Bella hadn’t seen her brother much for the three years she was at university and not at all for the last five years. He hadn’t attended her graduation. Nor after she passed through the police academy. Or during any of the years that followed, either on a professional or private basis.
She didn’t recognize any of the bodyguards on duty at the main entrance into the walled grounds of her brother’s London estate, nor had they recognized her. Consequently, it had taken several minutes’ delay before she and Bryce were taken up to the house that had once been the home of all four members of the Zalotti family.
Franco Ricci stood at the back of Matteo’s study, his hair now white instead of iron gray, but otherwise he looked as Bella remembered him: dark hooded eyes in a hard and unsmiling face. The two of them nodded terse acknowledgment of each other before Bella turned her attention back to her brother.
Matteo was ten years older than Bella, but it was still a shock to see how much the eight years since she had last seen him had changed and aged her brother. His hair was no longer in that untidily sexy style he used to favor and which had attracted so many beautiful woman, but was now cut almost military short, with noticeable wings of gray at his temples. The lines beside his eyes and mouth were more deeply etched, and the grimness of his expression implied they owed nothing to laughter and everything to his involvement in a life of violence and crime.
Despite it being a Sunday, Matteo was dressed formally in a dark three-piece suit, white silk shirt, and gray tie. He remained seated behind his desk when two of his security guards showed Bella and Bryce into his study. The two men left the room after a brief nod from Franco Ricci.
This might have once been the Zalotti family home, but as far as Bella knew, Matteo had lived here for the past eight years with only Franco Ricci and the dozen or so bodyguards for company. There were several photographs of their parents in the study, but noticeably, any that had included Bella had been removed.
Considering the way she and Matteo had parted and had remained completely estranged for the past five years, having Matteo deliberately remove any photographs of her shouldn’t hurt as much as it did.
Matteo maintained his silence as his cold blue gaze swept over them both with disinterested efficiency before that gaze settled on Bella and a silent battle of wills ensued.
Under any other circumstances, Bryce might have found the stubborn silence between brother and sister amusing. But the fact the brother was Matteo Zalotti pretty much nullified any humor Bryce might have felt about any of this situation.
Bryce had managed to have a brief conversation with Nikolai Volkov earlier, while Bella had gone upstairs to change for this meeting. He hadn’t told the Russian the reason he wanted to know about Matteo Zalotti, but Nikolai had been more than happy to enlighten him on the Zalotti setup. Matteo was head of the organization, but was always flanked by his head of security, Franco Ricci. Nikolai had also warned him that the reputation Matteo had for inflicting violence and painful death, usually carried out by Ricci, meant both men needed watching.
Bryce found himself admiring Bella anew for having had the strength of character to separate herself from her brother and the Zalotti name in order to follow her own dreams. He couldn’t think of too many eighteen-year-olds who would have had the courage to do what she had done, let alone decide to become a policewoman at the age of twenty-one. In the circumstances of who her brother was, not and live to tell the tale.
The photographs of Bella’s parents in Zalotti’s study also told him where she had got her beauty and curvaceous figure from. Her mother, Sofia Zalotti, had also been a voluptuous beauty.
“Mr. Steele.” Matteo Zalotti was finally the one to break the silence, voice smooth, his gaze the same piercing blue as his mother’s and sister’s.
Bryce kept his expression completely blank. “Mr. Zalotti,” he returned, not surprised the other man knew who he was. No doubt a background check had been done on him earlier while they were kept waiting at the main entrance into the small estate. It was what Bryce would have done.
Bryce recognized both the older man, Ricci, and Zalotti, for exactly what they were. Ruthless killers. No doubt they both recognized Bryce as being equally as capable of killing if the situation warranted it.
Zalotti arched a single dark brow. “As your companion appears to have lost her voice, perhaps you would like to tell me the reason the two of you have chosen to invade my home uninvited on a Sunday evening?”
Bryce shot Bella a sympathetic glance, his mouth thinning as he saw the humiliated flush moving up her cheeks. This house might now belong to Matteo Zalotti, but Bryce knew it had once been the home where Bella had grown up.
If Bryce had harbored any doubts about Bella’s claim of being estranged from her brother, then the Italian’s cold attitude toward her more than confirmed it as being the truth.
Bryce continued to remain outwardly relaxed. Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t taken note of each of the armed bodyguards outside and inside the house, or the placement of the numerous security cameras on his way in.
He shrugged. “You were the one who instructed your security to let us in.”
Zalotti gave a cold smile. “I was curious to learn why Miss Smith wished to see me and felt the need to bring a bodyguard with her.”
Bryce’s mouth twisted. “I’m pretty sure she announced herself as your sister Isabella Zalotti when we arrived. And I’m not only Bella’s bodyguard.”
“No?”
“Your sister and I are friends.”
Those blue eyes remained emotionless. “I have no sister, nor do I care what your relationship is to this woman.”
Bryce felt rather than saw the jolt of Bella’s body at hearing her brother denounce her so cruelly in front of him and the silent and watchful Ricci.
A jolt which seemed to have brought her out of whatever stupor she had been in since they entered her brother’s study. “By that criteria, it would seem I don’t have a brother either,” she returned dismissively.
An unreadable emotion flickered in Zalotti’s eyes before it disappeared again. “Which is why I am curious as to why you would come here at all.”
Bella ignored the hurt her brother was deliberately inflicting. “Where are Antonio and Luca?” She named two of the men who had worked for her father as bodyguards, and later for Matteo. Two men Bella had known for as long as she had Franco Ricci, but she hadn’t seen either of them in the grounds or house since her arrival this evening.
A nerve pulsed in Matteo’s jaw. “They have both retired.”
“But—”
“I asked why you’re here,” Matteo snapped.
Bella met that chilling gaze unwaveringly. “To ask the head of the Zalotti family if he’s the one responsible for the man who followed me today and whoever has been leaving me…unwelcome presents for the past ten days.”
Her brother scowled. “What sort of presents?”
“Unwelcome ones,” Bryce repeated Bella’s comment, hoping the steely look in his eyes would warn the other man against pushing that subject any further.
Zalotti inspected Bryce’s six-foot- three-inch frame, from his biker boots to the dark untidiness of his hair. “I do not recall asking you.”
“And Bella is too upset to answer you,” Bryce snapped. “I have no doubt that in your world, people pretty much do what you tell them to do, but in my world, those same people tend to do what I tell them. Someone is trying to put the fear of God into Bella right now by leaving her nasty presents and defacing her car. We need to know if that someone is you.” His gaze slid to the silent Ricci. “Or one of your associates.”
Zalotti gave Bryce a brief glance before his gaze fixed on Bella, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw. “Why would I bother to do such things to a woman who, as far as I am concerned, does not exist?”
“I exist, Matteo—”
“Not to me,” he spoke harshly over Bella’s protest.
Bryce instinctively moved closer to Bella as Zalotti rose to his height of almost six feet and moved to stand in front of the imposing desk. To anyone who didn’t know this man’s ruthless reputation, Zalotti looked just like any other London businessman. Except his business was all illegal and far too often resulted in bloodshed or death.
Zalotti’s eyes narrowed. “I believe it’s time you both left.”
“I— But— What—”
Bryce totally sympathized with Bella’s bewilderment at the abruptness of this dismissal. “We haven’t finished saying what we wanted to say.”
“Obviously, Mr. Zalotti has finished talking to you.” Franco Ricci stepped forward to inform them with cold dismissal.
“See that Miss Smith and Mr. Steele leave the premises.” Matteo moved to resume his seat behind the desk. “Now.”
Bella didn’t move. “Matteo, how can you be like this?”
“How?” Zalotti scorned, his gaze glacial. “Possibly because your behavior these past eight years, most especially the last five, means I have the same zero interest in anything to do with you or your life as you have in regard to mine,” he bit out harshly. “Now get out of my home and do not come back.”
Bryce quickly stepped forward to lightly grip Bella’s arm as he saw how her face had paled, his grasp allowing him to feel how much she was trembling at her brother’s deliberate cruelty. “You coldhearted bastard!” Bryce accused fiercely before forcing his expression to soften as he turned Bella toward him. “Let’s go, hm?” he encouraged gently. “We’re finished here.”
Bella literally felt as if Matteo had physically struck her, not with his fists, but with his hurtful words. She knew they had parted badly, that they hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in eight years, but she had never thought of herself as being dead to Matteo. Perhaps she had even, in the depths of her heart, hoped that one day, they might be able to heal the breach between them. Matteo had just made it clear that would never happen.
Nevertheless, she had to try, just once more. “This is not what Mama and Papa would have wanted for us.”
Matteo eyed her coldly. “I doubt they would have wanted you to become the traitor you are to the family either.”
“I followed my dream—”
“And where has it got you?” he scorned. “Your male colleagues treat you like shit, and you have to work twice as hard to get the recognition you deserve from superior officers. Unless you sleep with them, of course. How did that work out for you, Isabella?” he derided.
Bella gasped. “I didn’t sleep with— You know more about my life than you admitted earlier,” she accused.
Matteo shrugged. “I follow Papa’s dictate of keeping your friends close and enemies even closer.”
“Which am I?”
His gaze remained steady on hers. “I consider those that are not with me to be against me.”
Bella made no demur when Bryce slid one of his arms about her waist and held her against his side. His support, both physical and emotional, was the only thing keeping her on her feet right now and allowing her to answer her brother. “I’m not your enemy, Matteo. I never was nor will I ever be. If you ever change your mind about me, I’m sure you know where to find me.”
After the things Matteo had just revealed, she didn’t believe for one moment that her brother, despite claiming he no longer had a sister, didn’t also know where she lived.
Their father had taught them both that lesson, regarding keeping your friends close and your enemies even closer. Not that Bella considered herself as being either Matteo’s friend or enemy, but she had definitely been a loose cannon in his life for the past eight years.
“I won’t change my mind,” Matteo assured her flatly.
Bella gave her brother one last lingering glance before Franco Ricci silently escorted them from her brother’s study and instructed the two bodyguards waiting outside to take them from the house and ensure they left the estate.
Once outside on the pavement, Bella paused to draw the brisk evening air into her lungs. “Well, that could have gone better,” she murmured self-derisively.
Bryce snorted. “That Ricci guy is definitely something else.”
“Hmm.” She grimaced. “He certainly didn’t seem much like my ‘Uncle Franco’ this evening.” His silent coldness had hurt almost as much as Matteo’s had.
“About as cuddly as a rattlesnake,” Bryce agreed. “Do you think your brother was telling the truth about not being the one to terrorize you?”
Bella thought back to their conversation with Matteo. There was no doubting her brother had changed drastically in the past eight years, the coldness seeming to have now taken over completely. But he hadn’t always been like that.
Matteo was already away at boarding school when Bella was born. But she remembered the school holidays, when Matteo would walk back in the door and simply take her over for however many weeks holiday he had.
Despite their age difference and Bella later being the one to go away to school, they had remained close until the death of their parents. Matteo had seemed to change after that. He became a strict and uncompromising guardian to Bella, and a cold and ruthless killer as he searched for the men who had gunned down their parents. Bella had never dared to ask if he had found them and what had happened to them if he had.
Tonight, Bella had realized the brother she had known all her life had been replaced with a man who delivered pain and death rather than warmth and caring. That he was no longer the big brother who had watched over her and somehow ensured none of the Zalotti “business” ever touched her or her life.
Bryce had asked her if she thought Matteo was telling the truth… “As far as it goes, yes,” she answered slowly. “He isn’t responsible for the gifts, the paint on my car, or having me followed.”
“But…?”
“But he is hiding something,” she acknowledged.
Bryce was inclined to agree. The meeting with Bella’s brother had only added to the mystery.
The fact the man had agreed to see them, when he later claimed not to have a sister, was the start of that puzzle. If Bella no longer existed for Matteo, then why had he allowed her into his home at all?
The man had unwittingly revealed he also knew far more about his dead sister’s life than he should if he didn’t still care for her. Bryce certainly didn’t buy that “keeping his enemies closer” comment of Zalotti’s.
“He looked so much older. And very alone.” Bella shook her head as she gave a shiver. “I can’t believe Antonio and Luca no longer work for him. They were like uncles to me and Matteo—no, not in the same way as Franco Ricci,” she drawled as Bryce snorted. “Antonio and Luca would often accompany us places when we were younger, and they were my bodyguards for the year after my parents died. I had assumed once I went to university and didn’t see them anymore that they had returned to being part of Matteo’s security.” She frowned. “I can’t believe they both decided to retire instead.”
Bryce was inclined to question exactly what that retirement consisted of, because as far as he was aware, members of the Mafia did not “retire,” unless it was on a permanent basis. Bryce intended having another, more in-depth conversation on the subject with Nikolai Volkov in the near future. “Maybe they weren’t too happy with the changes in your brother either?”
“Maybe,” she accepted heavily. “The house used to be so warm and welcoming when my mother was alive. Now there’s only coldness and sterility, with Matteo in his ivory tower.”
“If so, it’s an ivory tower of his own making,” Bryce pointed out practically as he unlocked his SUV and opened the door for Bella to climb inside. “Since taking over from your father, he’s made himself into the feared head of the Italian Mafia.”
Bella knew Bryce was right, but that didn’t stop her heart from aching a little for the loss of the teasing and lighthearted man her brother used to be.
When their parents were alive, Matteo was always being called into their father’s study—now Matteo’s study—and chastised by their father for one misdemeanor or another. It had usually involved a girl or woman Matteo shouldn’t be seeing.
If there was a woman in Matteo’s life now, then she hadn’t managed to pierce the protective and icy shell Matteo now kept about his heart.
Bryce turned to look at Bella once he had climbed in behind the wheel of the vehicle and turned the key in the ignition. “Do you want to eat dinner out or pick something up on the way home?” He maneuvered the SUV into the traffic.
She grimaced. “I’m not hungry, and I’ve taken up enough of your time for one evening.”
Bryce raised his brows. “Did I not make myself clear earlier?” he prompted mildly. “Someone appears to be following you as well as sending you unwanted presents. Which means,” he continued firmly as she would have spoken, “I’m going to be your twenty-four-seven bodyguard until we know exactly who that someone is and put a stop to it.”
Talking of being followed…
A glance in the driving mirror had shown Bryce another SUV with black-tinted windows pulling out into the traffic two cars behind them when they left Zalotti’s estate. To test whether or not the vehicle was following them, Bryce watched to see if that vehicle turned left or right when they did. It did, every time.
Was it the same man from the coffee shop this morning, or was Matteo Zalotti having them followed?
Why would the Italian bother to do that when, despite having disowned Bella in front of Franco Ricci, Zalotti obviously knew exactly where his sister lived and worked?
To protect her?
Bryce couldn’t quite get his head round that theory after Zalotti’s coldness earlier. Which meant he had to go on the idea it was probably the same man, or some of his associates, from the coffee shop this morning.
What the hell was going on here?
And had they just made the situation ten times worse by visiting Zalotti’s well-guarded estate?