“Did he say those exact words, Cookie?” I asked Axel as calmly as I could. No matter how pissed off I was, I wouldn’t do anything that gave him the impression my anger was with him.
He’d done nothing wrong, and I dared anyone to tell me that protecting his mother was wrong.
“Yes,” Axel whispered. I patted his cheek gently, leaning down to kiss his forehead. Spinning around to face Pearl, I wished Dante wasn’t in my way.
I wanted her to see her undoing written all over my face.
I tapped his shoulder, making my furious guard turn back to look at me. “It’s alright, Dante. I’ll take it from here,” I said. He nodded hesitantly but stepped back to take stock behind me with Axel. My son immediately flourished under his care, letting Dante inspect the bruising in a way I couldn’t.
I had a feeling he was more familiar with black eyes than I was.
I ignored Oliver’s blubbering as he touched his cut lip and fixated my glare on the mother. “And I wonder where a six-year-old might have heard those words?” I asked her with pursed lips and a tilted head.
She glared back at me. “That’s irrelevant.”
“You’re teaching your six-year-old son that a woman’s value lies in who she spreads her legs for. That is hardly irrelevant, when he turns around and repeats your exact words in some pathetic, misguided attempt at bullying. You want to talk about my son being a menace? What about all the boys who have transferred schools because of Oliver’s torment? He is a miserable child, just like his mother.”
Axel chuckled behind me, and Dante’s legs vibrated as he shook with his attempt to keep silent.
“I hardly see how I can be a miserable child. I’m a full-grown woman,” Pearl scoffed with an eye roll. Always ignoring the truth of her son’s bullying and always getting away with it because of how much money they donated to the school.
I suspected her biggest problem with Ryker was that his wallet was fatter than her husband’s.
For people like her, it all came down to money.
“Then act like it,” I spat in return.
“Are you going to expel Axel Latour or not?” she turned her attention to the Principal with a glare.
“My son will not be punished for standing up to bullies and defending his mother against the words of a catty, jealous woman who is so miserable in her own marriage that she has to condemn others for the choices they make that are none of her fucking business.”
“Calla, my hands are tied. I have no choice but to at least suspend Axel. He started a fight,” the Principal said at my side, and my mouth pressed into a hard line at the look of glee that crossed over Pearl’s face.
“You do what you have to do, but I assure you, I’ll use all my resources to find a legal solution to the stain on this school.” I pulled my phone out of my purse, tossing it to Axel where he sat. “Do me a favor, Cookie? Call your Aunt Samara.”
“Why?” he asked, but he input my passcode and went to my contacts list, anyway.
“Because I believe Oliver’s father works for Bellandi Enterprises. Let’s just see what your Uncle Lino has to say—”
“That won’t be necessary, Sunshine,” Ryker said, stepping into the room with a smile. His eyes darkened when he glanced behind me and his gaze landed on Axel’s injury. “Surely, this can be settled within this office.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fiore,” Principal Blanchet said with a flush to her cheeks. “The voice of reason.”
“Careful, Pearl might call you a slut,” I inserted with a sardonic grin. Her lips pressed into a line, but she toned down the way she practically devoured Ryker with her eyes.
For fuck’s sake.
“Is that what this is about?” Ryker asked, turning his attention to Oliver. The boy cowered under Ryker’s attention, even if he made no move to step toward him. “You called my wife a slut?”
“I-I—”
“Answer me honestly, boy. I don’t much like liars,” Ryker growled.
Oliver jumped and nodded his head. “Yes. I did.”
“We have a zero-tolerance policy about violence,” the Principal inserted. “I can’t just let Axel off without a suspension.”
“So, suspend them both,” Ryker said helpfully. “I’m sure Calla would be more than willing to accept the punishment so long as it’s fair. Oliver intentionally baited Axel into hitting him with an insult he knew my boy wouldn’t tolerate. Unlike some, we raise our children better than that.” He glared at Pearl, but didn’t bother to dignify her by speaking to her directly.
Not even when she protested. Loudly. “That’s preposterous! Words are not a fight.”
“I agree that suspending them both is the proper course of action,” Principal Blanchet agreed, taking a seat behind her desk. “One week for each of them.”
“Fine,” I said, nodding my head. I’d take Axel for some ice cream, and then he could spend the next week hanging out at the shop with my dad. A nice brief vacation from the hard work of school.
“You should know,” Ryker said, finally looking at Pearl. She backed up a step, just like her son. “I’ll be funding your opponent in the next PTA election.” I resisted the urge to laugh at the horrified look on her face, and the knowledge that money bought elections, no matter the level.
As we turned to walk out of the office, there was one thought coursing through my brain. We could achieve so much when we fought other people instead of each other.
Forty-Eight
Calla
I fumbled through the next few days. Ryker seemed back to normal, like the fact that we'd cleared the air and accomplished something together meant all was right and well. He returned to being as warm as could be with the kids, without the dark cloud hanging over them. Like they had in the beginning of our relationship when I'd been more hesitant, they took to him like moths to the flame. I knew they needed what he gave them, but I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that something was coming for us.
That the worst wasn't over yet. I resented Ryker because he took me every night without protection. Having a baby should have been something we decided together, and taking that choice from me felt agonizing, though it wasn’t like I fought too hard. I practically forgot my name once I had him inside me.
And the idea of a little boy with Ryker's eyes made me melt.
I sniffled back my tears, ignoring the way Dante watched me. He knew something was wrong, knew that the tension between Ryker and I had dissolved, but he was the one who saw me sniffle at random moments through the day. I didn't think he divulged that information to Ryker, seeming to respect that certain things I should be allowed to keep to myself. "Will it ever stop?" I asked him finally, turning to face him as I drank my chamomile tea.
"What?" he asked, standing from his seat to speak to me. My students gathered in the studio, waiting for the class to start, but as my fingers skimmed over my stomach that I knew would swell with a child soon enough, I couldn't bring myself to go out there.
I sighed, huffing a laugh. "Never mind. It doesn't matter anymore," I said, and the words were true. I knew, without a doubt, that the only way I could ever be free of Ryker was to see him in prison. And that wasn't something I could do to him. I couldn't betray him like that, not when I didn't really want to be free. I loved him, and I wanted to be with him.
I just wanted that to be my choice.
"Calla!" Ness called from the studio, and I stepped out. My eyes widened in shock when I took in the uniformed police filling the studio and the way my class either gaped in gossipy interest or fled the scene.
Dante was at my back a moment later, stepping in front of me as if the police might mean to harm me. "Dante Esposito, you're under arrest. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." I gaped in shock, watching as two of the officers marched up and guided Dante away from me.
"On what grounds?" he asked, shaking off their touch. He made no move to fight them, but he communicated that they had no right to touch him since he cooperated.<
br />
"Aggravated stalking of Mrs. Calla Fiore," one of them said as they neared the door.
"Wait!" I called. "He's a friend. He isn't stalking me." They glanced at one another and then continued on their way.
"You'll have to come down to the station and explain then, ma'am," he said.
"Call Ryker now!" Dante announced as he disappeared, and I glanced around nervously. If I wanted to run, I had my moment finally. My decision made, I spun, pulling out my cell phone as I made for the back room and dialed Ryker.
"The police just arrested Dante," I gasped as soon as he answered. "Should I take the car and go to the station?" It might cost me my job at the studio to leave unannounced, but I knew every second I spent unprotected was another second where I'd worry about my safety.
"No," Ryker grunted on the other end of the line. "Fuck! Do not leave the studio, Calla. I'll be there as soon as I can. I'm sending Bryan and Dario to you. They're closer and they'll get there first. You just sit tight, you got me?"
"I got you," I murmured as I hung up, staring at where the back door creaked open and contemplating calling him back immediately. When Jason stepped inside, I heaved out a breath of relief. "Was this you?" I asked, watching as he went to the door that led to the main part of the studio and tugged it closed.
"We don't have time." He said as he set two folders on the table where Dante usually sat, flipping one open. I gasped, turning my eyes away from the photos that stared up at me. I'd thought myself horrified when I found the pictures Ryker had taken of me while I slept, but nothing compared to the photos of mutilated bodies.
Nausea crept up my throat as Jason grabbed my face and forced my attention back to the photos. “What is wrong with you?” I asked Jason. Someone had carved into the face of the woman in the top left, the gashes continuing down her neck to where her throat was slit. The man next to her was beaten and bruised beyond belief, his face unrecognizable thanks to the swelling and his eyes missing from their sockets.
"This is who your husband is. This is what he does to people who cross the Bellandis." The photo in the bottom was of a little boy Axel's age, hand print shaped bruises curled around his throat. I touched my own, remembering the way Ryker had held me pinned to the wall as nausea filled me.
"You're wrong," I said, steeling my spine as I objected. "Ryker wouldn't. He's not capable of that." Even as I said the words, there was that lingering part of me that wondered. I knew he was a killer, but there was a woman.
A child.
What if I shared a bed with a man who murdered children?
Still, I closed the folder and sucked back a deep breath. The man I knew, the one who held me while I cried and laughed with my children, wasn't capable of such atrocities. "I want you to leave."
Jason sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, before he stepped forward and flipped open the top of the second folder. I didn't glance down at it, instead holding his eyes as mine flooded with tears. “Why are you doing this to me?” I repeated.
"I didn't want to show you these, but they're his family, Calla." Curiosity got the better of me, the family he never spoke of too enticing to resist. With a gulp, I glanced down at the photos in the second folder. These hadn't been laid out like a collage. They were just loose. The sight of the dismembered man on top was the first I saw, and I turned my face away. "This was his father." Jason reached down and snatched them up, shoving it into my face so I had no choice but to look as my body trembled with sobs. He tossed the photo to the table, showing me the second one where a woman had been strangled in the same way as the boy from the first set of pictures. "His mother," he growled as he tossed that one down. "And his older brother." I winced, the line drawn from ear to ear across the throat of a man younger than me too much to bear.
"Stop," I begged, turning away from the photos.
"You can't even look at them! Your husband killed them and you can't even look at them. They were a respectable family. His father was a senator in Maryland. He crept into their house one night and strangled his mother while she slept. She woke up before she died. She would have had to. And then once his father and brother discovered him in the house, he used the other son to control his father. He dismembered his father in front of his brother, and then Gerardo Fiore slit his own brother's throat." I froze, relief striking like a match inside me.
"My husband's name is Ryker," I told him, certain that there'd been a mixup.
Jason scoffed, shaking his head as if I were absurd. "You don't even know his real name?" he asked, and I sagged beneath the weight of that confession. "They call him Ryker because he belongs in the Rikers Island psych ward, Calla."
A buzzing rang in my ears, and that was the only defense I had for what I fixated on. "That's spelled with an I." Even to me, it seemed like such a trivial thing to fixate on.
I didn’t even know his name.
"Who the fuck cares? You think those assholes are smart enough to know the difference? He slaughtered his entire family. One wife is already dead. How long until he gets rid of you?" I stared at him, I knew I did. But I didn't really see him. There was nothing but my stunned disbelief and a black fog that crept in at the edges of my vision.
I didn't know my husband at all.
"We have to get you out of here," he said, gathering up the photos and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. His dress shirt felt so warm against my chilled skin, too hot and intruding. I wanted to shrug it off, but I couldn't seem to find the will to move. "Come on, sweetheart." His voice softened as he seemed to realize that he'd broken something inside me. Something I didn’t think would ever be whole again. "We have to get the kids."
"He'll never let us go," I whispered as he guided me to the back door. My legs moved as he made them, stumbling over themselves. "I can't go. It won't end well for me."
"It won't end well for you if you stay," he whispered. "Think of the kids. What do you think happens to them when Ryker gets sick of you?"
"He won't," I argued as his hand closed on the doorknob. "Ryker loves me and the kids. He won't get sick of me."
"You don't think his first wife thought the same thing?"
I didn't have to answer, because Ness flung open the door to the back room, eyeing Jason leading me to the back door. "Your new security is here. What do you want me to do?" she asked, and I knew from the judgment in her eyes she'd already decided regarding Ryker's guilt. I didn't know how she knew that my husband was a Bellandi criminal, but it explained her being so quick to offer me help.
She was insane for thinking she could help me and not get hurt, but it explained how she knew I needed that help. "I'm taking her to get the kids and go to the station. Stall them," Jason ordered as I floundered for a response.
"I'll stall them." Ness eyed his badge and then nodded, closing the door behind her as she went to the front of the studio once again. Jason's hands were tense on my shoulder as he shoved open the back door, bringing me to the unmarked car he drove that he'd tucked into the back lot. I alternated between jerking against his hold and feeling like my body was entirely disconnected from me.
“Wait,” I whispered before he opened the door. “Just wait. Let me think. Jason!”
"What do you think Matteo Bellandi will do when he finds out you've been talking to the cops?" Jason asked as he put his hand on top of my shoulder and pressed me down into the seat.
"I won't testify," I whispered. It was true, even with everything I'd learned, I couldn't bring myself to help put Ryker behind bars. I didn't think I'd ever be able to look at him again, but I couldn't betray him in the way it felt like he'd betrayed me.
I didn't think there would ever be a day when I could handle his secrets.
"Let's just get the kids safe first, and then we'll figure out where to go from there," he grunted, pressing the pedal to the metal and getting us the hell out of the parking lot before anyone even saw us leave. I knew Ryker would see it all on his cameras once he realized I was gone, but I had to hope that I had the kids with m
e by then.
I just needed them with me so I could think straight.
I needed them safe.
Forty-Nine
Ryker
The phone rang in my pocket as I strode for the car. As much as it killed me to leave Calla with men she didn’t know, I’d had to wait for someone to come guard the dealer in the warehouse who was using more than he sold.
“Yeah?” I grunted into the phone as I answered. With my car door already pulled open, I sat while I waited for the person on the other end of the line to respond.
“Ryker, your wife is gone,” Dario’s voice said. I stilled, staring at the steering wheel in shock.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” I growled, the deadly tone seeping into my voice as my body went cold.
“She isn’t here. Nobody saw her leave, but we’ve looked everywhere.”
“Look again,” I said, hanging up with dread in my veins.
My fingers went through the motions, bringing up the security feed from the studio even as I couldn’t think past my rage.
She’d left me.
The coincidence was too huge. She’d been alone for the first time, unguarded, and she’d made a run for it. She’d probably had a twenty-minute head start at least.
But I’d find her.
I thought the video feed would show my Sunshine sneaking out the back on her own, suspected with every bit of me that she left of her own volition. I never thought to see Jason shoving photos in her face, and while I couldn’t make out what they were, the pallor of Calla’s face gave me a pretty damn good idea.
Shit.
I’d explain. Whatever it was, once I found her, she’d understand.
But when he said my birth name, I watched all the life slip from my Sunshine’s face as shock settled in. Of all the secrets that could bite me on the ass, that hadn’t been the one I expected.
Calla didn’t move, didn’t fight or walk or anything as Jason dragged her out the back door.
Grieved Loss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 3) Page 34