“I’m surprised the family lets you do it.”
“I’m the black sheep, so not really involved in our family. Dad ignores me as long as I don’t attract the wrong sort of attention.”
“Like getting caught with drugs or banging an underage teen sort of attention?”
“Yeah, exactly. Being in the public eye is fine. It ties in with the philanthropic work the family does.” His obnoxious air quotes at the word philanthropic tell me exactly what he thinks of the family’s charitable endeavors.
“Fina told me about the women’s shelter,” I say.
“She did?” He reaches for my wineglass and tops it up before guzzling a generous mouthful. “Makes sense. She’s proud of that.” Silence fills the air between us as he closes his eyes and says nothing for a few minutes. Then he continues. “The only reason Dad lets her take on projects like that is to divert attention from the shadier stuff. It’s fucked up. On the one hand, the family helps abused women, and on the other, they sell the drugs that exacerbate dysfunctional relationships and cause desperate people to succumb to addiction.”
He’s right.
And now I’m part of their world.
“Anyway, I don’t want to talk about my fucked-up family and pointless life. Let’s watch something fluffy on TV.”
“Don’t you have a home to go to?” Surely he has his own place. I can’t see Angelo wanting him here full-time.
“Yeah, but I hate living on my own. It’s too quiet. I’d rather be here with you.” His puppy-dog expression is so pathetic that I can’t help but laugh.
“It’s not my house, but if you want to watchLove Islandwith me, I’m game.”
I reach for the remote control, but he snatches it from me. “Nah. I need to catch up onSouthern Charmedso settle in, cutie; we have a whole season to watch.”
14
Angelo
Sirens blare in the distance as people scurry around far below. This building is one of the tallest in the downtown area, and my penthouse apartment commands some of the best views across the bay, but despite how pretty the sky is as the sun sinks below the horizon, I’m too busy staring at my phone while every muscle in my body throbs with tension.
I know I’m being ridiculous.
Honestly, a huge part of me is mad that I didn’t just let Chiara go. Dad went nuclear about the wedding debacle. Fired half our security team and fucking shot the idiots we’d posted outside her room.
It was carnage, but the gossip would have moved on in time.
Since she ran immediately after the wedding, I could have gotten the marriage annulled, which would have left me free to marry someone else. So why am I obsessed with the infuriating woman?
Maybe it’s because I can still recall with amazing clarity the first time we met as kids. When I asked her name, she’d stared atme with those ocean-blue eyes, her hair gleaming in the sun like spun gold. Then she giggled and ran away.
I’d chased her through the orchard for twenty minutes as she pelted me with rotten apples until my father yelled my name and broke the spell.
I don’t think she remembers that day. She acted as if we were strangers when we met at the altar.
I’d never forgotten her, even though our paths didn’t cross again until I was twenty-three and she was seventeen. Still a teenager, but hints of the woman she’d become were already there.
There had been no laughter that day. I’d hung back when my father strode over to pay his respects to Frank Farucci’s widow, not knowing what to say to the daughter frozen in grief, her eyes blank. By the time I summoned the courage to approach her with some bullshit platitude, my father said we were leaving.
I had stared out of the window as we drove away from the cemetery, watching Chiara linger by the open grave. She’d not shed a tear throughout the service, not even when they lowered the coffin into the ground.
That was the last time I saw her until the day her stepmother dragged her up the aisle and shoved her none too gently toward me. The look of hatred on Chiara’s face when I lifted her heavy veil had caused Father Tuccio to stumble over his words, making me feel bad for a hot second. What kind of man forces an unwilling woman to marry him?
But I soon pushed my misgivings aside. Thanks to fate, the woman I’d fallen for years ago was now my wife, and no fucker was going to take her away from me.
The TV drama playing in the background goes unwatched as I focus on the live security footage from home. Upon Kane’s recommendation, we upgraded the cameras shortly after the wedding.
Every room in my mansion, apart from my bedroom suite and my office, has military-grade security cameras fixed in various locations, ensuring there are very few blind spots. The cameras work even in the dark. The footage they send to the cloud is crisp, and the audio is clear as a bell.
