by Nina Levine
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“There are things that need to be done.”
He’s talking about funeral arrangements. I turn my face away from him, trying to stop my chin from quaking, because Alessandro’s funeral is the last thing I want to think about.
“There are things you need to know,” Cristian says.
It’s such an ambiguous thing to say.
“What do you mean?”
He looks at me gravely. “It’s best I show you.”
It starts to rain as we leave the city behind us. Normally, I would be demanding answers. Where are we going? Why all the secrecy? But I’m too exhausted, too broken, to demand anything.
Instead, I sit quietly and look out the window as the rain falls like elongated nails from a bleak sky.
Nearly thirty minutes later, we pull into the underground garage of a non-descript building somewhere in Newark.
I follow Cristian to the elevator, and we ride the car in silence. We’re both reeling from our loss. I long to comfort him because I adore Cristian. He is kind and loyal and good, and he is probably as brokenhearted as I am right now. But I am too dead inside to offer him anything, let alone any sense of comfort.
As we step out of the elevator, we turn left and Cristian leads me down a cold corridor. The lights are out, and somewhere in my brain I acknowledge that this floor feels unoccupied. Empty. Abandoned. But the thought has barely formed when Cristian stops outside a door.
I look at him. He gestures for me to step inside.
I don’t know what to expect.
But seeing Alessandro alive isn’t it.
26
Alessandro
Twenty-four hours earlier
I’ve been fucking shot.
I look at Bella and I know I am about to leave her, and it breaks my heart. I’m not afraid to die. But I am afraid to leave her.
No, not now, my mind cries.
But the darkness sweeps over me and I fall against her, the blood from my bullet wounds seeping onto her dress as I slide down her body and sink to the sidewalk.
I awaken to the sound of a machine beeping. It takes me awhile, but I open my eyes and all I see are the bright glow of lights. I slowly come to realize that I’m in the back of an ambulance.
Bella. I try to say her name, but there seems to be a disconnect between my brain and my mouth. Finally, it rasps out of me. “Bella?”
“Is that your girl?” the EMT asks me. He’s an older guy. His thick accent is pure New York City. There’s something comforting about him. “We couldn’t bring her with us, buddy. I need all the room back here so I can help you.”
I struggle to remember what happened. I was shot.
Fuck.
“Am I going to die?”
He smiles as he fills a syringe. “Not on my watch, you ain’t.”
But the darkness calls to me again and I’m unable to fight it. Feeling heavy, I slip back into its nothingness.
I wake up under another bright light God knows how long afterward, only vaguely aware of the people moving about me. I feel dreamy, like I’m floating. I feel good and I know it’s because my blood is thick with drugs.
Blindly, I reach out and grab onto the first person I can. “Get me my brother.”
I’m going to live.
But I’ve made up my mind that I’m also going to die.
The only thing that I want from my old life is my wife. But other than that, I want out. I don’t want to be Alessandro anymore. I want to be Bella’s Sandro.
I want to soak up the sun on a tropical beach somewhere and spend my days with sandy toes and margarita highs. I want to live in baggy beach shorts and take mid-morning naps, then feast on fresh lobster taken right out of the ocean near where we live. I want to play with my babies in the sand dunes with the tangy sea air on our lips, and the saltiness of the ocean in our hair. And when the sun goes down, I want to worship my queen with every single inch of my body until she can’t take the pleasure anymore and begs me to stop.
Facing your mortality reveals your true priorities, and in those final moments before I died, none of my priorities involved anything but Bella and our life together. Money. Power. Ruling my kingdom. They are nothing in the face of death—while my queen is everything.
I don’t want this city.
I don’t want to be king anymore.
I haven’t for some time.
Hell, I’ve fantasized about giving it all up more times than I care to remember.
I never told Bella the truth about how I felt. Never really had the chance to. The only person I ever confided in was my brother.
“The first chance I get, Cristian, I’m escaping. I don’t know how it will happen, but I will recognize the opportunity when it arrives.”
Today, two 9mm bullets delivered that opportunity.
Now I know for sure… Alessandro Lastrantonio must die.
27
Bella
“Alessandro…”
His name falls from my lips and I feel like I’m going to pass out.
Time has stopped and my heart sits in the middle of my throat. I can’t believe what I am seeing.
The room is some kind of makeshift hospital room. Alessandro is lying in a hospital bed, a sheet pulled up to his hips, his shirtless chest bandaged.
Dazed, I walk over to him. When his name falls from my lips again, he smiles up at me weakly. His lips are pale and sweat beads on his brow.
“Bella…” His voice is hoarse.
I go to him and bury my face into the warmth of his neck, taking comfort in the rapid thump of his pulse against my cheek.
He’s alive and I feel weak with relief.
My hands slide to his jaw as I find his lips with mine and kiss him.
“You’re alive,” I sob. “How is this possible?”
He takes my face in his big hands and looks at me with so much affection my heart restarts. Last night it died, today it is reborn with Alessandro’s kiss.
“Oh, Bella…” he sighs as he seals his mouth over mine. When he moans, I drink it in with his kiss, savoring the feel of his lips moving so sensually and lovingly against mine.
He’s alive and his kiss is the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.
But my happiness is quickly chased off by a sudden rush of anger. I pull away, and his grunt of pain barely registers through the collision of anger and relief in my mind.
I look at him, my heart breaking when it should be celebrating.
“You let me think you were dead!”
“I know, cara mia, and I’m sorry. I tried to get to you sooner, but there were complications. I had to have more surgery.” He bites back pain. “Please believe me, Bella. I asked for you. I needed you. But once the decision was made, things needed to happen before you were told.”
“The decision?” I swipe my tears with the back of my hands. “What decision?”
He reaches for me. “To start over.”
I frown at him. “What does that even mean?”
“I want us to go away. This is our chance for freedom, Bella.”
My head spins. There is so much to take in. “You want to run away?”
“I want a new life for us. I don’t want to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life. I know it’s asking a lot of you.” He winces with pain. “I want out. And I want you to come with me. That’s why when I woke up in the hospital, I spoke with Cristian and he helped set the plan in motion while I underwent surgery. I wanted you to be told right away. But then I needed more surgery. When I came out of it, I insisted you be told.”
Cristian steps forward.
“He’s telling you the truth. The moment he decided he wanted out, we had to move quickly and quietly. We couldn’t risk the media or anyone finding out. And then he fell ill again… I’ll be honest, Bella, there were many hours during the night when I didn’t know if he’d make it. Thankfully, the second surgery stopped the bleeding, and the doctors assure me he is now out of d
anger. But it’s imperative we let the world believe he is dead.”
My mind scrambles. “That’s why you dragged me through the crowd of paparazzi this morning. You wanted them to see me.”
“Yes.” He looks apologetic. “I’m sorry. I hated doing it. But they need to believe Alessandro is dead.”
I nod. I get it. I don’t like it, but I understand why he did it.
Alessandro reaches for my hand again. “I asked Cristian to get you. I needed to let you know I was alive.”
“When the decision was made, we organized his transfer to this building. It’s one he owns, you see, so it makes it possible to carry out the plan in complete secrecy. He will recuperate here,” Cristian adds. “Once he’s well enough to fly, we’ll get him out of the country.”
Alessandro squeezes my hand. “And I want you to come with me, Bella. This is our chance to start over. My chance to give you the life you want. The life you deserve.”
He’s asking me to give up my life.
To leave everyone and everything behind.
Two months ago, I wouldn’t even contemplate it.
But now I know I would move to outer space if it meant being with him for the rest of my life.
I am in love with him.
Obsessively so.
And I will go anywhere he asks me to go.
Because he was right when he said he was made to love me. Because I was made to love him too.
Besides, he is giving up everything for me. His wealth. His business. His power. His reign as king in a city that is in love with him.
“Where will we go?”
He smiles through his pain. “I own an island.”
Of course, he does.
“An island. Where?”
“Off the coast of Italy. It’s beautiful, Bella. Lush green grass. Warm, sunny days. White sandy beaches. There’s a small beach community on one side, and a rundown, beautiful vineyard on the other.” His pale lips smile weakly. “It’ll be the perfect place to raise a family. We’ll be safe. Happy. This is our chance for freedom, Bella. Will you come with me?”
I don’t need to think.
More tears stream down my cheek.
Happy tears.
“Yes,” I say.
“Yes?” When I nod, he pulls me down to him and presses his forehead to mine, cupping my face with his big hands. “Oh, Bella.”
He lets me go with a wince, his pain overwhelming him.
Cristian shakes his head. “Now that your girl has agreed to run away with you, can you please get some rest?”
Alessandro looks at me, his brow furrowed as if he can’t quite believe it. “You really meant it?”
I take his hand and nod. “Let’s do this.”
Epilogue
The sand is as soft as powdered sugar between my toes, and the late afternoon sun is warm on my back. A gentle, salty breeze whispers against my skin, and I’m reminded that a summer storm is supposed to blow in later tonight.
I hear a giggle and turn to see my four-year-old son trying to walk in my sandy footprints behind me, leaping from one to the other, and laughing when he gets the wobbles.
Sitting on my shoulders, my three-year-old daughter giggles at her brother.
I grin at my son, pride swelling in my chest. “If you keep growing up so fast, your feet will be bigger than mine in no time.”
He leaps onto a new footprint and falls onto his butt in the sand, laughing as a gentle wave rolls over him.
My wife walks beside me, her long, red hair tangling in the sea breeze. My queen. She’s dressed in a white summer dress, the floaty thin fabric wrapping around her big belly and fluttering about her legs. Our second son is due any day now, and I have to kick myself to make sure this life is not a dream.
Sometimes I wonder if I deserve this.
If this is too good to be true.
But then I realize that is the old Alessandro talking, because some habits are hard to break.
I will never regret my decision to walk away. To turn my back on the dark life and step into the light with my wife at my side.
We etch out a simple life. One that doesn’t need the sheen and sparkle of glamour and power.
One that doesn’t have us looking over our shoulder.
One that isn’t sheathed in the darkness of blood and murder.
My death was a typical over-the-top affair, as was my life, and the funeral was just as sensationalized. Even the weather participated in the drama by making it the wettest August day in years.
Black limousines lined the streets. People crowded the cemetery to watch my coffin being lowered into the ground. The media had a field day before quickly moving on to something else.
Following my death, Cristian took over running my business interests, and a few times a year he makes it to our island, arriving under the dark veil of night. He loves his niece and nephew and loves to spend days soaking up the sun and the simple but completely satisfying joy of island life. We don’t talk about the family or the past, or anything remotely to do with my old life. We only look forward.
To help maintain the façade of my death, Bella visits her father in New York several times a year, and when she returns and tells me about the city where I had once reigned, I look out the window and see our home, and I hear my bambinos giggle and my wife laugh, and I realize I don’t miss a thing about my old life.
I have all that I need.
I know I’ve been a bad man.
But I hope that if I love Bella with a pure heart every single day, I can redeem myself for the sins of my past life.
I’ll never understand why Anastacia did what she did. There was never anything between us. Never an inkling of her feelings. But apparently her obsession ran deep. Her private journals were a portal into a young woman crazed by a fixation for me.
Overwhelmed by her emotions, she took her own life in her cell. When I heard, I felt gutted for her. The old me would want revenge on her for trying to destroy the one thing in the world that mattered to me. But the new me is able to find it in his heart to forgive her.
I’m trying to be a better man.
I want to be.
My wife slips her hand into mine. “Something on your mind?”
I take in her green eyes and sun-kissed face.
“Only how good my life is.”
“Well, it’s about to get real good.” She grins wickedly as she leans closer and whispers, “These two munchkins are due for their afternoon nap, and I’m feeling needy for my husband. What do you say we get these kids home and you and I get naked?”
“I say we better start walking faster.”
She grins, and despite her big belly, starts to run ahead, chasing our son who runs along the sandy shore.
I smile after them.
I’ve never been so happy in my fucking life.
My name is Sandro.
It’s a fucking pleasure to meet you.
If you liked this book, you may also like:
Kings of Mayhem
Kings of Mayhem Series Book 1
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About The Author
Penny Dee writes contemporary romance about rock stars, bikers, hockey players, and everyone in-between. Her stories bring the suspense, the feels, and a whole lot of heat.
She found her happily ever after with an Australian hottie who she met on a blind date.
The Unwanted Crown
K E Osborn
Prologue
Savanah
“Savanah Del Rey, I’m not done talking to you!” My father slams his closed fist down on the table so forcefully, the vase with the daisies I picked for Mom rattles, then tips over. Water pools over the crisp white tablecloth, spilling onto the perfect tiles of my childhood home.
Bu
t nothing about this home is perfect.
Nothing about coming back here is perfect.
In fact, being back here is like living in a continual fucking hell loop with my father playing the lead role as Lucifer himself.
“You can’t make me, Dad. I’m twenty-seven. This is modern-day, not the freaking middle ages. You can’t just go around arranging marriages. That’s not how things are done in this day and age.”
The vein in my father’s neck pulsates so furiously, I’m worried—if only for a second—it might rupture.
“Savanah, this isn’t up for discussion. I told you before you up and left with Jovie for that ridiculous biker clubhouse that you need to face up to your familial duties! You need to get that wild child streak out of your system, because now it’s time to settle down and do what’s needed for your family. Princess… I love you, but why are you making this so damn hard?”
I let out a frustrated groan, running my fingers through my short, brown hair. “How many times have I told you not to call me your princess, Dad? You don’t call Christian your little prince now, do you?”
Dad scoffs. “He’s thirty years old, Savanah. Why would I call your brother that?”
“Exactly! You wouldn’t. So, don’t call me princess. I understand I’m your first-born daughter, but Dad… you gotta let go of this tight grip you have on me. Why do you think I ran away with Jovie to the Houston Defiance clubhouse? I needed to spread my wings, be free of all…” I wave my hand around dramatically, “… this!”
He folds his arms over his broad chest defiantly. His gray hair sits short on his head, his face seeming paler as the days go by. “Hunter McHale is a good man, Savanah. You ran away to Houston before you even got a chance to meet him. Marrying him wouldn’t be so bad.”