Vows and Vendettas

Chapter 12

Blair

Somebody seriously needs to come and pinch me because I have no clue what is going on. Literally, it’s as if aliens have come down and inhabited Dante’s body. Or maybe it’s mine that they have taken over; I am not sure at this point. The glowering man from across a room that I married is gone. And I have absolutely no idea what happened to him.

After he opened the door for me and hit me with that smug little Now who sounds jealous? I fully expected him to rub it in my face the entire car ride. Was I jealous? I don’t think so. I was certainly annoyed because the saleswoman’s blatant unprofessionalism seemed to spur my husband into making sure that they knew I was his.

But he hadn’t taunted me. Instead, he pulled me close to his side and rested his hand on the inside of my thigh. The feel of his hand there stopped my breathing altogether as I stared down at it. All I could think about was what happened earlier between us and how it would be easy for him to slide it higher until it disappeared. His thumb moved in slow, absentminded strokes against the bare part of my thigh where my dress had ridden up.

Well, so much for my poker face. It shattered the second the spicy scent of his cologne filled my senses and clouded what little common sense I had left. While I couldn’t seem to look away from where his hand sat, he seemed to be completely unbothered by the fact that I was on the verge of hyperventilating while he stared down at his phone. His thumb scrolling across the screen as though he hadn’t just reduced my ability to form a coherent thought to absolutely nothing.

The car comes to a stop at one point, and I am jolted back into reality again. Car horns blare somewhere behind us, and there is a distinct hum of voices that drifts in from the street. Taking in my surroundings now, I notice that we have stopped in front of a stone‑front building.

Different shades of tan stone stack unevenly across the façade, giving it an old, weathered look. A wide archway rises over two thick wooden doors, the kind that look like they’ve been here longer than half the city itself. A silver plaque that’s mounted beside them gleams in the afternoon light, the engraved letters spelling out The First Federal.

A bank?

I snort a little to myself.

Banks and the Mob have a strenuous relationship. The feds love poking around suspected mob accounts, hoping they’ll stumble across something they can use. Most of the time, they don’t. Someone like Dante certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep anything important somewhere this easily accessible.

Whatever money he has in a bank like this is probably there for appearances only.

At least, that’s what I assume.

As soon as Dante opens the door, sunlight and the noise of the city spill into the SUV. His hand disappears from my thigh, but it doesn’t go far. He holds it out in front of me, palm upward. I stare at it like it’s a snake that is about to bite me.

When my eyes find his again, he wears a small smirk on his handsome face. “Come on, this won’t take long.”

“I can wait here then,” I say as I settle back into the seat.

“Blair, you’re coming in with me, so let’s go,” Dante grumbles as he steps out of the SUV, still holding his hand out for me to take. “We’re going to be late if you don’t hurry.”

Fine. Why he needs my presence I do not know. I slap my hand into his waiting palm. A slight sting shoots up through my hand from the force, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from hissing. Mental note to not do that again. That definitely hurt me more than it did him. He pulls me from the SUV, and apparently, my feet have decided that now is the best possible time to stop cooperating because I immediately trip over them, my body pitching forward and falling right into his waiting arms.

Dante’s chest shakes with his blatant amusement. And when I lift my embarrassed gaze upward, it’s as if the world comes to a stop. How in the hell did he manage to convince the sun to be right behind him? Warm afternoon light spills around his broad shoulders, casting his dark hair and olive skin in a golden glow. The sharp lines of his face seem even more pronounced beneath the halo of light that makes him look like the damn King he is.

My body all but melts at the sight. I can feel multiple pairs of eyes on the two of us, and it makes my cheeks burn a little hotter. Of course there would be witnesses to my clumsiness. Thankfully, Dante doesn’t rub it in any further. He just helps me find my footing again before guiding me into the bank with his hand resting low on my back.

“Ah, Mr. Lazzari, what brings you in today?” A high-pitched voice calls the second that the heavy doors close behind us. A short, round man with a sharp widow’s peak approaches us. His face is ruddy with a thin sheen of sweat building quickly across his expanding forehead.

Looking to my left, I watch Dante narrow his eyes at the man before deliberately looking away. He doesn’t acknowledge him. Doesn’t even offer a response to the man’s question. He simply guides us past as if the man were never there. I glance back over my shoulder at the bank employee, who now appears like he is about to be sick or something.

Turning back to my husband, I lean in and whisper, “Why were you so rude? He was just trying to help.”

Dante turns down a hall with several glass-walled offices on both sides. “He is a snake and was only hoping to save his ass.”

I can feel the wrinkle forming on my face as we come to a stop at the end of the hall. “From what? He was just trying to be helpful. It’s his job.”

Dante steps into the limited space still between us. His hand reaches up, and he drags his thumb across my bottom lip, and my breath catches. “Trust me when I say I know his type. And helpful is not it. At least when it doesn’t benefit him, that is.”

Before I can respond, he turns the handle without looking away from me. The door opens into a spacious office flooded with natural light. Green plants line the front of the windowsill, their vines trailing toward the floor. A middle-aged woman rises from behind a dark oak desk. Her blonde hair is pulled into a tight bun, and a pair of sky-blue eyes watches us from behind dark-framed glasses.

“Mr. and Mrs. Lazzari,” the woman says as she rises from behind her desk. “Please have a seat.” She then motions to a seat of chairs directly in front of the desk.

Dante still doesn’t speak and simply guides me through the room to the chair. I sit automatically, but he doesn’t. He remains standing at my side.

“I have everything ready. All I need is your signature right here.” She points to a yellow tab on the first page, then lays a ballpoint pen next to the line.

She smiles at me warmly for several seconds before her eyes flick to the man still standing behind me. Is she talking to me? Or him? When I turn to my husband, he just watches me with a neutral expression. But there is this look in his eyes that says he is waiting for something to happen.

Why did he bring me here, and what is this that he clearly wants me to sign?

“What is it?” I ask, turning back to the woman.

“It’s just a—”

“Putting you on my accounts,” Dante cuts her off quickly. “Now that we are married, I’m having you added to the accounts so that you can have access.” He nudges his chin forward just a little. “Sign the papers, Blair.”

He is lying. I don’t know how to explain how I know. But he is. My stomach twists as that familiar unease digs its claws into my chest. I am missing something here. Something that Dante clearly wants to keep me in the dark about. It isn’t the first time that a man in my life has done something like this. Papa was notorious for sitting me down in his office and handing me a stack of papers and having me sign them. It would be so many sometimes that my hand would cramp halfway through the stack.

I shouldn’t feel this hurt by the fact that Dante is now doing the very same thing.

I snatch the pen up and remove the cap. I stare at the line that my name is already printed underneath. Blair Lazzari. Every instinct in my body is screaming at me to put the pen down and to walk away. What it all means, I am not sure. But I do know one thing: I won’t walk out of here until I sign these papers.

So, I sign my name on the line.

The ink bleeds a little as I let the pen sit longer than I should have. My anger is already seeping out of me as I watch the little blob grow until the woman leans forward and flips the page a couple of times until there is another yellow tab. I sign that one and several more that she flips through. When there are no more, I slam the pen down and push up to my feet.

The aliens have returned him, apparently, and whatever spell he’d worked on me this morning has now worn off, and I am pissed. Somehow in our limited time together I felt like he was somewhat different. That he wasn’t always a cold as*hole.

This proved just how misguided that brief assumption had been. He was just like Papa.

“If you don’t need me anymore, I’ll wait in the car.” How I managed to keep my voice even, I don’t know, but at that moment I am thankful that it didn’t crack.

I don’t give either of them a chance to stop me. I just turn and walk straight out of the office and back down the hall. My hands are practically vibrating by the time I step back into the main lobby of the bank.

“Ms? Ms?” someone whispers before stepping right into my path. The short, balding man from earlier asks as I come to a halt to keep from colliding into him. “Umm, I’m sorry to bother you, but what happened back there?”

“Excuse me?”

“In the manager’s office. What happened?” he asks again. A bead of sweat rolls down the side of his face. His face looks even splotchier than it did when I first walked in, thanks to the deathly pale hue to the rest of his skin.

Dante’s snake comment from minutes ago flashes through my mind as I look down at this man.

“Nothing happened.” I try to move past him as the man steps right back into my path.

“Are you sure?” he asks, swallowing hard.

I narrowed my eyes on him. Does this man really think that I am going to tell him anything? I don’t know him. I might be mad at my husband, but that doesn’t mean that I am about to tell this perfect stranger anything about what happened in that office.

Just as I am about to say something that could have been perceived as rude, he takes a step back, his face losing even more color, and suddenly, the uneasy feeling twisting inside my stomach tightens.

“I would suggest that you stop accosting my wife and go do your job,” Dante’s voice calls from a few feet behind me. “For as long as you are allowed to keep it, that is.”