by S. Ann Cole
When his phone call ends, he leans back in his chair and eyes me contemplatively. “Is my cousin ‘the one’?”
His question catches me off guard and I almost choke on a piece of broccoli. I cough and take a chug of water before asking, “What?”
“Trenton,” he says. “Are you in love with him? When you imagine the future, is it with him?”
“Yes.” The word is out of my mouth before I realize it, shocking me. A heart-shaped lump forms in my throat. In love? Future? How could I have so confidently answered something that I’ve never even thought about? Had I been in denial all this time? Had I fallen in love with my “just fun” fling without realizing it?
As I think about the answer I just gave without a moment’s hesitation, I know with every cell within me that it’s true. I have never been in love with anyone before and can’t see past him to anyone else.
“Yes,” I answer again. “He’s the one.”
Stefano nods once. “In that case, I’m keeping you with me at all times, for however long it will take him to get here.”
Having difficulty understanding what that means, if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, I ask, “Why?”
Idly, he twists a fountain pen back and forth between his fingers. “Because Castellos have a terrible habit of wanting things they shouldn’t.”
Huh? “I don’t follow.”
He makes a disgruntled noise in his throat. “You have caught my brother’s eye, Lexi.”
“Your brother? The one who—Lorenzo?”
“Yes.”
Oh. “Are you twins or…?”
“Twins.”
“Oh. I wondered…” Talk less, Lexi. Talk less. This man is not your friend. You’re his hostage.
His lips twitch in amusement, as if he can hear what I’m thinking.
“See, Lorenzo is the kind who, if he sees something he wants, he takes it. Knowing you belong to Trent will not stop him from trying to win you over,” he informs me. “And provided this little situation with your thieving friend works out, I would like to keep the peace with the Garzas. Because while they don’t need us, we need them. There are certain connections that we cannot get to without their channels. They are the best at what they do, and we need that kind of certainty and reliability.”
I frown as I ask, “And Lorenzo wouldn’t care either way?”
“No. If he thinks he can steal you, he will try.” Stefano leans forward and sets the pen down. “For that reason, I am going to keep you glued to me instead of leaving you somewhere that he will get to you and, without a doubt, charm your thong off.”
Wow. The Castellos are…wow.
One brother values family enough to do whatever it takes to keep the peace, and the other would topple the entire foundation to steal his cousin’s woman.
“So,” Stefano continues as he picks up his cellphone, “wherever I go, you go. Wherever I sleep, you sleep. What is your dress size? Shoes?”
I blink. What the hell? “Um, size six for clothes and seven and a half for shoes.”
As he lifts the phone to his ear, he looks me over like I’m lying or something.
Seconds later, “Hi, Wendy” … “Yes, I am well. Listen, I need about five outfits. Dress, six. Shoe, seven and a half. Expect Kate to pick them up in about an hour or so.” … “Yes. Both.” … “Those, too, sure.” … “Right. Send me the invoice.”
He ends the call, sets the phone aside, then open his takeout container and ignores me as he begins eating.
Did he really just commission clothes for me over the phone? Who are these people?
~
Three days have passed.
Three days of no Trent, no Mama, no Maggie, but a heck of a lot of Stefano Castello.
Trent calls every day and asks to speak to me but Stefano never lets him. I can’t imagine how pissed my favorite asshole must be at being told what to do.
Stefano makes me put on makeup and dress up in classy, expensive outfits every day, leaving me one mink coat short of feeling like a mob wife.
He takes me along with him wherever he goes. And believe me, Stefano Castello is a busy man. A very busy man. He gave me a crash course on how to write meeting minutes and put me in charge of that.
I’ve sat in on so many meetings I’ve lost count, and I’d be lucky to come out of this without carpal tunnel. Yesterday he met for ninety minutes with the mayor. Yes, the freaking mayor. Though I can’t tell what was discussed because he gave me noise cancellation headphones for that one and wrote the minutes himself.
The man never seems to tire. On the rare occasions that he does, however, he would take me home with him to his mansion in Summerlin and sleep for two to three hours, never more, before we’re back at Black Gold. It’s as though he’s afraid that if he’s asleep for too long everything will crumble without his governance. I spend so much time sleeping on the long couch in his office that he’s since stationed a blanket and a pillow there for me.
At least I’m not on a lumpy cot in some dank, dark room. Being a quasi-free hostage is the single most strange experience of my life.
After much observation, I’ve concluded that with Stefano Castello, what you see is not at all what you get. He’s the kind of man who will tell you a joke to get you to smile and relax right before he plunges a knife into your heart.
The man has around fifty different personalities and I’ve yet to figure out which one is the real him. Every individual who walks through his office door gets their own personalized version of him. He shows people what he wants them to see.
I’ve spent less time around Lorenzo. Stefano’s ploy to keep me out of his reach has proven to be successful, as Lorenzo is never in my presence for more than five minutes before Stefano is sweeping me away. Much to Lorenzo’s glaring frustration.
But although I haven’t spent as much time with Lorenzo as I have with Stefano, it’s enough for me to deduce that with Lorenzo Castello, what you see is what you get. He’s too impatient to bullshit. Too authentic to hide. He’s the type to lay it all out to let you know where he stands.
The two men might be identical in appearance, but that’s where their similarities end.
I’ve entertained the idea of escaping many times but have never bothered to exert myself trying. Even if I did make it out the buildings, I wouldn’t make it out of Vegas. If there’s one thing I’ve come to understand it’s that this city belongs to the Castellos, and no one would risk their life to help me.
I’ve come to terms with the possibility of this entire ordeal ending in death. I have so much time to be quiet, unseen, and unheard, and thus, a lot of time to think.
Once again, I ask myself, if given the chance, would I have chosen a different path than the one I did years ago when I set out to do whatever it took to support Mama?
Even with the grisly predicament I am in right now, the answer is still no.
The choices I made allowed me to help her win against that treacherous, soul-sucking disease called cancer, then set her up with her own business to revive her spirit and purpose after she kicked its ass.
So even if some of those choices I made will result in a shorter life for me, the fact that Mama will get to live out hers with a mortgage-free home and a successful business is all that matters. Maybe that was my only purpose on earth, and I fulfilled it. Mama will go on without me, but the Mendez family are aplenty.
What does fill my heart with unbearable sadness when I think about leaving this earth, however, is that Trent would never know the truth. He would never know that in just nine weeks, I toppled madly in love with him without even realizing it. And that I died regretting choosing the wrong brother.
We’d never get a chance to see what we could’ve been together, what magic we’d create.
“He will find her.”
Snapped from my depressive reveries, I glance up from my lap to meet Stefano’s gaze across the office. I’m so zoned out that I don’t even realize his meeting has ended. The two business asso
ciates dressed in Brioni suits have left. I’m for sure going to mess up this meeting’s minutes.
Stefano watches me from behind his desk, tapping his pen on the open folder in front of him.
“What?” I ask.
“I have been trying to keep you busy, because when you look like that, scared and sad, it…doesn’t make me feel…good,” he says in bland tone. “I don’t always like being the bad guy, you know.”
I’m quick to shake my head, quick to lie, “I’m not sca—”
“Ask me again,” he cuts me off.
“Ask you what?”
“What I’m afraid of.”
This pulls an eye roll from me. For the past three days, after every intense encounter he has with someone or every time I watch him strong-arm someone into doing what he wants. Every time someone storms out with subdued rage and whispered threats, or every time we visit “a business associate” and leave with them glaring daggers at his back, I would ask him, “What are you afraid of, Stefano?”
He is a man unafraid of having enemies but seems to revel in pissing people off. Death does not at all seem to be something he fears. Which is why I’ve asked him the question over and over, to which he would always reply, “Nothing.”
“I’m serious,” he says to me now. “Ask me again.”
I sigh wearily and indulge him. “What are you afraid of, Stefano?”
Leaning forward, he places his elbows on the desk, clasps his hands to his lips, and gives me a different answer this time around. “Falling in love.”
Interest piqued by this unexpected answer, I sit up from my slouch. “Really?”
“As I have told you, the Garzas don’t need us, so they don’t ever come to us for anything. It has always been the other way around,” he says. “Now, for the second time in a matter of a few months, I have my cousin by the balls, at my mercy. And I cannot express to you what a victory that is for me.”
His smile is so smug, so evil, yet so damn disarming. Hot, handsome villains should never be a thing. It’s so unfair. “And how could that have happened, Lexi?” He replies before I can decipher if that’s a rhetorical question or not. “Love. That is what that shit does to you. I do not ever want to be in the position my cousin is in right now. The horror.”
“But what if it was a family member for you?” I ask him. “You did say you value family.”
He grunts. “One thing all Castellos have agreed on is that if any of us are caught in a situation that would mean the downfall and demise of the entire family, we let them die so we can live on to avenge and fight another day. My family knows never to pay a ransom for me and dance like a monkey for anyone. Let me die, then come back stronger and fucking avenge me.”
“That’s…wow.” I don’t even know what to think about that. On the one hand, it makes sense, but on the other hand, it would suck to be caught in a deadly situation and know that no one will be coming to save you.
“When you are in love with someone,” he continues, “it’s a whole different ballgame. So trust me, Trenton will not only find and bring that bitch to us, but he will also make sure that every penny of my five million dollars is there.” He shakes his head and rocks back in his chair. “That love thing is the deadliest, most dangerous thing on earth.”
“Well then,” I say with a wicked smile, “I hope you do fall in love one day. Madly. Deeply. Uncontrollably. You fucker.”
Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT
“What do you want to do?”
Trent
“Where is she?” I growl through clenched teeth, white-knuckling the phone at my ear.
Stefano’s cavalier voice travels through the connection. “Curled up on the couch across from me in a hot Chanel number. I think she is pretending to be asleep so she doesn’t have to deal with me. Her toes are wiggling, though. Such pretty toes. Do you lick them, cousin?”
Always with the bullshit. I can almost smell the stench of smug on his breath. “Let me talk to her.”
“This a hostage situation, Trenton, not a babysitting gig. You can’t just call and ask to talk to your baby and I’ll hand over the phone.”
“The day I start murdering people,” I grit out, “you’re gonna be the first on my list, motherfucker.”
He laughs, and it’s drenched in hubris. “I will already have died a thousand deaths by the time you ‘perfect’ half-breed Garzas dare to cross over to the dark side.”
I hang up and resist the urge to smash my phone through the windshield.
We’ve just touched down in Montana, following a trail on Alvin Matthews. A Background check was done on “Ellie Harper” months ago after her little stunt with Lexi in Vegas, so I’d already known she’s not who claims.
Her real name is Millicent Davis. Grew up in the system and has been on the run ever since she set her foster home on fire with her foster siblings inside, which left them all with severe burns and at least two of them disfigured. Dated a drug dealer for a while who got her fake identification and documents—Ellie Harper—before she ripped him off a couple hundred thousand dollars and went on the run again.
Knowing all that, we’ve deemed any trail on her unreliable and indubitably deliberate to mislead. She’s a woman who’s been running all her life; she knows how to hide.
We’re trailing crumbs on Alvin Matthews instead. Tickets to Montana…car rental…hotel…
True and I are about twelve minutes out from the airport we just left when my phone rings.
Guy calling…
Good thing I didn’t smash the damn thing. “Yeah.”
“Hey, boss. I’ve been hacking airport surveillances like you asked, and I think I’ve found them.”
I motion for True to pull over. “Not in Montana?”
“No, boss.”
“Where?” I growl, running low on patience. “Spit it out, Guy.”
“They just arrived in Turks and Caicos.”
Oh, that bitch is good. Real good. Cunning. Giving us a real run. But she won’t win.
I rub my hand down my face and blow out a breath.
“What is it?” True asks, jerking up the handbrake.
“They’re not here.”
“In Montana?”
“The U.S.”
“Fuck.”
Fuck is right. To extract them from non-US soil will be a lot trickier and requires careful planning. No biggie. It’s what we do.
But, time.
What this means for me is more time without my woman. More time she’ll be held under the Castellos’ thumb. More time she’ll spend afraid, not knowing what to expect.
Stefano won’t lay a finger on her. He’s not an idiot. But she doesn’t know that. All those things he said on the phone to me was for her benefit, to scare the shit out of her. It’s why he’s refusing to let me speak to her, so I can’t reassure her.
I expel another exhausted breath. I fucking hate feeling out of control with her.
There are a number of different strings I could pull to strong-arm Stefano into handing her over without doing a damn thing to get his cash back. But as Torin reminded me last night, every action comes with ripple effect. And to be honest, at this point in my life, when I’m so damn close to getting everything I’ve always wanted, ripple effects with the Castellos isn’t something I want to have to deal it. I just want to be with Alexa Flores, my dream girl, start a family with her. Not fight a war.
So as much of a pain in the ass that this hunt is turning out to be, and as excruciating as it is to not be able to see her, touch her, kiss her, assure her that it will all be okay, this is the safest and easiest route to getting her back.
“Boss?” Guy prompts. “What do you want to do?”
I glance over at True and shrug. “I guess we’re going to the Caribbean.”
Chapter TWENTY-NINE
“Hand it is.”
Lexi
“Lexi.”
I’m being shaken awake. But I don’t want to wake up. He never sleeps for more than a few hours
and I’m tired. So tired. Why can’t this man ever just rest?
“Lexi, darling.”
With a whiny grumble, I open my eyes. Stefano is bent before me by the side of the bed. He’s wearing the same white tee and lounge pants he’d changed into before we came to sleep. Not dressed to go in a suit like he normally is whenever he wakes me.
He turns his face from side to side, his lips tipping down at the corners. “Which side do you think is my good side?” he asks me. “I have always thought it was my right side…but now I’m not so sure.”
Yawning, I push up on my elbows. “What? Why?”
“Because I’m certain your boyfriend will punch me at some point, and I want to make sure he doesn’t catch my good side.”
“What?”
Sometimes talking to this man is like reading a pop-up book, no joke. A quick glance at the bedside clock tells me it’s 3:16 a.m. Not an unusual time for him to drag me down to Black Gold—if we weren’t already there. The man has no concept of time. He just does whatever, whenever.
“Right or left?” he prompts.
I roll my eyes. “Left.”
“Hmm,” he hums as he straightens, eying me with distrust. “Right it is.”
He disappears into his walk-in closet then reappears with an LV duffel and throws it at me. “Up. Pack. Cousin dearest is on the way.”
I jackknife up, my heart hammering in my chest. “Trent? He’s coming?”
Stefano throws a glance at me over his shoulder. “Oh, ye of little faith. Did I not tell you he would come through for us?”
Out of nowhere, I burst into tears. Up until this moment, I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d wound myself with a triple-braided cord of hope, fear, and resignation.
Up. Pack. Cousin dearest is on the way.
Eight little words and it feels as if a wrecking ball has been rolled off of my chest. Irrepressible tears spill from me like burst pipes.