“I tried to close my eyes, Arciero.” Yakov grinned, making fun of the entire situation. Curtis was furious.There had to be something I could say to explain why I was at the same table with the man he warned me about and why I didn’t tell him I was coming here. It didn’t seem like it but there wasn’t any situation I couldn’t get myself out of—I was a professional liar, for heaven’s sake. But seeing him standing there, obviously battling the urge to punch Yakov in the face and drag me out of there had my brain short-wired. I couldn’t string two words together.Was there any chance the floor could open up and swallow me alive?I didn’t wait for him to drag me out. I walked over to him, trying my best to remain silent in case I said something that would make things much worse.Any hope that we could forget about what he just witnessed flew out through the window as soon as we got to his office and he locked the door behind us. “Explain.”I could have made something up about wanting to pl
Curtis“Don’t forget the chocolates. That’s the best part of a picnic.” I heard Mother say on my way downstairs. In the living room, Angelica was packing a picnic basket of some sort. She stopped when she saw me and wiped her hands on her dress.“Where are you two going?” I asked, taking a peek into the basket. I wanted nothing more than to steal one of the cookies packed in a transparent cookie box but Angelica and I weren’t exactly in talking terms right now.“On a picnic.” Mother answered. “Do you want to come along? It will be fun, I promise. We baked your favorite cupcakes.”While that was tempting, I had a better idea about where to go if they wanted to go out. “I’ll drive.” I offered.“You don’t need to.” Angelica was quick to say. “We are only going to the garden.”“I have a better idea.”I picked up my keys. The two exchanged glances before Angelica picked up the basket and left the picnic blankets on the couch. We wouldn’t need them.Mother was first to take the backseat and
Angelica “Angel, your ring is so pretty.” A little girl said to me, touching my ring finger with her own little one. She had just introduced herself as Sasha. “Thank you. Do you want to try it on?” I asked. I had caught her staring a few times with interest and when she heard my suggestion, her eyes lit up and she nodded excitedly. I slid my ring off and onto her thumb. Her smile made my heart melt. Soon, all the kids were surrounding us to check it out. The next thing I knew, I had flowers in my hair. “You look just like Rapunzel.” A little girl gasped. “Rapunzel has blond hair, Amber. Angel’s is black.” Sasha corrected her. “Angel looks like an angel.” Another girl said, and soon I was being called a princess, a model, an angel, and every compliment in the kids’ dictionary. “You’re all so adorable.” I squeezed the closest of them into a hug. I didn’t realize how much I loved kids until I started meeting so many of them. “Will you stay with us?” A little boy asked. I couldn’
Curtis We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We hungrily explored each other’sbodiesy. My cock was throbbing. I couldn’t wait to bury myself into her wet, sweetness but first, I wanted to taste her. I threw her onto the bed and she bounced against the mattress with a slight giggle as I climbed on after her. Her jeans were taking ages to get off. “You are not allowed to wear such inconvenient clothes anymore.” She playfully scoffed. “Sure, bossman. I’m only allowed to wear little dresses that give you easy access. Am I allowed to wear panties?” “I would prefer if you don’t.” I lifted her hips to get off her jeans and my cock twitched at the sight of how soaked her white cotton panties were. “On second thought, I don’t want anyone getting to smell the sweet scent of your arousal.” I parted her legs and buried my head between them, grazing her through her panties. She arched her back. “Curtis, please.”“Please what, baby?” I yanked her jeans out the rest of the way and nudged
Curtis “Who?” She frowned at me like I was asking her something that should have been obvious. For a moment, she looked like she was going to go on a rant. Then she smiled and shrugged it off. “Forget it. Are you hungry? Angelica made extra vanilla cupcakes earlier.” I was indeed hungry, and I also knew Mother wasn’t one to change her mind. If she had decided not to tell me who she was talking about, she wouldn’t tell me even if I nagged her about it. So I grabbed one of the cupcakes instead. One bite and I decided to grab a few more and take them with me. The only thing as sweet as Angelica was food made by her. The cupcakes had what most pastry lovers would think was way too little sugar but she managed to make them tasty. Mother was watching me devour the first one, then the second. When she couldn’t hold her tongue anymore, she said, “She decided not to go along with the measurements she always uses so you would enjoy them too. She was thinking about you.”“It’s just a cupcake
AngelicaFor hours after Curtis left, I scoured my copies of the Arciero book of records—at least the ones I could understand with the help of translation dictionaries. It was strange. They had to be a hundred tasks but none of them had anything to do with Curtis or Giancarlo.He had mentioned having nothing to do with his family business before but I had taken it as him finding excuses to extract himself from them. Now, I couldn’t be so sure. I couldn’t help wondering what else I could have assumed he was lying about just because the truth didn’t sound very believable.Before I could sink into a rabbit hole of overanalyzing every word he had ever said, I reminded myself I didn’t have access to every record yet. Maybe everything he did for the family businesses was recorded in the other languages. Now that I was certain who called the shots, I only needed to ask him who wrote the records—if only he could speak.It was great that he was suffering but I wished he was able to give me all
“Are you done?” Spider met me at the door just as I got out. I glanced at the huge clock on the hallway wall with a frown.“You said I had thirty minutes. It’s only been ten.”He grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the changing room. “We need to talk. Get changed.”All I had to do was take off the scrubs so I grabbed the hem and pulled them off, and shrugged at him. “I’m not putting these back where I found them for obvious reasons. I’ll dispose of them instead.”He scoffed. “How cautious of you. You know what’s crazy? You are overly cautious when there's really no need to be, but you are too lax about things that require your caution.”“What things?” I wondered.He grabbed my arm to drag me out of the hospital. Once we were a safe distance away and he had checked to ensure he had not missed any part of the footage, he turned to face me just as I ditched the scrubs, mask and gloves into the nearest trash bin.“What the hell is going on with you? On one hand, you get too close to Cur
Curtis“How soon do you think he’s going to stay alive?” Giancarlo asked out of the blue, pulling me out of my thoughts yet again.He was talking about our father.“I don’t know.” I had not been to the hospital again but the last time I was there, his condition seemed stable. He seemed like he would be able to recover from his injuries.“I wish he just died.” He grumbled, but then his expression fell as he fell into deep thought. Whatever he had just thought about was probably exactly how I felt about this whole situation.Unlike in loving families where everyone would be sad right now, I felt nothing. I hated my father for everything he did to us growing up and everything he made me do, his impending death did not make me feel anything. I wasn’t sad about losing him but I wasn’t excited either. It felt like closing a book I was done reading. Except, I would not revisit this particular book.“Are you going to visit him?” I asked.He considered my words for a while before his lips twit
Angelica"What is it like being a mother?"Klara paused with a spoon of chocolate ice cream halfway towards her mouth. I only realized how odd my question was when I saw how she was looking at me. I dug into my ice cream and shoveled a spoon into my mouth to calm myself down."Why would you ask?" she asked. "Are you planning to have kids?"I was glad I wasn't looking at her so she wouldn't read my mind—not that I still believed shrinks could read minds but it was awkward nonetheless."Maybe," I gave a vague answer. Considering Curtis's stance on kids, her surprise was understandable. However, I didn't want to tell her I was pregnant yet. It didn't feel right to tell anyone else before Curtis."Well," she shrugged. "That's a broad subject. But I had all these plans for my kids. Rowan and I always wanted two, close in age, and we planned everything including what parenting methods we would use, which schools they would go to, what kind of friends we would allow around them, how I would
Angelica I groaned as I forced my eyes open, adjusting to the blinding light that had just been flickered on. I didn't know how long I had slept. Hell, I wasn't sure if it was day or night. There was no window in this dingy cell and the door was a solid hank of metal that didn't allow any light through it. The only source of light was the offensively bright bulb above me, which had been kept off until now. I had alternated between sleeping and pacing in the dark the whole time and it was driving me crazy. The only thing I could feel was the chains around my wrists and ankles, reminding me that I wasn't dead yet. I didn't know how long had passed since Curtis interrogated me about The Viper. It could be a day, a week, or a year. Hell, it could be ten years for all I knew. I looked down at my stomach and my lips twitched. At least there was a way to know if months had passed. My belly would bulge out. This was Curtis's idea of torture.To be fair, solitary confinement was one of the
Curtis“Angelika Giannelli, Angel of Death…is there any other identity I should know of?” I mocked.“Tell me everything about The Viper,” I demanded.She averted her gaze, dragging the long chains with her so she would walk up to me. I smirked when she stopped, her radius finally running out.“Is this necessary?” She bit back.Yes, it was. This woman killed Miles right under our noses and we didn’t think she was at fault. She played us all like a violin with that innocent smile on her face, all while taking out one Arciero after another and pitting us against each other. However, that was not why I was here.I pointed at her chains. “That will be the least of your problems. Answer me.”She shook her head. “I can’t tell you anything. You’re going to kill me anyway. Just do it.”“I knew you would say that.” I grinned. Someone with her skill could endure a lot of pain.Besides, I couldn’t bring myself to torture her. At least not physically anyway, which was odd, considering how willing
Angelica I needed my head examined. Was I seriously considering having this child? I had bought a dozen pregnancy test kits in the hospital’s pharmacy and couldn’t wait until I got to my hotel room, so I took the tests right there in the hospital washroom. Unsurprisingly, all of them came positive. It was unbelievable. I didn’t know what I thought pregnancy felt like but this was not it. I had expected a little more drama. Aside from my boobs feeling like they were about to fall off, the doctor mentioned I was lucky enough to have a morning sickness-free pregnancy. Maybe that was why I still couldn’t believe I had an actual baby inside me. It sounded like a joke—until I remembered I had to tell Curtis. Between upgrading and downgrading my way through as many cars as possible in the last two months, and spending each of those nights at a different hotel, I had about a thousand dollars to my name. It was a drop in the bucket in relation to how much I needed to bring up a child. I
AngelicaI felt like crap. Where the hell am I? I wondered. I forced one eye open and squinted, wincing from how horribly my head hurt. I patted around for my phone and remembered dropping it the night before. I hadn’t stopped to pick it up. I was too busy running for my life with Curtis hot on my tail. I didn’t know how he found me but I wasn’t going to be able to hide from him forever, I guess. My plan was perfect if I do say so myself. I ran around the city, leaving Curtis a trail that would make him think I was headed for Arcron, then I circled back and returned to Silverwood, where I rented two apartments; one in my name and the other under Klara Arciero. I stayed at neither. I spent every night at a different motel far from both apartments. The apartments were only a way to keep Curtis busy if he found out I was still in the city. Which is why I couldn’t understand why the fuck I thought it was a good idea to check out my fake apartment. I was yet to enter the building when
CurtisTwo months later. Why was I still on this wild goose chase? I hadn’t caught a whiff of my wife even though I felt I had searched the whole of West Auburg. She couldn’t have left the country. There was only one person capable of helping her get a fake passport and he was currently on our side. Sometimes I could swear she was leaving me a trail. Though when I got to it, she was gone like a puff of smoke. I was more frustrated by the realization that the longer it took to find her, the farther away she could go. If she found a way to get a fake passport from somewhere else, she could be halfway across the country and there was nothing I could do about it. But I wasn’t giving up. I meant it when I said I would tear down the whole world to find her. I was not giving up now. I was still staring at the road with my hands gripping the steering wheel. What if I was approaching this from the wrong angle?I took a U-turn at the next exit and returned home. Klara was visiting, which was
The Viper “Angelica left.” I glared at Spider. “What do you mean she left?” He shrugged, letting me know there was nothing else to explain about it. She ran away. “And you let her?” He scrunched his nose. “You know there’s no such thing as ‘letting’ with Angelica. You could lock her up in a cage with an active electric field all around it and she would still find a way to leave.” His words conjured up a memory of that feisty little kitten she once was. She’d been looking for me for a year and I knew every bullet she put between a target’s brows, every throat she sliced was to get my attention. She did get it, but it was way too much than she bargained for. She ended up in my dungeon after putting down one of my most loyal men. I made sure the shackles were way too small for her to wiggle her hands free, and the chain was too short to be of any use. I was going to decide whether she was worth keeping that night but I walked into the dungeon only for her to head-butt me and make
CurtisLyra Giannelli, now known as Eloise Dalton, was as hard to find as her sister. I already knew she was Samantha’s cousin from overhearing their argument but I still couldn’t find her, not even with Giancarlo’s help. Eventually, I had to ask Samantha and I had to promise not to harm a hair on her head before I got any useful information.Good, because I didn’t plan to hurt her. She was more useful to me alive, anyway.I watched as the debate played out on her face, if she would be able to run past me if she tried. She decided against it. Smart girl. I didn’t track her down just to let her escape.She sat down opposite me. “Make it quick. I have to get home.”“Of course.” I let her settle down before I asked what I knew she was already expecting. “Where is she?”“Who?”“Don’t play dumb with me.”She crossed her arms at her chest. “What do you expect me to tell you? That I know where to find your wife? Why would I know that if you don’t?”I knew what she was worried about. “Look, I
Lyra “Come with me.” Angelica urged me. When we made it to her car, she had floored it out of the Arciero mansion’s garage and only stopped about half an hour later. We were far from the Arciero mansion and certainly not being followed. How nice of her to ask if I wanted to leave with her after grabbing me without much choice earlier. I was yet to figure out why we were running away. Wasn’t Curtis her husband? So what if her maiden name was a little different from what everyone thought? “Why?” I asked. “You said your life is in danger. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” She said frantically, and I knew she was hiding something. “Curtis might just take his anger out on you.” “I’ll be fine.” I assured her. Samantha was my cousin. Not biologically, but if the Carlo she always talked about was Giancarlo Arciero as I was starting to think, Curtis wouldn’t hurt me. And Andre…well, I wasn’t about to put Angelica in more danger than she already was in. “No one wants to mess with