chiara
The woman wrapped my leg in gauze, gave me a bottle of painkillers, said a few more words to Alessandro, and walked right out of the apartment, leaving us alone. He lingered by my side.
“Alessandro …” I said.
He raised a brow and took off his suit jacket, which had been ruined. “First-name basis, reginetta? No stronzo this time?” He tossed his jacket onto his ruined white couch below my legs and rested my gun just out of reach on the side table.
“Do you want me to call you stronzo?” I asked.
“I kind of like it,” he said, eyes darkening. “I like my women feisty.”
“Who ever said I was your woman?”
“You did earlier with your you only get to order me around in the bedroom comment.”
He leaned down beside me, knowing that I was unable to move a fucking inch from him and brushed his fingers down the center of my bare chest, trailing them over my cleavage in my lacy black bra. Goose bumps rose on my skin, and I shivered.
“Is that how you like to be fucked?”
“That is none of your business,” I said, trying to show him that this wasn’t exciting me one bit … but it was.
He brushed his fingertips lower and lower and lower until they were against the waistband of my pants. I sucked in a deep breath and kept his intense eye contact.
“Don’t touch me. I have a boyfriend.”
His lips curled into a smirk. “A boyfriend who’s cheating on you.”
My eyes widened slightly, and I pushed his hand away—even though I didn’t want to. “How do you know about that?”
“Everyone knows about it. I could tell by the way he was talking with those women at the family gathering. He has no respect for you.”
I pushed myself to a seated position, resting my back against the side of the couch. “And you do?”
He shrugged. “You’re growing on me, reginetta.”
I rolled my eyes and stared at him for a long time and then I said, “So … are you going to tell me now why the whole fucking mafia is after us?”
His gaze hardened, and he immediately turned away from me, every muscle in his back tensing. I stared at him and waited a long time for an answer. And when he finally said something, I was completely and utterly shocked.
“I did rat them out,” he said, jaw twitching. “But for a good fucking reason.”
“You’re a rat?” I said, my eyes wide.
How could I trust him? What would happen when everyone found out? Did Daddy know? Why did Dad trust him so blindly? He probably knew all of our family secrets now.
“Are you serious? You know the first thing about this business is that you don’t tell anyone anything, and you ratted your family out to the fucking cop—”
“I ratted on them because they were doing shit I didn’t agree with.” His voice was tense, his whole body rigid.
There was something in his eyes that told me not to push it, an intense rage that actually scared me. But I pushed him anyway.
“So, drug trafficking and killing people and—”
He grabbed a glass lamp and slammed it off the table. “Like child trafficking, Chiara,” he yelled. His eyes were an angry, dark mess.
My eyes widened, and I pressed my lips together. Children? They were using children?
And then I shook my head and stared right at him. “Then, why are you here?” I asked, trying so damn hard to figure out why he had come to America to start with a new family when he should be hiding out on some private island.
He had enough money. He had enough resources. Why come here, where there was danger, where he could be found by his family? And why had Dad let him into the business?
He stared at me for a long time, then turned away. “You’re staying with me.”
And that was the only answer he gave me, so I decided not to push it for now. I would ask him another time—when I knew I could get it out of him.
“I’m not staying with you. Tommy is probably waiting for me,” I said, not really giving a single fuck about Tommy.
All I wanted from him was sweet revenge. I just had a few more fucking days to hold out to get some dirt on him. Daddy liked him too damn much for me to break his heart without him having done something to betray this family.
Even if he didn’t do anything, I could always make it seem like he did.
Alessandro laughed and walked toward his hallway. “You think you have a fucking choice? After what you know now, I can’t have you blabbing that to everyone, including Tommy. You’ll ruin everything that I’ve done here.”
After throwing me one last scowl, he walked into the hallway. I listened to the door close and the shower turn on.
I slumped back on the couch. One question answered, a million more I needed to figure out.
Had he told me the truth, or had he been in on such a hideous crime? How’d he get out of jail? Why was he here?
My phone buzzed, and I took a deep breath, wanting to ignore the damn thing, but it kept ringing and ringing. I growled and picked it up.
“What?” I asked through clenched teeth.
My leg began pulsing with pain, and I popped two pills into my mouth, hoping it would help.
There was some noise in the background, and I heard a door close.
“Chiara,” Detective William said, his voice softer and quieter than usual. “Are you alone?” Worry was laced in his voice, and I furrowed my brows.
“Yes,” I said, glancing over at Alessandro walking out of his bathroom and through his house with only a towel fixed on his hips. Beads of water rolled down the muscles in his sculpted abdomen, and I sucked in a breath.
God, how could a stronzo look this fucking good? It was like he was made of—
“Chiara?”
“Sorry,” I said, peeling my eyes away from Alessandro, who disappeared into one of the back rooms. “Yes, I’m alone. What is so important that you had to call me now?”
“You know you have a hit on your head. And that your friend, Alessandro …” He said his name with so much distaste that it sounded like he was jealous. “I heard he plans to take you in.”
My heart dropped. “What do you mean, take me in?” I gazed at the man—who had put on his damn clothes—walking down the hallway toward me. My eyes flickered toward my gun on the table a few feet away, yet I didn’t know if I’d be able to reach it in time.
I could barely walk with this damn leg. I didn’t think I’d be able to get the gun to protect myself if William really meant what I thought he meant. He was nervous about something … something that I couldn’t quite place.
“I heard that he’s going to kill you.”