CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Ask me again.”
AFTER AROUND THREE DIFFERENT stops to “business associates”—I was left under watch in the car each time—the Escalade makes its final stop in the alley behind BLACK GOLD CASINO.
Suited men with grim expressions file out of the vehicles and shuffle me through a black metal door guarded by two large men.
After climbing two flights of stairs, Stefano tugs me into an elevator with him and holds his hand up to halt the others from entering.
The elevator spits us out on the sixth floor, and he leads me into an office.
It’s quite an office. Wide and masculine, a dominant decor of gray and deep brown with an unobscured vista of the strip. It screams ego.
He gestures to one of two long, leather couches. “Have a seat, Lexi.”
I do so without argument, as I’m not sure if being secluded with just him is a good thing or a bad thing.
He strides to his ginormous desk, unbuttons his jacket, and sits down. He glances over and starts to say something, but then his phone rings and he answers.
And as soon as that call ends another one comes in, again, and again, and again. From his desk phone to his cellphone to his desk phone, one call after the next. Who is this man?
With my hands clasped in my lap, trying not to breathe too loudly, I listen to his one-sided conversations instead of the thundering beats of my heart. It is a terrible thing to wait in fear. Not knowing what fate awaits you. Death or freedom?
A knock comes at the door and Stefano pauses his phone call to give the knocker the okay to enter.
The doorknob starts to turn then stops. Sounds of a scuffle… A feminine screech of protest… A low grumble… Then the doorknob turns again and Lorenzo strides in with two takeout containers on a tray. His serious, don’t-fuck-with-me eyes sweep around the room and settle on me. Something glints in that terror-inducing gaze of his.
“Why are you bringing this instead of Kate?” Stefano asks with a scowl.
“She…tripped,” Lorenzo replies.
And I sense that there’s more to Kate’s “trip.”
Stefano sighs. “The shark is for me, the Salmon for Lexi.”
Lorenzo strides over to where I’m at and hands me the takeout container. On top of it is a sticker with “Salmon/Veg” scribbled across it.
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“Drink?” he asks, his voice a deep, low rumble, his gaze coasting over me like I’m his own meal.
“Yes. Um, water.”
His lips do this thing, as if he’s trying to smile at me and keeps failing. With a silent, somewhat frustrated grunt, he turns and moves across the room, pausing to drop the second container carelessly on Stefano’s desk before heading to the wet bar.
From the mini fridge, he grabs a bottled water and strides right back to me, Stefano scowling at him the entire time.
“Need anything,” he mumbles as he hands me the cold bottle, “send for me. Yes?”
Though I have no intention of doing any such thing, I reply, “Okay.”
As he’s leaving, Stefano asks, “Do I not get something to drink, too?”
“Choke,” Lorenzo grunts out just before the door slams behind him.
Although my appetite is still in hiding, I unwrap the plastic fork and force myself to eat, as something tells me Stefano wouldn’t appreciate it if I don’t eat. I’ve not forgotten how, when I woke up to him in my apartment, he’d made breakfast and forced me to eat it.
When his phone call ends, he leans back in his chair and eyes me contemplatively. “Is my cousin ‘the one?’”
His question catches me off guard and I almost choke on a piece of broccoli. I cough and take a chug of water before asking, “What?”
“Trenton,” he says. “Are you in love with him? When you imagine the future, is it with him?”
“Yes.” The word is out of my mouth before I realize it, shocking me. A heart-shaped lump forms in my throat. In love? Future? How could I have so confidently answered something that I’ve never even thought about? Had I been in denial all this time? Had I fallen in love with my “just fun” fling without realizing it?
As I think about the answer I just gave without a moment’s hesitation, I know with every cell within me that it’s true. I have never been in love with anyone before and can’t see past him to anyone else.
“Yes,” I answer again. “He’s the one.”
Stefano nods once. “In that case, I’m keeping you with me at all times, for however long it will take him to get here.”
Having difficulty understanding what that means, if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, I ask, “Why?”
Idly, he twists a fountain pen back and forth between his fingers. “Because Castellos have a terrible habit of wanting things they shouldn’t.”
Huh? “I don’t follow.”
He makes a disgruntled noise in his throat. “You have caught my brother’s eye, Lexi.”
“Your brother? The one who—Lorenzo?”
“Yes.”
Oh. “Are you twins or…?”
“Twins.”
“Oh. I wondered…” Talk less, Lexi. Talk less. This man is not your friend. You’re his hostage.
His lips twitch in amusement, as if he can hear what I’m thinking.
“See, Lorenzo is the kind who, if he sees something he wants, he takes it. Knowing you belong to Trent will not stop him from trying to win you over,” he informs me. “And provided this little situation with your thieving friend works out, I would like to keep the peace with the Garzas. Because while they don’t need us, we need them. There are certain connections that we cannot get to without their channels. They are the best at what they do, and we need that kind of certainty and reliability.”
I frown as I ask, “And Lorenzo wouldn’t care either way?”
“No. If he thinks he can steal you, he will try.” Stefano leans forward and sets the pen down. “For that reason, I am going to keep you glued to me instead of leaving you somewhere that he will get to you and, without a doubt, charm your thong off.”
Wow. The Castellos are…wow.
One brother values family enough to do whatever it takes to keep the peace, and the other would topple the entire foundation to steal his cousin’s woman.
“So,” Stefano continues as he picks up his cellphone, “wherever I go, you go. Wherever I sleep, you sleep. What is your dress size? Shoes?”
I blink. What the hell? “Um, size six for clothes and seven and a half for shoes.”
As he lifts the phone to his ear, he looks me over like I’m lying or something.
Seconds later, “Hi, Wendy” … “Yes, I am well. Listen, I need about five outfits. Dress, six. Shoe, seven and a half. Expect Kate to pick them up in about an hour or so.” … “Yes. Both.” … “Those, too, sure.” … “Right. Send me the invoice.”
He ends the call, sets the phone aside, then opens his takeout container and ignores me as he begins eating.
Did he really just commission clothes for me over the phone? Who are these people?
~
THREE DAYS HAVE passed.
Three days of no Trent, no Mama, no Maggie, but a heck of a lot of Stefano Castello.
Trent calls every day and asks to speak to me, but Stefano never lets him. I can’t imagine how pissed my favorite asshole must be at being told what to do.
Stefano makes me put on makeup and dress up in classy, expensive outfits every day, leaving me one mink coat short of feeling like a mob wife.
He takes me along with him wherever he goes. And believe me, Stefano Castello is a busy man. A very busy man. He gave me a crash course on how to write meeting minutes and put me in charge of that.
I’ve sat in on so many meetings I’ve lost count, and I’d be lucky to come out of this without carpal tunnel. Yesterday he met for ninety minutes with the mayor. Yes, the freaking mayor. Though I can’t tell what was discussed because he gave me noise cancellation headphones for that one and wrote the minutes himself.
The man never seems to tire. On the rare occasions that he does, however, he would take me home with him to his mansion in Summerlin and sleep for two to three hours, never more, before we’re back at BLACK GOLD. It’s as though he’s afraid that if he’s asleep for too long everything will crumble without his governance. I spend so much time sleeping on the long couch in his office that he’s since stationed a blanket and a pillow there for me.
At least I’m not on a lumpy cot in some dank, dark room. Being a quasi-free hostage is the strangest experience of my life.
After much observation, I’ve concluded that with Stefano Castello, what you see is not at all what you get. He’s the kind of man who will tell you a joke to get you to smile and relax right before he plunges a knife into your heart.
The man has around fifty different personalities and I’ve yet to figure out which one is the real him. Every individual who walks through his office door gets their own personalized version of him. He shows people what he wants them to see.
I’ve spent less time around Lorenzo. Stefano’s ploy to keep me out of his reach has proven to be successful, as Lorenzo is never in my presence for more than five minutes before Stefano is sweeping me away. Much to Lorenzo’s glaring frustration.
But although I haven’t spent as much time with Lorenzo as I have with Stefano, it’s enough for me to deduce that with Lorenzo Castello, what you see is what you get. He’s too impatient to bullshit. Too authentic to hide. He’s the type to lay it all out to let you know where he stands.
The two men might be identical in appearance, but that’s where their similarities end.
I’ve entertained the idea of escaping many times but have never bothered to exert myself trying. Even if I did make it out of the building, I wouldn’t make it out of Vegas. If there’s one thing I’ve come to understand, it’s that this city belongs to the Castellos, and no one would risk their life to help me.
I’ve come to terms with the possibility of this entire ordeal ending in death. I have so much time to be quiet, unseen, and unheard, and thus, a lot of time to think.
Once again, I ask myself, if given the chance, would I have chosen a different path than the one I did years ago when I set out to do whatever it took to support Mama?
Even with the grisly predicament I am in right now, the answer is still no.
The choices I made allowed me to help her win against that treacherous, soul-sucking disease called cancer, then set her up with her own business to revive her spirit and purpose after she kicked its ass.
So even if some of those choices I made will result in a shorter life for me, the fact that Mama will get to live out hers with a mortgage-free home and a successful business is all that matters. Maybe that was my only purpose on earth, and I fulfilled it. Mama will go on without me, but the Mendez family are aplenty.
What does fill my heart with unbearable sadness when I think about leaving this earth, however, is that Trent would never know the truth. He would never know that in just nine weeks, I toppled madly in love with him without even realizing it. And that I died regretting choosing the wrong brother.
We’d never get a chance to see what we could’ve been together, what magic we’d create.
“He will find her.”
Snapped from my depressive reveries, I glance up from my lap to meet Stefano’s gaze across the office. I’m so zoned out that I don’t even realize his meeting has ended. The two business associates dressed in Brioni suits have left. I’m for sure going to mess up this meeting’s minutes.
Stefano watches me from behind his desk, tapping his pen on the open folder in front of him.
“What?” I ask.
“I have been trying to keep you busy, because when you look like that, scared and sad, it…doesn’t make me feel…good,” he says in a bland tone. “I don’t always like being the bad guy, you know.”
I’m quick to shake my head, quick to lie, “I’m not sca—”
“Ask me again,” he cuts me off.
“Ask you what?”
“What I’m afraid of.”
This pulls an eyeroll from me. For the past three days, after every intense encounter he has with someone, every time I watch him strong-arm someone into doing what he wants, every time someone storms out with subdued rage and whispered threats, every time we visit “a business associate” and leave with them glaring daggers at his back, I would ask him, “What are you afraid of, Stefano?”
He is a man unafraid of having enemies but seems to revel in pissing people off. Death does not at all seem to be something he fears. Which is why I’ve asked him the question over and over, to which he would always reply, “Nothing.”
“I’m serious,” he says to me now. “Ask me again.”
I sigh wearily and indulge him. “What are you afraid of, Stefano?”
Leaning forward, he places his elbows on the desk, clasps his hands to his lips, and gives me a different answer this time around. “Falling in love.”
Interest piqued by this unexpected answer, I sit up from my slouch. “Really?”
“As I have told you, the Garzas don’t need us, so they don’t ever come to us for anything. It has always been the other way around,” he says. “Now, for the second time in a matter of a few months, I have my cousin by the balls, at my mercy. And I cannot express to you what a victory that is for me.”
His smile is so smug, so evil, yet so damn disarming. Hot, handsome villains should never be a thing. It’s so unfair. “And how could that have happened, Lexi?” He replies before I can decipher if that’s a rhetorical question or not. “Love. That is what that shit does to you. I do not ever want to be in the position my cousin is in right now. The horror.”
“But what if it was a family member for you?” I ask him. “You did say you value family.”
He grunts. “One thing all Castellos have agreed on is that if any of us are caught in a situation that would mean the downfall and demise of the entire family, we let them die so we can live on to avenge and fight another day. My family knows never to pay a ransom for me and dance like a monkey for anyone. Let me die, then come back stronger and fucking avenge me.”
“That’s…wow.” I don’t even know what to think about that. On the one hand, it makes sense, but on the other hand, it would suck to be caught in a deadly situation and know that no one will be coming to save you.
“When you are in love with someone,” he continues, “it’s a whole different ballgame. So trust me, Trenton will not only find and bring that bitch to us, but he will also make sure that every penny of my five million dollars is there.” He shakes his head and rocks back in his chair. “That love thing is the deadliest, most dangerous thing on earth.”
“Well then,” I say with a wicked smile, “I hope you do fall in love one day. Madly. Deeply. Uncontrollably. You fucker.”