My alarm was driving me crazy. Didn’t I fall asleep merely a few minutes ago? I wanted to shut the damn thing off and fall back asleep but remembered why I had set it. I had been unable to talk to Spider the night before so I had sent him a message and set an alarm for 6am. Spider was a better night owl than I was. If he found answers to what I had asked, he would send them before morning. I sleepily patted around for my phone and checked for any new text messages. There was one from Spider, asking me to check my email. That was enough to wire me enough to get out of bed. He must have found out what the feud was between Millie and Curtis. I couldn’t wait to get to it. But first, coffee. ….“Are you fucking kidding me?” I growled minutes after clicking on the link sent to my email. I woke up four hours after falling asleep for this? For the most part, Spider had detailed things I already knew. Millie was a former aspiring actress whose career had ended at the same time as her firs
Curtis I had three meetings back-to-back but I couldn’t focus on any of them. My mind kept wandering to what I imagined Angelica’s face would look like when she found out she was going to get waxed. She didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would ever think about having a bikini wax, let alone get one on her wedding day. My phone flooded with text messages and I burst into laughter. I knew she was exploding in anger. When the meeting finally ended, I gave her a call. “You despicable maniac!” She growled on the other end. I could picture her cheeks flushed in rage. Angering my wife-to-be was way too much fun. “How does your pussy feel, Mrs. Arciero?” I taunted. “Don’t you fucking call me that! Thanks to you, I feel naked.” I tipped my head back in laughter. “You were going to be naked one way or another tonight. It’s simply a matter of it happening earlier.” That would teach her not to defy me. And now, for the hardest part. “You can spend the next hour doing whatever you wa
Angelica. I couldn’t believe Curtis had bribed the receptionist for me. He had only called me back into the hospital without talking about how he had convinced the receptionist but based on the happy smile smile she flashed me when I came back, I knew there was only one way he could have done it. Of course, I was not stupid enough to think he was doing it for me. It was all for himself. He was covering up everything I could possibly use as an excuse to call off the wedding. It didn’t matter. I thanked him and followed the nurse’s lead to Nana Simone’s room. The receptionist had lied about some mix up happening that was their fault, and them having to let us visit her if they didn’t want the press outside their gates the following day. She was sleeping when we walked in. I didn’t think Curtis wanted to see her too but it turned out, he was serious about seeking her blessing. I ignored him. I only had ten minutes and I was not wasting a single one of them arguing with him. “Nana,”
Curtis I was getting married. Would anyone ever believe that? It seemed like my bride didn’t believe it either. She looked nothing like everyone described brides. They were supposed to be looking like the most beautiful version of themselves, smiling and unable to hold back their happy tears. My bride only looked like a third of that. She was breathtaking. I knew I was poking at a wounded bear when I chose the feathery, fluffy gown that was deliberately the exact opposite of what she had described to Siren, but I didn’t think she would look so beautiful in it. Her hair was in an up-do with a long veil hanging off her floral diamond clip. Aside from that, she wore no jewelry and certainly no ounce of makeup. I knew that was her attempt at trying to defy the norm of weddings, telling me she would not put in any extra effort for a wedding she didn’t want. Not that it changed much, she still looked so beautiful that I couldn’t tear my eyes off her. Which is exactly why I caught her e
AngelicaMaybe I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Since I yelled at Curtis to not touch me, he had shown me to the guest room and disappeared down the hall to where I knew the master bedroom must be. As expected, he gave strict instructions. I was not to go anywhere that was not the kitchen or living area. I shouldn’t touch any single thing that wasn’t mine. Spider would help me move my things from Nana Simone’s apartment as soon as we moved into our marital home but at least I had toiletries and a bed. A humongous bed with white sheets and pillows, to be exact. Curtis’s apartment was beautiful, but it was too bland for my liking. Everything was either white, black, or silver, with white being the most dominant. I liked a little bit of color. I knew as soon as I stepped into the guest room that I wasn’t going to have much sleep. Aside from the fact that I couldn’t fall asleep in a bed I was not comfortable in, I was quite aware of the fact that I had stepped into the enemy’s lair wit
Curtis Angelica recoiled at a speed that was nearly comical. She scurried quite fast for a woman who was so curious about me. “Thank you for sharing yoru food with me,” she quickly stated. I imagined her cheeks flushed as she spoke before she tried to make her escape. I grabbed her hand before she could get past me. I was just as shocked as she was. I didn’t want to spend an extra minute next to her, so why the hell was I stopping her? “I don’t expect Maverick to waste a single minute before coming over to bombard us with questions.” I pulled an excuse out of thin air. “Oh,” she silently agreed. “I believe you don’t have any problem pretending to know me. You do have a lot of information up your sleeve.” I was taunting her, and her expression only made it more fun. She looked like she wanted to bolt away, like I was a wolf trying to trap her in my cage. Maybe I did want to trap her, just to see how long she would pretend to be helpless before she started trying to claw her way o
She snorted in response to my words. “You are not going to see my dress on the floor ever.”I shrugged as though that didn’t matter but deep down, I wanted to ask a billion more questions about her. It was a good thing that we were visiting my family because that gave me an excuse to ask more questions about her. “Why do you hate being called Angel?” I asked.She frowned. We had been talking about something entirely different before I sprang the question out on her, so I understood her confusion. After seconds of trying to make sense of what I was asking, she sat on the couch farthest from me.“If I remember correctly, you only asked questions about me last night. It should be my turn to ask the questions today.”“Tonight,” I suggested. “I asked my questions at night. If you want to get to know me, find me in the dead of night and I will tell you everything you want to know.She didn’t believe it. To be honest, I didn’t either. I hated it when people knew more than necessary about me
Angelica This wasn’t as bad as I thought. The Arciero family was not welcoming in the slightest. Not that I expected them to be friendly to me when we all knew what my presence meant. They were ready to dig their claws into my flesh within a minute of my arrival.The only good thing that came out of it was getting to know my in-laws better. It only took half an hour to learn that Meghan and Miles had a worse relationship than Miles and Curtis. Meghan was to Miles exactly what he was to Curtis—the illegitimate child who destroyed his parents’ marriage. Meghan’s mother had disappeared two years after her wedding and her body had been found in the woods later, and Meghan blamed Miles’s mother. To be fair, it could be any of Fergus’s innumerable women. Not that it mattered. If I could use my in-laws as weapons against each other, I would enjoy the show without getting my hands dirty. My brother-in-law couldn’t keep his eyes off me. It made my skin crawl. I generally hated male attentio
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