I had chased Simone Valente for seven years. Seven years of showing up at the social club functions, of being the girl from the old neighborhood who wouldn't stop looking at the Valente heir like he'd hung the moon over the waterfront. When he finally agreed to be with me, I ignored everyone's warnings, thinking I could eventually make him love me. That if I was patient enough, loyal enough, quiet enough, the warmth would come.
It didn't. And here we were, facing the dissolution of an alliance that had been built on nothing but my stubbornness and his indifference.
I learned the hard way that you can't force a bond. A decade of my youth taught me that lesson. I waited and waited, but Simone still hadn't signed the papers. Just after I threatened to take the matter before a judge, to drag the Valente name into a public courtroom where the Feds would be watching and the other Families would be whispering, he finally texted me.
I'll come by tomorrow to pick you up and let Rocco and the others apologize. Stop making a fuss. I'm exhausted. Don't make me pick between you and Silvana.
Then, a second message: