“How did it go?” I asked as I brushed my hair a while later. Curtis had done quite a number on it and I didn’t want to do a walk of shame into the foster home. “She spoke to me, which is surprising because she’s Autumn. I was right. The Angel of Death set her up.” He said. I had to think about my reaction before revealing any expression. I couldn’t be too nonchalant either, or it would make me seem even more suspicious. I was treading on a thin thread here and it was driving me crazy. “Well…” I drawled, finding my words. “That’s not a bad thing for you, is it? You hate Autumn.” “I do. But something tells me she’s after Klara next. Klara mentioned being stalked before.” Fucking Viper. I wanted to kill him. Why would he go after Klara? If the target was Arcieros with a hand in the family business, we should be going after people like Autumn, Miles and Meghan. We had been on the same track before. But now, he had only one aim—to mess with me and probably kill me while at it.“Why wo
Curtis “What do you want from me, asshole?” Maverick grumbled when I dropped by his house. “Don’t make it sound like you don’t want to see me, old man. We both know you’ve been hoping I’d come over.” I retorted in return, making him grumble something about being done with the Arciero shit. When I revealed that I had some of Angelica’s cookies with me, however, he was a little more enthusiastic about my presence. “You didn’t bring her today.” He remarked, and I could swear he was complaining about it. “Didn’t you say you hated being called Ricky by her?” He grabbed another cookie and gobbled it in one bite. “If she brings these with her, she can call me Shirley if she wants. Since when do I like sugary crap?” Since Angelica started baking them in the Arciero mansion. I swear, my wife was magical. She had managed to lure everyone close to me into her biggest fans. Except for Giancarlo and Heston, that is. But those two were icebergs and I would rather not have them close to her
Curtis I was never going to joke about ghosts from the past again. “What do you mean Nikov Kastellanos is alive?” I asked Millie. “Exactly that. I did my homework and when I found out, I was just as shocked as you are.” She looked up at me with teary eyes. “I know it’s shocking but I saw him.” I shouldn’t be surprised she looked into my father. That was what she thrived on—getting hold of a secret her current billionaire boyfriend would never want revealed and then using it to get as much money from him as she could to buy her silence. It was exactly why I knew there was something to it when it was revealed Father left everything to her in his will. Two things had to be happening here. One, she knew he was going to die soon. Otherwise she would have wanted him to simply write off some of his wealth to her. Father wasn’t old enough for anyone to assume he was going to die of old age. Besides, father couldn’t have written anything while he was bedridden with none of his fingers f
Angelica Sometimes things didn’t go as planned—but that wasn’t always a bad thing. Right now, for example. I had planned to get Yakov involved in helping Uncle Nikov escape. I had already drawn the best plan to distract the Arcieros. I would create something to distract Giancarlo and then I would ask Curtis on a date to last the whole weekend. Since none of them knew about the dungeon, they wouldn’t know a prisoner had escaped. But then, Millie happened. She thwarted the entire plan by bringing the dungeon that was not so secret anymore to Curtis’s attention. I wasn’t mad about it. She had also created the perfect way out for me. I let out a long, dramatic sigh. “Talk to me, baby.” Curtis crooned, falling right into it. “I never told you who Spider really is…” I started. “It wasn’t my tale to tell. It still isn’t now, but..” I bit my bottom lip. “He’s a Kastellanos. His real name is Adrian Kastellanos and the man you found is his uncle Nikov.” “Uncle?” I nodded. This was whe
Angelica “Fuck, Angelica!” His voice rumbled through the room amid the sensual tune while I pumped faster. My body was trembling and I knew my climax was dangerously close. “Curtis,” I moaned. A bang snapped me out of it and when I looked over at him, my jaw dropped. He had pulled the chains off along with the pieces of metal that kept them attached to the back of the chair, and was now using the key to unlock them from his hands. My first instinct was to jump off the couch and flee. He caught me at the second step and shoved me against the arm of the couch. “You should have run faster.” I heard the buckle of his belt and then he rubbed my ass with his palm and I didn’t know what to expect. “I want to spank you so hard for pulling that on me.” He growled, his lips against my ear. He did just that. His palm landed on my ass, the sting making pleasure course through me. He rubbed the spot he had just spanked to soothe it, right before he landed another smack in the same spot. If
Angelica “Crystal?” I walked over to the shocked woman. She looked like she had a dozen questions to ask me but I beat her to it. “When you say you see me in the stars, what exactly do you mean?” She stared at me blankly. I ran a hand through my hair helplessly. “I really need to know. It’s important.” For a woman who was so hell-set on telling me about the stars she kept seeing me in, she was quite uninterested in explaining when I needed to know the whole truth. I pulled a stool to sit opposite her. “What about when you call me Hyacinth?” That seemed to pull her from whatever universe she was lost in a moment ago. She studied me closely and shook her head. “You said you’re not her.” “But do I look like her?” I questioned. I already knew the answer to that but I needed her to remember. Instead, I remembered she had taken her medicine and groaned inwardly. Just great. If Uncle Nikov was right about Fergus deliberately messing up with her head so no one would believe what she s
Curtis“Hey, baby.” I snaked my arm around Angelica’s waist and pulled her closer to kiss her when I got back home. It had been four days since Autumn was arrested and I had spent most of my time at either Inferno or Arciero industries. Giancarlo was slumped with work too—Autumn had more influence in the company than we thought. We had ignored her presence earlier but now that she was behind bars, Giancarlo’s already hectic workload had significantly increased. Unless I wanted my brother to end up replacing my mother in SSP, I had to help him out. Not that my workload at Inferno decreased any. Instead, aside from finding a vial I recognized all too well in Autumn’s dresser, I also discovered Giancarlo had found out something he wasn’t telling me. I had a feeling it was related to the assassin I was trying so hard to find, the Angel of Death. Knowing him, he was waiting until he was certain of the information he had before telling me about it. Not that it made me any less on edge.
Angelica Crystal Yenin? The feud between the Arciero family and the Bratva was starting to make sense. Crystal’s maiden family was the Yenin family? The Bratva? I certainly had lived long enough. I had come to Crystal’s gallery to check out what other clues I could have overlooked in my previous search. I scoured the paintings and I did find something. Every time Crystal had painted something against the starry night sky, they were the same stars in each of them. It was easy to assume that was her impression of the stars—it wasn’t easy to find a relationship unless you were looking for a pattern. And this particular pattern was tattooed on my torso. It was the same constellation—Lyra. The very constellation my sister was named after. I didn’t know Mama knew so much about stars. There were many names related to stars that she could have given my sister but knowing her, there was a very high chance she researched what constellation was in the sky that night if she wanted to give h