I could never reach out to my mom again, let her know I was thinking of her, how much I missed her. She had the matching other one.
“Bestie boo,”she’d said to me.“This is like a friendship bracelet, but even better!”
An inhuman sound came from my throat, watching as what was left of my mom turned to ash in front of my eyes. I didn’t cry. I was too in shock. I pulled her hair instead. Pulled and started fighting. Until a firm grip took me by what hair I had left and held tight.
“Odette! Henriette!” Régine yanked even harder when I tried to fight, then she put me in a throat lock. “The rest!Maintenant!”
“No!” I screeched, hardly able to get it out because of the pressure she had on my throat. “No. No.Please!No!” My hands reached out, dying to feel them all one last time.
“It’s too late to beg, you bitch! You will watch it all burn! A funeral for all yoursecretthings!”
As Régine’s daughters flung every piece of my life in the fire with glee, I escaped Régine’s clutches and turned on her. My hand went aroundherthroat, and the shocked look in her eyes before I was hauled away made me smile. Then, before I knew it, I was on a trajectory toward the stone wall. When my head smashed into it, my eyes filled with the blood of the fire before smoky darkness swallowed me whole.
Chapter 10
Matteo
“Ihave been outbid, or so they tell me.”
All the blood felt like it drained from my body at Bertrand Moro’s words. Even though I sat with control, it felt like I flopped into the chair, almost lifeless. The plan had been for Moro to make a bid for Stella, so we could get her out unharmed. Then we were going to unleash hell on the Nemours. I was determined to tear the heart from that fucking underground club. Destroy it so another woman wouldn’t have to experience what mamma and Stella had.
The Nemours were smart, though, and they were taking every precaution to keep us from Stella. They had lost one dancer to us before. They were not going to lose another. Or so they fucking thought. The Russians were complicating things too. They had an opinion when it came to money, and how much they were willing to lose on one dancer—it wasn’t nearly the price the Nemours were willing to pay. Because this had become personal after what had happened with mamma.
The Russian’s presence also meant they had added manpower. Though, at that moment, the Nemours and the Russians were not in agreement about what should happen toStella. The Nemours demanded to keep her at all costs, while the Russians wanted to get rid of her.
I jumped from my seat like I’d been electrocuted. These thoughts alone were making me a fiend for the blood of my enemies.
“Phase 2 then.” Saverio stood and fixed his suit. “We ride in four hours.” He left with a trail of soldiers following behind him.
I took the seat again, not sure where to place all the raging emotions inside of me. I’d felt protective over women in the past. The need to shield them was ingrained in my DNA, but nothing to this extreme before. When someone mentioned Stella’s name in a way I didn’t appreciate, a newly born instinct to tear them apart was hard to tame down.
Bertrand Moro started to pace the length of the safe house we’d secured in Paris. It was like the motherfucker was walking the plank, a sharp pivot right before he jumped into the water. I had no issue with Moro, except for the fact that he rented and bought women from the Nemours. He believed their wild stories about the characters they turned some of their women into. Tales that a sane man wouldn’t believe.
“I am a romantic, Signore Fausti!” Moro had made this dramatic statement with the lace around his wrist flaring out when he threw out his hand. “These dancers speak to my heart.” He brought the hand over it. “These women are not of this world. You can understand that, can’t you?” The pleading was all in his eyes, though a touch of it came through his voice.
Moro had that going for him. He seemed to know how to speak to my grandfather, but my grandfather never believed in owning a person, especially a woman, for any reason. If it was a man, Nonno would simply kill him. He always had a reason, though. Always. Moro only wanted some of the dancers for his own collection.
Which was why when this was over, I was going to take care of him. Depending on what he did for us in this situation was what “take care of him” meant. If he didn’t agree to stop buying women, I was going to kill him. But if he scurried away again, like he did when the war between the Faustis and the Nemours first began, letting all the women go, he could live—but back in the darkness again. And someone would be watching him, always watching him, and if he ever so much as dared to be interested in buying flesh again, I’d stab him through the heart, pinning him like a horny fly on a wall with his limp dick out.
He knew this too. That was why he was dripping sweat, and his eyes kept flicking to mine. He didn’t trust me. And he shouldn’t. I had no loyalties to Bertrand Moro. He had no loyalties, except to himself. He proved that when he ran during the first war, since he knew that, one way or another, he would have gotten sucked in. Years later, and the one thing he’d run from came back to haunt him. Maybe karma for being such a fucking slime ball when it came to women.
The Faustis revered women, believed that no man should break something that was smaller than him, or he wasn’t a man. And women were only smaller than us physically; in everything else, they excelled. We knew it. We respected it. We loved and honored it.
“I would appreciate it if you would stop looking at me that way.” He was polite, but with a begrudging edge.
“Tell me, how am I looking at you, Moro?” I said.
“Like your father looks at me. Like your uncle looks at me. Like your grandfather looks at me. Like you are the cat, and I am the mouse. You keep looking at me that way, and my mouth will refuse to work. My brain is sending anoverwhelmingamount of warning signals to my body. Zooo. Zooo. Zooo!”
Marciano gave a huff of laughter, but I kept my gaze on Moro. “Continue with what you were saying, before.”
“I have been outbid, or so they tell me.”
“Stop pacing.”ZioRomeo sliced him with a look. “In terms you can understand,you are making me seasick.”
ZioRomeo was being testier than usual. He was usually the most amicable of my father’s brothers. He was slow to anger, but light the fuse, and once it contacted the explosives…boom. Still. I made a mental note to find out from Mariano if something else was up with him. Mariano talked to him more—thehairbonded them. As of late, in our family, it seemed like anything was possible. I didn’t want to miss any trouble before it blew up.
“Also, expand on that thought,” Mariano said to Moro.
