One fuckup here, and I’d be dead, so it was critical that I played my part with far more acting skill than I actually possessed. This part of survival I knew for sure.
Giovanni pressed in even closer, staring down at me, his hand sandwiched on my belly between us. “I can see why my son is so obsessed with you,” he murmured, his eyes, dark like Angelo’s but without the warmth his son’s possessed, locked on me. “You were a pretty child, but you’ve grown into a captivating woman. Maybe there is room for you in the Ricci—”
“Bella!” The snapped word came from the doorway, making me nearly jump out of my skin. “What are you doing?” Angelo strolled in, showing no real sign he was bothered by the way his father was touching me. “We need to get going; hurry up.”
No one moved, and I silently counted in my head, needing to stay calm until this creep got away from me. The moment he did, I needed to burn these clothes and scrub my skin within an inch of its life. The prickling across it was near unbearable now.
“Right,” Giovanni said. “You’re off to Big Noise.”
Angelo nodded, and when his fatherfinallymoved away, he positioned himself so he was standing as a barrier between me and the head of the Ricci organization. The Don, Godfather, Big Boss. He used many names and titles, but they all meant one thing: He was the one who decided who lived and died here, and we couldn’t afford to piss him off. Okay, I might be making those names up after watching too many mafia movies, but I was pretty sure his goons didn’t call him Big G or Vanni.
Still, Angelo put his body between us, and that gave me enough time to scrub away the single hot tear that’d escaped my eye and get my game face back on.
“Report in as soon as you arrive,” Giovanni said, whatever mood he’d been channeling before, when he assaulted the concept of personal space, disappearing. “And don’t disappoint me, Angelo.”
“Never, father,” Angel said softly but with this lethal undercurrent that I wasn’t sure I’d heard from him before. “Always the obedient son.”
He was. Always obedient. He’d sacrificed all of his dreams for this family, and part of me wondered if one day, when he took over the reins, he’d be as fucked up and damaged as his father.
From then on, he’d be my Angel no more.
Just Angelo Ricci.
Forever lost to me.
nine
BILLIE
Hot blood splattered my face and chest, and a scream caught in my throat. My whole body froze, utterly locked up as the paunchy man in a suit with a new hole through his head collapsed to the carpet of the conference room floor.
“Bella! What thefuck?” Angelo roared, grabbing my arm hard enough to hurt as he dragged me out of the room. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the dead man, though. His sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling, the hole in the center of his forehead almost mocking his death for how neat it was. The mess of blood pooling beneath him betrayed a different story at the exit wound, though.
Holy shit.
Angelo was shaking my arm, talking—no, yelling—and all I could hear was static. White noise. Holyshit. He’d just shot that man. In a conference room. Holyshit!
Angelo dragged me away from the dead man, hauling me along the corridor of Big Noise Records, and I couldn’t seem to make my body work to fight back. I just stumbled over my own feet and let him manhandle me into the ladies’ room.
“…know how dangerous that was? You could have been hurt! Christ, Bella, you were supposed to be in the café!”
I swallowed hard, deliberately not looking at the mirror as Angelo used rough paper towels to clean the blood from my face. “You didn’t give me any money,” I mumbled, feeling numb. Everything was numb. He’d justkilled a man,and he was here cleaning my face. What the fuck was going on?
Angelo stopped his frantic dabbing and stared at me like I’d just spoken in Klingon.
“You told me to get coffee,” I elaborated, reminding him of the conversation we’d had not five minutes ago. “You said to get a coffee, and Trish took me to the café on level four, but—”
Angelo cut me off with a gusty, defeated sigh. “But I hadn’t given you any money, and you have nothing of your own. Shit, Bella, I’m so sorry. I forget, sometimes, that you’re… you know.”
“Your prisoner?” I was slowly regaining my senses. The numbness was fading and leaving chills in its path. “Yeah, well… it is what it is.”
I pulled out of his grip, wincing at the ache in my arm where he’d been gripping me, then bravely turned to face the mirror.Holy shit.
Swallowing hard, I yanked a paper towel from the dispenser and wet it under the tap. It wasn’t alotof blood, but it was enough. Which begged the question: What quantity of someone else’s blood would benot enoughto be concerned about? I guessed Angelo would know the answer to that, but I didn’t have the stomach to ask.
“Bella, you know I’m only doing this to keep you safe,” Angelo said in a darkly quiet voice. He stood at my back, and I met his gaze in the mirror as I pulled more paper towels from the dispenser.
I cleared my throat before responding, forcing myself to break eye contact and focus on thebloodon my skin. “You’re doing this to buy yourself time, Angel,” I said softly. “And Valentina. Which is fine, but don’t pretend you’re doing me any favors with this.” I gestured to my belly, feeling sick.
