Dangerous Beauty: Part Two: A Mafia Princess

by Hardin, Michelle

  “The man in this photo is my father, Alexis Stone,” Anastacia continued. “If you flip to the next photo, you’ll find his son— my brother— Adrien Stone. As you can see, the Stones resemble each other greatly. The only thing separating my daughter and me from the Stone family is our dark skin. Other than that, it’s easy to pick a Stone out of a crowd of people. They have pale skin, black hair, and eyes identical to Carterina’s and mine. You run into someone that looks like us, immediately be on guard. They’re pissed off, so if they threaten you, don’t hesitate or worry about consequences— kill them. That goes double for you, Carterina. Don’t ask questions, and don’t answer any. Don’t play games, and don’t let your curiosity and thirst for knowledge weaken you. Do you understand?”

  Carter nodded.

  “Carterina.”

  She said Carter’s name more firmly, and Carter nodded and answered with words.

  “Yes, Mama, I understand,” she replied softly.

  “Good. Adrien is the leader of the family now, and he will come. Especially now that I’m here. This is for the best, though. It’s better he knows now who Carterina is and why he should think twice about fucking with her. Nathan, dear, when he does come, I need you to contain that temper of yours.”

  Nathan’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t speak.

  “There will be times when Carter needs to handle things herself, and there will be times when her husband needs to step in. All you have to do is read the situation. You know Carterina, and you know what she’s capable of. If she can handle it, then step back and let her do it. If she can’t, then it’s your job as her husband to protect her. I understand that now. If I didn’t think you could protect my daughter I wouldn’t have let you marry her, so this I am not worried about. You have not yet tapped into your full potential because you are still learning. But I do believe that this relationship …” She used her pen to point to both Nathan and Carter. “ … will get you there. Are there any questions?”

  “Why did you wait so long to tell us this?” Nathan asked. He wasn’t particularly fond of the length of time it had taken Anastacia to share this information.

  Anastacia turned to him, knowing the discussion would mostly be between the two of them. She and Angelo had already gone over all of this and more. “I had to get all of the information in order, Nathan. I know you may be upset, but this is reality, this is truth. This is one of the reasons Carter was kept hidden.”

  “You’re positive Adrien will show up in New York? Or will he send someone else to try to harm my wife.”

  “No, he will not send anyone. Stones fight their own battles. They detest the use of hit men. It’s too impersonal. And no, Adrien will not show up. He’s most likely already here,” she replied.

  “Are fucking kidding me, Anastacia?” Nathan snapped

  “This is what I meant about controlling your temper, Nathan …”

  “Fuck controlling my temper!” Nathan shouted. “There will be no controlling my temper, so we all might as well rid our minds of the idea!”

  “Calm yourself, Nathan,” Angelo said.

  “Calm myself?”

  Calm? Nathan thought. They wanted him to be calm? And control his temper? Were they out of their fucking minds?

  Nathan’s actions from this point and beyond were not going to be under his control. They would be the actions of a man who dared any motherfucker to touch his wife. Carter didn’t have to handle shit. All she had to do is what she loved— be his wife, work at S.O., kick a few asses, and one day have his bambinos. If Anastacia thought for one second that Nathan was going to sit back and watch while Carter lived her life looking over her shoulder … Hell no. He’d talk to Carter about it later.

  Nathan sat back in his seat and straightened his suit jacket. He nodded his head. “You’re right, Уважаемый отец. I apologize, Anastacia. That was no way for a man to speak to his mother-in-law. Forgive me.”

  “Forgiven,” she said with a nod. “I’ll continue. The Stones can be handled in any way you want, Nathan. Its better we get them out of the way fast anyway.” Anastacia frowned and looked to the side uncomfortably before speaking again. “It’s time for us to talk about the Steele family. The Stone family is manageable, but the Steeles are not. They are very dangerous. The leader of the family was Dmitry Steele, Robert’s father, but he was killed. This is one of the reasons Robert parted from his family. It was his siblings that killed Dmitry. They tortured and killed their own father for reasons beyond my knowledge. The Steele family isn’t spoken of often because they are ghosts. They’re only seen when they want to be, very deep in the criminal underworld. They are a group of misfits, only a few related by blood. Their bond comes from similar life experiences and a lust for revenge. They make most of their money by capturing, training, and selling slaves. Robert broke away from them. He was sensitive when it came to human trafficking. The Steeles didn’t like that he left them, especially when he became ‘Spook Steele’. But Robert’s reputation isn’t what kept his family from killing him like they did his father. Silas was …” Anastacia paused for a moment and removed her glasses. She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I need a minute …”

  Angelo placed his hand on Anastacia’s back, and she looked at him and nodded.

  Angelo nodded back. “Silas is Robert’s brother.” Angelo picked up where Anastacia left off. “I have come into contact with him on three different occasions, and not one went well. Silas is a very disturbed individual. Both he and Robert endured a series of very unfortunate events in their childhood, and Robert was the only one that made it out with most of his sanity still intact. Robert found ways of dealing with the anger he harbored from his childhood. When he became a hit-man, it angered Silas. Robert wanted Silas to be a part of his chosen lifestyle, but Silas disapproved of the life he’d chosen. But regardless of the anger Silas felt toward Robert, he still wanted him to come back to the family. Robert wouldn’t budge. He stayed away from his brother the best he could …”

  “ … But things changed when Silas found out that I was pregnant with a Steele …” Anastacia lifted her head and continued the story. She locked eyes with Carter. “He found me on one of my father’s properties in France— my plan was to have you in France and then disappear forever. I wasn’t going to contact your father at all because I didn’t need him. I viewed my pregnancy as a gift— the only indicator I had that proved God still loved me. That’s what I told Silas when he found me … But he told me I didn’t deserve a family. He said he wanted to give you to Robert as a gift to mend their relationship. I told him no, and when I tried to run …” Anastacia cleared her throat. “He beat me until I went into labor. I was seven months pregnant and in no condition to defend myself against him. Carterina,” Anastacia’s voice was soft but firm. “Don’t do that … Don’t cry … If you cry, then I will cry. We don’t have time. I need to finish.”

  Nathan could feel Carter battling with her emotions as she listened to her mother. He wanted to hold her and let her cry, but he knew he couldn’t. Carter would only get mad at him if he did.

  Carter swallowed her emotions and straightened her back.

  Anastacia continued. “He told me that if Robert didn’t take you, then he would. So I begged Robert to take you, and he did. After that, Silas told me to disappear. Robert convinced him to let me stay for a while to breastfeed you. You were tiny, and you needed the nourishment. Silas agreed, but stressed that in six months’ time, I must disappear, or he’d take you. I had no one, Carterina. I couldn’t go to anyone else for help. So I knew I had to distance myself from you until I could protect you— until you could protect yourself. Robert felt sorry for me when he saw what Silas had done to me, so he promised me that he wo—”

  Anastacia paused, catching herself before saying something she didn’t want to say.

  “He promised that you would be able to defend yourself, and he would never let you forget who had brought you into the world. Silas named you Cecilia Stee
le, but your father let me change your name legally in the United States to Carterina Anastacia Stone. We gave you my name knowing it would piss Silas off.” Anastacia smiled a little at the memory. “He let me leave my contact information so we could raise you together. While I was away from you, I decided it best to get back in touch with some of my father’s old contacts. I needed to become someone Silas feared. The army I built is what allowed me to sometimes see you. I could defend myself after that. This made Silas back off of me, but he still watched you. Protecting you, teaching you to defend yourself, educating you about the real world, was our main focus in life. You were right, Carterina. Your father and I were romantically involved all the way up until his death. But it didn’t start off that way. For a while, things were really bad between us. It was complicated. But after years and years of fighting, we fell in love because we shared something special. Our love for you brought us together. Our dream was to beat Silas and become a family. Robert died before we could live that dream. When I found out what had happened to you and your father, I was in Italy. I was supposed to be coming back to the states to keep an eye on you while your father went away for a while, but the attack happened before I got there. One of my men arrived at your home before me to do his nightly check of the property. When he didn’t see movement inside, he went to inspect. That’s when he found what had happened and called me. I came to the states to retrieve your and your father’s body. But you weren’t there, and Christina’s face had been cut off—”

  “I didn’t do that,” Carter said, “I don’t know how that happened.”

  Anastacia nodded. “I think I know who did it. It was the same person who took your father’s body. He was gone by the time I got there, and his body had been replaced with a man I didn’t recognize—”

  “He wasn’t there …? But— I left him there …” Carter interrupted.

  “Silas had gotten there before me, Carterina. He called me and asked me where I had taken you. He said now that Robert was gone, he would be taking you with him. He soon found out that I didn’t know where you were, either. This was when you were most vulnerable. You were defenseless and alone. If Silas had found you before you left with Nathan and the boys, it would have been … very bad …”

  Anastacia stood up from the table. “The rest of the photos in that folder are members of both the Stone and Steele family that each of you need to watch for …” She walked over to the wall and pressed a button. A screen lowered from the ceiling. Anastacia picked up a remote control. “These faces are important to remember, but Silas is the one that may shock you. Angelo,” she called.

  Angelo nodded and walked over to Nathan and Carter, taking the empty seat next to Nathan. Anastacia came to Carter’s side and took her hand. Nathan frowned as his father placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “Anastacia and I want to be honest with the both of you. If we aren’t, then the two of you will be blindsided, and that’s not what we want,” Angelo said softly.

  “What hell is going on here?” Nathan said

  Carter was afraid to speak. She held tightly to Nathan’s hand and prepared herself for the worst.

  “I’ll go first, Angelo.” Anastacia said. “Carterina, the only way that I can be sure you trust me is if I tell you the truth. But before I do, I just need to stress to you that …” An unwelcomed tear fell from her eye. “I love you so much. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done because I love you. You’re father loved you, too— so much. Robert raised you, he taught you how to defend yourself, and he was an amazing father to you, even though …” Tears began to stream from Anastacia’s eyes. “Shit.”

  Even though. The two words echoed in Carter’s head over and over again until she completed her mother’s statement on her own. Carter touched her mother’s face softly and wiped the tears from her eyes. She nodded her head as if she understood. She knew exactly what Anastacia was going to say. “Even though … biologically … I am Silas’s daughter . .” Carter finished for her mother. Carter couldn’t really say how she felt because right now, she didn’t feel anything. She was numb. She leaned forward and kissed her mother’s tears. She tasted the saltiness of her mother’s regret on her lips and ran her fingers through Anastacia’s hair. “I love you, too, Mom— unconditionally.”

  “That’s what your father used to say to me. You are so much like Robert,” she whispered. She kissed Carter’s forehead and smoothed her hair back from her face. “There is just a little more, sweetheart …” she said. “I’m so sorry. We are almost finished. I promise.”

  “Nathan, son,” Angelo began to speak. “I want you to know that I have known this information for months now. I only waited to tell you because I wanted you to focus on your happiness with your new wife— and not on this.” He took a deep breath, then continued. “Nathan, your mother and I proved not to be a match in the past, and I wanted to make it clear to you that she is not to blame for that. Everything she did, I drove her to. I frightened her on more than one occasion. Your mother was an angel trapped with a demon, and it drove her to seek help to get away from me. Now because I’m a selfish man, I wouldn’t allow her to take you with her because you’re my son. There’s nothing in this world that I love more than you. She wanted to take you from me once, and I threatened her. My love for you was too strong, and when she said she was going to take you away from me, I scared her so that she would never think of doing it again. I didn’t hurt her physically, but I know I broke her heart. I don’t know how she did it, but she contacted Robert and asked him to help her get away from me. Robert— despite his profession— was a good man. He decided to help her because she was in need. He met with her in the city several times, but unfortunately, he was being watched …”

  “As Carterina grew, Silas became jealous of Robert. And he was obsessed with Carterina,” Anastacia added. “He wanted to take her back from his brother, but by then Robert was attached. He loved Carterina as a father loves his child, and he’d had to threaten his brother for the first time. He told him to stay away from her or he’d kill him. This hurt Silas more than it frightened him. He felt like Robert had stolen something from him … and so he wanted to take something from Robert, too …”

  Angelo took a deep breath “Because they were meeting so often, Silas was under the impression that Robert and Anya were romantically involved. He thought they were in love, and he wanted to take her away from him …”

  “So he did. I got it …” The words shot out of Nathan’s mouth. “Is it okay if we don’t discuss this any further …” He couldn’t take any more of this. He couldn’t stand to see the heartbroken look on Carter’s face. The two of them sat stone still, hand in hand, and completely silent.

  “There’s one more thing, son …”

  You’ve got to be kidding me! Nathan didn’t think there was anything else they could possibly say to shock them … but he was wrong.

  “Carterina, baby girl, I want you to take a deep breath for me before I show you this …” Anastacia pressed a button on the remote in her hand and an image popped up on the screen.

  Carter and Nathan frowned in confusion.

  “Why are you showing us this?” Carter asked.

  The man on the screen walked across a busy street. He was tall, handsome, brown-skinned, wore his hair in a fade, and had a toned, muscular frame. He wore a pair of black sunglasses, black dress pants, and a tight-fitting, black, short-sleeved shirt.

  Carter looked at her mother. “That’s … Daddy …” she said, wondering why her mother was showing her a picture of her father.

  Her hesitation to say ‘Daddy’ didn’t go unnoticed by Anastacia. Anastacia shook her head. “No, it’s not. My men took this picture last year in London. They had a chance to send it to me before Silas killed them.”

  “Mom, what are you talking about? That’s Daddy. That’s his face. That’s how I used to cut his hair. And that’s how he dressed every day. So unless he faked his own death to get away from me, that’s not a picture from last y
ear,” Carter said, frustrated.

  Anastacia switched to the next picture. This time, the man was staring directly at the camera with no sunglasses, an evil smirk on his face.

  “Everyone,” Angelo said, standing up and walking over to the big screen. “If you see this man, head the other direction unless you have a group of men with you to back you up. He doesn’t go anywhere without a heavy group of his people with him. This is not Robert Steele. He likes to portray himself as his brother, but Robert is dead. This is his identical twin brother— Silas …”

  22

  Beg For It

  “I’m losing my mind, Angelo. Maybe we should call them, make sure they’re okay.”

  Anastacia paced back and forth in front of Angelo, running her fingers through her hair.

  “Stop worrying, bella. Kyle and the boys are with them,” Angelo said, trying his best to calm Anastacia— and himself. He was worried, too.

  “What if they don’t come? Did we tell them too much too soon? What if we’ve ruined their relationship? What if they leave us forever, Angelo?” She stopped pacing and turned to him in panic. “Oh God! What if something happened to them on the way here? What if Silas is here? Or Adrien? We need to go look for them. I can’t handle this—”

  “Anastacia!” Angelo gripped Anastacia’s shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Calm down!” He felt as if he was speaking to both her and himself. In all honesty, Angelo was losing it a little, too. He was just better at hiding his emotions than Anastacia was. Being a mother had changed Anastacia drastically. “Ana, just breathe. They will be here soon,” he said calmly. “Pull yourself together. It’s eleven— we have to go in now. They’re waiting for us to come down …”

  Anastacia nodded. “They’re waiting for you, not me, Angelo. Have they been forewarned of my presence here today? I don’t have the patience for idiocy …”