I stopped, my back turned to him, but I could see him through the mirrors. “How?”
“You left the private room at the restaurant when I told you to stay there.”
“I didn’t tell Stone anything!”
“You didn’t.” He raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “Still. Not the fucking point.”
If he wanted a fight, he was barking up the wrong tree. He wanted a wolf—he was about to get a she one. “Whatisthe point?” I said through clenched teeth.
“I need to keep you safe. You’re my wife. The mother of my son.”
That shocked me. His tone. It was softer, but still raspy. My anger simmered some, which would give me time to find out what I needed before I confronted him. I wanted all of the facts before I went to war. I knew after talking to Stone, I wasn’t dealing with an average man. This man had lived half of his life as a ghost. In honor of what? Vengeance?
“I’ll be in the office.”
When I turned around, he was gone.
I must’ve taken the quickest shower in my history at the secret fire station. I tried to act nonchalant as I dried my hair and then prepared for bed. I put on the thickest pajamas in my closet, still feeling the cold from earlier, and even thicker socks. I slid into bed, propped my pillows against the headboard, and then took out my laptop from the side table.
The last page I’d been on was a site for saving ideas. I was thinking about the baby’s room. Nothing compared to those little French figurines I’d seen in the window that night, though. I wanted to go back and get them, but I was hesitant. Dolce seemed like a main hangout for the Scarpones. Maybe I’d ask Keely to swing by and get the store’s name. I could call them, buy the figurines over the phone, and have them delivered.
Lowering the page, I opened an entirely new search. I typed in four words:Scarpones of New York.
Thousands of results appeared on the page.
“Too many.” I sighed. I read the first couple of articles, though.Ruthless. Pack of Wolves. Cunning. Social climbers.Those were the most prominent adjectives used. I found a few pictures of Arturo and Achille. Ritzy functions. Political dinners. Shaking hands. All smiles.There was a picture with Arturo and his current wife, Bambi, who was Achille’s mother. Achille was the perfect mixture of them both. My husband looked more like his mother’s side of the family.
It clicked then. That was why they called him the Pretty Boy Prince.
In a house full of savages, he stood out.
I scrolled some more, but only “suspected” criminal dealings came up. Things the Scarpones had been questioned for but never indicted on. This time, I narrowed my search down.
Vittorio Lupo Scarpone
“Can’t be,” I muttered, narrowing my eyes against the glare of the screen. There were only three articles that mentioned him. The first had a picture of a beautiful woman smiling as she walked down the street. I could tell it was someplace in New York. I could tell she was going somewhere, trying to get away from the cameras, but still smiling, showing her best side. If the other side was as perfect as the one she shared; she had no flaws.
Two Kingdoms Come Together to Form One Powerful Family
The “Prince” of New York set to marry into one of New York’s finest political dynasties.
Vittorio Lupo Scarpone, son of Arturo Scarpone and the late Noemi Scarpone, and Angelina Zamboni, daughter of Angelo and Carmella Zamboni, will be wed at the Cathedral of St. Patrick, followed by a winter-wonderland themed reception at the bride’s parents’ estate in Upstate New York.
“Son of a bitch,” I whispered. Was Quillon related to Angelina? They had the same last name, and when I looked at her a bit harder, there was something there. Not immediate, but something about the way they smiled. Nothing else, though, connected them. She had a slim face. Tan skin. Long, dark blonde hair. Dark eyes. Tall. She seemed very tall. And her nose was…perfection, along with her lips. She was the Italian Princess to the wildly gorgeous Italian Prince.
I pulled up a separate page, typing in her name. Very few results showed for her, too. Quillonwasher brother. The rest of the articles focused on her murder.
Hermurder.
Men, more than one, had attacked her in the alley beside Dolce, the restaurant that gave me the creeps. It was speculated that Vittorio went down fighting for Angelina before the men raped her and then put a bullet in her brain. She had suffered a gruesome death, the article stated. She was also pregnant at the time of her demise.
I had to close the computer for a second, take a deep, deep breath. Then I opened it again when I felt I could breathe normally.
Vittorio’s blood had been all over the scene, enough of it that they had suspected he was brutally stabbed and then his body dumped in the water somewhere. They hadn’t found him.
“Of course not,” I said to the screen. “He’s sitting in the next room.Ifound him.”
I couldn’t stand to read more details about Angelina’s murder, or continue to see pictures of her, so I went back to my other search about Vittorio.
