Chapter 13: Lidia Chooses

Gianna's POV

Stefano let go of my wrist and turned to face his bride.

"Lidia," he said coldly. "You should not be here."

"You called me business." Her whole body shook. "You said I was business."

"You misheard."

"I heard you say Dario Ricci has paid you for five years and that my father put his name on it."

Stefano looked at me, and then at her, and I watched him choose.

He did not choose her.

His hand went into my coat pocket so fast I never felt it coming.

He took my phone, dropped it on the slab, and brought his heel down on it twice.

The screen went white and then dark. Glass skittered across the concrete.

"There is no recording," he said pleasantly. "There was never a recording. Lidia, go home."

"Do not talk to me like that."

"Go home and say nothing, and the wedding goes on."

She stared at the pieces of my phone.

I waited for her to look at me. I wanted one word from her, one step toward me.

She turned and ran.

She ran across the lot in her blue coat and up the road toward the Landolfi house.

"Lidia!" Stefano shouted, and ran after her.

I knew where she was going. She was going to our father.

I ran too, back toward Dario's car, a hundred yards off. I could see him opening the door.

Two black sedans swung out of the side street and stopped across the road between us.

Four of my father's men got out.

I knew every one of them. One had taught me to ride a bicycle.

"Miss Gianna," said the oldest, and he did not look at me. "Your father wants you at the house."

"I am not going to the house."

"He said you would say that." He opened the back door. "He said to remind you that the thirty days are not over."

That was not true. I had been claimed.

But my father had never cared what a ring meant when there were four men and a gate.

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