even if I did have to drag her out by her hair, everyone just would have seen me exerting my power and dominance over my woman. No one would have blinked an eye or thought less of Frankie. Everyone would have just seen me taking my woman in hand just like a million Made Men before me. It was the way of our world. Men ruled and women supported that role.
But what a lot of outsiders didn’t know was that Frankie wasn’t just another Mob sister, friend, lover, or wife. She wasn’t just another woman in a life riddled with violence and illegal activity. She wasn’t just a submissive wife, closing her eyes to her husband’s shady ways and interchangeable mistresses.
Frankie was called Church for a reason.
In a world were three men were reputed to have no souls and showed no mercy, Frankie held each one of us in the palm of hand. There wasn’t anything Ciro, Luca, and I wouldn’t do for her, including letting her throw a fit for six years.
She was the only thing that mattered to us above and beyond who and what we were. We would kill for her, and we would die for her.
We would start a war for that girl.
And that is why she needed to walk out of here with her head held high. Shit was about to change, and she was the catalyst that was going to set it all off.
She just didn’t know it yet.
Chapter 10
Francesca~
The drive to Phoenix’s house was weighed in furious silence.
I had caved at his command to walk out of the hospital, hand in hand, because he promised me answers later, but that still didn’t mean I was happy about it. And, if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t completely trust myself to be alone with him at his place. It’s been six years since I’ve had sex, and I was feeling every bit of those lonely