by Ali D
I roll off of him and snuggle up into my guys, curling into them as I start to drift off. I hear them each whisper their own declarations of love just as my eyelids fall shut.
“I love you all too.” I manage to get out before sleep overtakes me.
* * *
I wake with a start, jolting upward. That had to be a dream, right? It’s got me fucked up for sure. Sweat is covering my body and I feel like my body has been put through the ringer. Like somehow, I physically experienced all of those orgasms instead of subconsciously enduring them. My body is reacting more viscerally to my subconscious than I would’ve thought. The boys are surrounding me cozily and I’m genuinely surprised I didn’t wake them with my intense dreams. I pull the comforter up to make sure I still have all of my clothes on, only to realize how badly I need to go to the bathroom. My fantastical dream period disappearance truly was only a dream. That sucks. Oh well, at least my cramps are gone.
Grabbing for my phone and some clothes, I get ready to jump in the shower. I turn the shower onto scalding hot and go to put my shower playlist on, which I’m woman enough to admit is mostly made up of female powerhouse artists and Broadway musical mashups; But when I pick up my phone I have a ton of missed text messages. I’m honestly terrified something happened to nonno or mom and I missed it, but when I check them, I realize they are all from a blocked number.
Unknown: Alessandra, mia bella, you haven’t responded to my cards or your flowers. Are you ready to come home? I’ve missed you.
Unknown: I’ve been keeping my eye on you, you know. I think it’s almost time we come together. I was going to wait until your eighteenth birthday, but it looks as though things will need to be rushed. I don’t like my hand being forced.
Unknown: Mia bella, I don’t like these ragazzini touching you. I don’t like them touching what’s mine. You need a vero uomo.
Unknown: You need to get rid of them. Get rid of them before I do.
Unknown: You’ll only get un avvertimento, a warning, this one time. Then I’ll come for you.
Unknown: Sei mio. I’ll see you later mia bella. Remember, I’m watching.
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
The flowers. They were never from my guys. Oh my god, I feel sick. Pissed as hell, I try to text back, but I’m blocked from even responding to the number. Whoever this is, is such a coward. Like, really? Who sends out threatening messages from a blocked number like a little bitch? And the nerve to call themself a vero uomo, a real man? What a joke. My whole body is literally vibrating in anger. No one threatens my guys. Ragazzini... Little boys? Ha, even as juniors in high school, my guys look like full grown men. Shit, they could be cover models worldwide, they are so ruggedly handsome. Who does this asshole think he is? I need to talk to nonno and the boys but first, I’m taking my shower and calming the hell down. They’ll all fly off the handle if they notice how upset I am. I move to lock the door. I’m not taking any chances with them catching me this heated and those boys know no boundaries. Let’s just hope they all sleep in. Threaten me any day but have the balls to tell me that you’re not only stalking me, but calling me yours and threatening the men that I love? Hell, I’ve only just barely accepted it. The one’s I finally stopped fighting at every turn and agreed to a relationship with? Yeah, it’s just not gonna happen. I need to game plan.
Shower. Gym. Shower. Eat. School. Homework. Gym. Shower. Study. Bed.
That’s how my day is going to go. I need to figure this all out before I can talk to the royal court. I can’t get them involved yet. Especially if this creep really is watching me. I need him to see me distance myself a bit from them. I have to keep them safe first and foremost. I’m realizing that there’s actually nothing I wouldn’t do to protect them. Hell, maybe I should hand myself over to this secret dickwad. The guys will be pissed and probably worried, but they’d be safe and that’s all that really matters.
Shit.
I know what I have to do.
* * *
It took me all day yesterday to get all my plans together and the boys could clearly tell something was off. I avoided them for the better part of the day, blaming hormones and cramps. The only time I really gave them attention was before bed. I made them all sleep in their own rooms, which was a difficult task in and of itself. My stubborn boyfriends hated the idea of sleeping without me but I made sure to kiss them each a little extra, knowing what was coming today.
I sneak out of the house after texting mom and nonno. They weren’t thrilled with the idea but ultimately, they trust me. They know everything I need them to know and promised to have things handled by the time I get home from my trip. I quickly grab my pre-packed duffle bag and grabbed my wallet before sneaking into the garage to get my Jeep. I don’t want to be here when the boys find out they’ll be moving out. I know that makes me a coward, but I honestly can’t deal with how much it’s going to hurt them, even if it’s done by my own hand. I need to put some distance between us if I’m going to force them out of a relationship with me. Going forward, there will be no speaking to each other whatsoever. If I make it back, when I return to school, the dust will be settled and we’ll all have moved on, at least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself. Mom is having all of my classwork forwarded to me while I’m hidden away in lockdown. I make it out of the garage with my nerves on edge but without interruption, but by the time I reach our security gates, I see the guys running down the long driveway. I lock the doors quickly and barely get my foot pressed down on the gas when I feel my vehicle shake with the force of Matteo banging on my windows. He’s yelling at me but I’m driving away as fast as I can while trying not to run them over as the other two move to get in front of my car.
They chase me down the road but there’s no way they can keep up with my car, so I gun it as I drive through the hills of the neighborhood towards the highway. I know the car is bugged so I head to one of nonnos garages to swap out cars, to avoid the guys following me. They know where our family’s safe houses are, so I won’t be using any of them. I’m making it a point to put as much distance between us as I can because knowing them, they’ll attempt to follow me. I’m driving out towards the East coast to go into hiding for a bit, but I’ll be stopping at my old stomping grounds in Chicago to see if I can find any clues about how everything has come to be or who might be behind the texts. The creepy stalker mentioned something about coming home to him in his texts, so it makes the most sense that if I can figure any of this mystery out, I’d have to start there. I can’t imagine my old house has been sold or anything so if it isn’t full of squatters, I should be able to check it out and see if there was ever anything there that should’ve tuned me into what happened.
Whoever this guy is that’s stalking me so far seems untraceable but nonno and I have some top hackers in the business working for us so I’m confident they’ll figure it out soon. As badly as I wanted to put a call filter app on my phone to stop him from calling and texting, I know I can’t. I need him to slip up and either clue me in on who he is or give away his location. I’ve got some pretty big plans for this ghost man when I catch him. For now though, at least I can trust that my kings will be safe. As long as I am gone, they’ll be ok.
Chapter Eleven.
Matteo.
We are not fucking ok. What the hell does she think she’s doing? My queen is playing a dangerous game, one she has to know she can never win. She’s out of her fucking mind if she thinks she can run away from me, away from us. When will she learn that we are stronger together? The guys and I took all of one point two whole seconds to think about it before we ran to the car to follow her. With no idea of what’s been going on the last couple of days with our girl, I think us guys were all feeling anxious this morning because we were all up early and in the gym when Alessandra tried to sneak downstairs. Taking the extra second to slip on shoes and grab our phones and wallets, we all went after her thinking she just wanted to get an early start at school, only to find her trying to completel
y leave us behind. All my instincts have been screaming at me to pay more attention to her weird behavior, but she hasn’t been feeling well this week and I stupidly justified her shitty attitude with that. God-fucking-damnit! How could I be so ignorant to her mood change?
I called Alessandro from the car while Cohen did his best to track and follow our girl, only for him to tell me that we needed to move out of the house and that our protective service was no longer needed for his precious mia luce. Apparently, he doesn’t realize how wrapped up in her we are. She is our light too. How can he not see the dark, heavy cloud that hangs over us when she’s not in our arms? Nothing and no one will ever keep her from us, not even him. We caught up with her just as she reached one of her grandpa’s many chop shops. Clearly, she intends to swap out vehicles to avoid being tracked.
Where are you going baby? What’s the intent here? Why all of the secrets? I hold Noah back when he starts visibly raging, about to burst through the doors and claim our girl. If I had been a lesser man, there would’ve been no holding him back. He’s no slouch as a competitive athlete, sitting at six foot five and two hundred and fifty plus pounds of pure muscle. With as much adrenaline that’s pumping through all of us, I know he’s holding himself back, not letting his monstrous side take full control just yet.
“Wait guys. We need to watch and see what’s going on. Something shady is clearly going down. For whatever reason we are being kept in the dark about it so we’ll need to figure out what it is on our own. Let’s stay in the shadows until we need to step in. Our girl is smart, and Alessandro wouldn’t let her go through with whatever this is if he felt she would be putting herself in immediate danger. Let her follow through on whatever her plan is and once we’ve got a good grasp on what’s going on, we’ll get ahead of it.” I tell them.
“But it’s something big. There’s no way Alessandro all of the sudden cuts us off from her and gives us no indication of what’s happening unless she’s done or said something to him. She had to have intentionally set us up to get us out of her life. I need to hear it from her that she doesn’t want us and even then, I probably won’t believe it man.” Noah practically whispers. His adrenaline is clearly wearing off a bit because he looks less beast mode now and more dejected than I’ve ever seen him. This is clearly hurting him because I’ve never seen him lie down and take a beating, but here he is, willing to wait it out and see if she really is trying to leave us.
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. If she kissed either of you like she did me last night, then you wouldn’t doubt her at all. Something else is going on, I can feel it. She kissed me like she was telling me to wait for her. Her kiss showed me just how much she loved me, and she wouldn’t ever want to leave me.” Cohen states, ever the levelheaded one. But he’s right. Her kiss from last night set me on edge which carried through this morning because it felt like she was saying goodbye, but it also felt like she couldn’t bear to go. She’s planned all of this.
“You’re right, I felt like I was going stir crazy all night after she came into my room. It was like I could feel her gearing up to do something and when she kissed me goodnight, almost as if she was trying to warn me, then comfort me for what was coming. I know she meant it when she told me she loved me.” Noah says as he works himself back up into a positive outlook. His protective instinct is once again overtaking him and he’s ready to get to the bottom of things, even if we have to follow her to the ends of the earth to do it.
“Here she comes, brothers. Stay on her ass but give her as much breathing room as you possibly can. She’ll be looking out for us to be tailing her and she knows our car. Even unmarked, she’ll sense that it’s us. She always does. When she stops for gas, food or lodging we’ll put a GPS tracker on her to be safe. Noah, do we still have a backup kit in the back of the SUV? Our emergency to-go kit will come in handy right about now.” I say, looking down at our sweat drenched workout clothes.
“Yeah man, we’ve got it all back here. GPS trackers, burner phones, untraceable laptops, security cameras and bugs, fake IDs, first aid kit and our travel bags with extra clothes. Plus snacks, drinks, extra cash, credit cards and other miscellaneous shit. If we need something, we likely have it. Cohen was pretty thorough when he packed the truck up for emergencies.” He says surveying all of the shit in the back.
I look over to him and nod my thanks and he lifts his chin in acceptance. I swear, these guys know me better than anyone. I love that I don’t even have to talk for them to understand me. It’s part of what makes us such an impenetrable unit. Falling for the same girl just sealed our fate. It’s partially what brought us to the conclusion we did in regard to changing the contracts. We were always meant to take over the underworld, albeit different territories, but it was no coincidence that we were all sent to the same boarding schools and academies from such an early age. Now we just have our very own mafia queen to guide the way and combine our strengths. Hopefully, it doesn’t take too long to figure out what’s going on with our woman. We need her more than she’ll ever be able to understand. She’s ruined us for anyone else. Not a soul alive can compare to her. If she really is trying to leave us, she’s going to have to do better than this. I’m sure I can speak for my brothers when I say that we’ll never let her go. She’s too deeply ingrained into our souls.
“We should all keep trying to blow up her phone, so she doesn’t catch on to us following her. Here, send shit for me so I can keep my eyes on her car.” Cohen says, handing me his phone.
And once again my genius best friend shows up for the win. Cohen always seems ten steps ahead and I’m more grateful now than ever that he’s on my side.
Sending a few messages from each of us, I settle in for the drive.
Time to go help our girl, our queen.
* * *
We just about made it to Nevada before she stopped for gas and we got the GPS put on her car. I think each one of us went through some sort of internal panic at one point or another when Alessandra drove like a bat out of hell, all reckless and crazy. Once she got farther away from the California coastline, her driving calmed down a bit but there was no shortage of cursing from within our car as we watched her act like she was auditioning for the next fast and the furious movie. We have no idea where we are headed since there are Salvatore safe houses all over the states. Attempting to figure it out has been driving me crazy so I’ve let it go and will just watch this all play out. We’ve been driving since about six thirty this morning and we are just about to cross the Utah/Colorado border, which puts us at around seventeen solid hours of drive time. I don’t know how our girl is holding on so strong with only her driving. Her small obsession with energy drinks is probably helping a lot. It’s late and she needs to get some sleep. At least with the three of us, we can take turns. Once again, she proves to be a total badass. She’s the most impressive woman I’ve ever met. I can’t wait until she’s in my arms again and all of this, whatever it is, is over. It’s not even been a full day and I fucking miss her. It’s like a piece of my soul is missing, knowing she’s gone and hiding shit from me. When will this girl learn that she can trust us? I know my dad put the seed of doubt in her brain and we grew that seed from a misguided place of anger and mistrust. I think we all assumed we had moved past that but maybe we were wrong. It’s hard to know when she keeps us so closed off from whatever the situation is. It’s pissing me the fuck off all over again, honestly.
When I get my hands on her again, she’ll find out just how volatile my temper can be. This is the last time she leaves us, and leaves us in the dark, ever again. I’ve never wanted to grab hold of a woman, tie her down and fuck her senseless before but I’m understanding the appeal now. To hold her every ounce of trust in my hands while I fuck her into submission, all while sucking on her delicate neck and chest and leaving bruises all over her unblemished skin. Gripping her hips so hard, my fingerprints mark her skin for days to follow. I want to bite her lips and make them swell under my touch. I wan
t to bury my cock in her so deep that she never forgets who she belongs to, so she never tries to leave again. God damn my dick is hard just thinking about it. I can practically smell her arousal from my memories. Licking my lips I can taste her sweetness on my tongue.
Damn, I fucking miss her, even with her in my sights. I know I’m not alone; the guys must feel the same as me seeing as how they’ve been just as lost in their own thoughts throughout this journey. I adjust myself in my seat and Noah looks over giving me a knowing look just before looking straight ahead to Alessandra pulling off to what looks like a small gathering of cottages grouped together, similar to the campground we took her to on Valentine’s day but with less of a romantic feel and more of a ominous vibe. There’s a sign posted on the bigger building at the forefront of the group, naming it the Cozy Cottage Inn, and showing a lit sign for vacancies. It’s late and our girl is probably exhausted. I’m thankful she’s finally stopping for rest, but I’m pissed that she didn’t plan ahead as to not stop at serial killer central all on her own. This place is likely considered charming or old-fashioned but hell if this spot isn’t menacing as all fuck. This place puts the Bates Motel to shame for all the murder vibes it gives out.
“Bro, fuck this place. Why does she do shit like this? She has money now. She could be staying at the nicest hotels in town and she still goes for the shadiest of fucking places. This woman is gonna be the death of me. Agh!” Noah says as he slams his hands on the steering wheel.