by Bella J
“You’re hurting me.”
“Tell me!” The loud crack of my voice reverberated around the room, Anete’s bottom lip starting to tremble.
“Fine. Okay? Mila came in here acting like she fucking owned the place in her Prada dress, gloating about your trip to Milan and how you took her to the Hotel Principe di Savoia.”
My heartbeat went from a racing pulse to a thundering hammer against my ribs. “Jesus, Anete. What did you say to her?”
“You took her to that goddamn hotel, Saint, after I had begged you so many times to take me with you whenever you had business in Milan.” Her eyes glistened, and Jesus Christ, I wasn’t in the mood for fucking waterworks. “I fucking begged you, and you just kept giving me excuse after excuse.”
“Jesus.” I let go of her and stepped back. “You lied to her, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I fucking lied,” she spat out between tears. “I lied because I wasn’t about to have some orphan you picked up off the goddamn streets gloat about living the life I wanted.”
I crouched with my hands over my mouth, knowing exactly what damage Anete’s lies had caused. I had promised Mila I’d answer her truthfully. Always. And now she was under the impression I lied to her—a lie that had now stolen that one fundamental moment between us. A moment where she felt important to me. Special, even.
“You got what you wanted,” Anete continued with wet cheeks and wild eyes. “You married the girl and got the Torres shares you were after. Why continue the charade?”
“How—”
“How do I know? Come on, Saint.” She crossed her arms. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out.”
“Fuck!” I launched up and slammed my fist into the wall, the pain doing nothing to overpower the anger.
The seething rage burned like the flames of hell in my chest, and I glowered at Anete as if she was the devil’s fucking spawn. “If anything happens to my wife, I will ruin you, Anete. I swear to God.”
“Sir.” James came storming in holding a pair of black shoes in his hand. “I found these in the hotel lobby.”
“It’s Mila’s.”
“Sir, Elena. I can’t find her anywhere.”
“What?”
James approached me, his expression wary. “She’s not here.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Get your men on this, James. Use hotel security. I don’t care if you need to bring in the fucking military, but you find them. You hear me? Fucking find them.”
James rushed out, and I saw Anete still hovering in the corner of the room. “Get out.”
Her lips curled. “All I did was—”
“I said get out!” There was no way the woman could remain standing before my rage that threatened to engulf her, and she ran from the room.
I pulled my phone from my pocket. This entire scenario had my father written all over it. God, I was so fucking stupid thinking Mila would be safe here with me.
I pressed the dial button on a number I hadn’t called in a very long time. It only took two rings for him to answer.
“Marcello. What a surprise.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose as my father’s voice invoked a surge of lava in my veins. “Where is she?”
“Who?”
“Mila. Where the fuck is Mila?”
“I’m not sure why you think I’d know this, son.”
“Do not call me son.” I clenched my teeth. “And do not fuck with me. Where the fuck is she?”
“I’m sorry, Marcello. But I honestly don’t know what you are talking about. Are you not at this charity gala of yours?”
I paced across the marble floor, barely holding on to the last sliver of control I had. “I swear to God, if you hurt her—”
“Keep your goddamn threats to yourself, Marcello. I am only going to say this one more time, and then I am going to hang up. I do not have your wife, nor do I know anything about her disappearance. And once you find her, I’ll expect another call from you with an apology.”
He hung up, and I cursed as I grabbed a vase from a side table and threw it across the room, straight at the mirror, which cracked and shattered on impact. White roses and broken glass scattered, and my curses slammed against the walls like rolling thunder. Everything was so fucked up, and I was losing control.
My feet rushed across the marble floor and I stormed out, back into the hall which had been—up until minutes ago—a scene from a goddamn fairy land. But now all the flowers, crystal vases, candles and chandeliers were mere fragments of my worst goddamn nightmare. The one thing I had been fearing since the day I realized Mila was more to me than just a goddamn signature.
I had to find her.
Even if it cost me my last breath…I had to fucking find her.
21
Mila
“What did you do to her?”
“I saw her come in here. Where is she?”
Voices. Far. Distant.
“Where is she?”
“Get your hands off me.”
“Stop.”
“Tell me where she is.”
“Elena?” I stirred with a throbbing ache that spread down the side of my face and into my skull. My mouth was dry and throat scratchy as if I had swallowed sand. I licked my lips and tasted blood before I tried to push myself up. My eyes fluttered open against the stinging bright light, and for a moment I wasn’t sure where I was.
A bathroom.
Hotel.
Gala.
Anete.
“Raphael,” I whispered.
A loud thud sliced through my eardrums.
“Get the fuck in there, bitch.”
“Mila?” A gentle hand touched the side of my face. “Oh, my God, Mila.”
“Elena?” I could hardly hear my own voice against the pulsing pain in my head.
“Are you okay?”
“What happened?” I blinked a few times against the blinding light that glared off white tiles. “Where are we?”
“Jesus, Mila. Your face. What did he do to you?”
Reality crashed down on me like a thousand concrete blocks. “Raphael,” I whispered as my memory slithered back. “My mother.”
“Oh, it was just too easy.”
I glanced over Elena’s shoulder at my brother leaning against the doorframe, scratching his temple with the muzzle of his gun.
“Raphael,” I started, out of breath, “Elena. Let her go.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault the bitch followed us up here. She left me no choice but to toss her ass in here with you.”
Elena shot up to her feet. “You bastard. You better run before Marcello finds you.”
Raphael snorted and wiped his nose. “You think your little nephew scares me?”
“Oh, my God, you’re high, aren’t you?”
He stepped up to Elena, which made her inch back. “What if I am?”
“Marcello was right about you,” Elena sneered. “You’re nothing but a low-life piece of shit.”
It happened so fast. The sickeningly crack of the blow ripped through the air as Raphael struck Elena with the back of his hand, sending her spiraling to the ground.
“Stop!” My voice echoed, and I rushed to my feet, forgetting about every little ache in my body. “Please stop. Don’t hurt her. Just tell me what you want.”
With unsteady feet and shaky legs, I moved to stand between him and Elena, who had settled with her back against the wall, lip cut and bleeding.
“What do you want, Raphael?”
His eyes narrowed with nothing but malicious intent beaming from black, dilated pupils. “What do I want? What I want is my fucking money.” He stepped toward me. “What I want is my motherfucking deal with that son of bitch, Russo. A deal that was secured and two seconds away from being finalized until you”—he pushed the muzzle of his gun against my chest, causing me to whimper—“stormed in uninvited, ruining fucking everything.”
“I didn’t ask to be a part of this.”
“Yet you didn’t think twice before s
igning your name on the dotted line, marrying that rich fuck who thinks he owns the goddamn world.”
“I had no choice,” I lashed out at him. “None of this was my fucking choice, Raphael.”
“I don’t care!” he yelled, lifting the gun and aiming it down at my forehead.
“Mila!” Elena cried, and I held up my hand in a bid to calm her as I closed my eyes against the chilling cold of the gun against my skin.
“Raphael, listen to me, okay? If it’s money you want, let me help you. I’m sure Saint would love to take those shares off your hands. We can ask him to offer you the same deal his dad had on the table.”
Silence settled…until his abrupt maniacal laughter cut through it and crashed against the ceiling. “You think I haven’t tried that? I offered him a deal two days after he held a gun to my head. I even lowered my price by fifty fucking percent.”
“What?” Nothing he said made any sense.
Raphael grinned, yet there was no amusement in his eyes. Only darkness. Hate. Rage. “Your husband made it clear he has no interest in doing business with me.”
“That’s because you’re a worthless junkie,” Elena spat out from behind me.
“Shut up, bitch!” He pushed me out of his way, and I slammed shoulder first against the wall.
“Raphael, no!”
There was a glint of silver and a deafening thunderous crack followed by Elena’s ear-piercing screams.
I cried out and watched in horror as blood poured from an open wound in her leg. Within seconds, crimson seeped through the grout between the tiles, a stark contrast of color against the white floor.
Elena sobbed, her eyes wide and body shaking as she went into shock.
I couldn’t breathe as panic dug its nails into my spine, clawing at my skin with terror. But in that moment, I didn’t care about my own life. I didn’t care about the gun in my brother’s hand. All I cared about was Elena, and her wails of gut-wrenching pain, her hands trembling over her leg. I clambered across the floor.
“Elena. Oh, my God.”
“Oh, stop acting like you care, Mila.”
Tears streamed down my face. My heart was beating so fast I was sure it would tear out of my chest at any second.
I grabbed a towel from the nearest rail, my hands shaking so badly I could hardly keep it from slipping through my fingers. “It’s okay, Elena,” I tried to reassure her even though my voice trembled almost as much as my hands. “We just need to stop the bleeding.”
I positioned the towel on her leg to put some pressure on the wound and tried to wipe the trickling tears from my cheek with my shoulder. “Just keep pressure on it.”
Raphael grabbed my shoulder. “Get away from her.”
“Let go of me!” I thrashed and jerked from his hold, which sent him stumbling back and tearing the sleeve of my dress in the process. Desperate to help Elena, I fell to the ground, fingers gripping the towel tight so I could put more pressure on her leg to try and slow the bleeding.
I eased my palm against her wet cheek, her complexion sickeningly pale. “You’re going to be okay. I promise. Okay? I promise.”
Elena grabbed my hand, her breathing loud and rapid. “Listen to me, Mila,” she whispered, pulling me close. “You need to get out of here. You need to save yourself from him.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not going to leave you here.”
Elena tightened her hold on my hand. “Don’t worry about me. Just…” she sucked in a heavy breath, “save yourself…and the life you’re carrying inside you.”
Ice spread through every bone, weighing me down and making it impossible to move. “What?”
A weak smile drew across her face, and she closed her eyes as she simply nodded.
“How do you—”
“The cards,” she whispered. “It was written in…in the cards.”
Suddenly, it all clicked in place. “The Empress? That’s what it meant. That’s why you didn’t want to complete the reading.”
Raphael grabbed my arm and yanked me up to my feet. I was too stunned to even try to fight back—to try to yank free.
He dragged me out of the room and slammed the door shut. “Sit the fuck down.” He pushed me toward the couch, my hip hitting the armrest and sending a shockwave of pain up my side. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around my belly. “Why are you doing this?”
“Oh, God.” He rolled his eyes. “Are you slow? Are you one those special people who needs things explained to them a thousand times?” He took a seat across from me and reached for a tiny plastic bag that was set on the side table. “Aunt Elena was right.” He snickered as he poured white powder from the bag and onto the side of his fist. “I am high.” He snorted the cocaine, and a look of sheer ecstasy flashes across his face for a full fucking two seconds.
I watched with bated breath as he wiped at his nose and clutched the gun.
He held the bag out to me. “Want to try?”
I simply glared at him.
He shrugged. “Go on. If you’re high, you won’t feel a thing when I shoot a hole in your pretty face.”
“Stop,” I whispered. “Stop threatening me and just do it.” Adrenaline had spiked. It was making me reckless, and I was starting to feel nothing but undiluted anger. I sat up straight, not caring that one sleeve of my dress was torn and half my breast was on display. “If you want to kill me so badly, then just do it. Why stall? Why this fucking charade?”
His jaw clenched and nostrils flared. His eyes were nothing but pits of darkness. “You know,” he started and settled back in his seat, “throughout my entire childhood, I always felt like there was this disconnect between me and my father. As if he, I don’t know, didn’t like me. And when he died, I didn’t feel sad. Oh, no,” he smiled like a goddamn maniac, “I felt free. Free to be me and do what I want without having to worry about my father’s glare of disapproval. Yet I didn’t stop wondering why he always seemed to not like me.”
Raphael craned his neck and looked up at the ceiling. “Then my sister returns from the grave, alive and well, this whole fucking grim story of adoption and debts and shares, and fuck knows what else.” His gaze cut to mine. “And then I realized, it’s because of you. My father didn’t like me because whenever he looked at me, all he saw…was you. The daughter he gave away.” He stood from his seat, and I swallowed hard as his features darkened by the second. “You see, Mila, you’ve ruined my life even before you came back from the fucking dead. You’ve been ruining my life since the day I was born.”
I balled my fists, my insides coiled tight. “Or maybe our dad simply knew what a piece of shit you really are.”
The expression on his face was stone, his eyes glazed over. I stopped breathing due to his lack of reaction to how I provoked him. But then he burst out laughing, a loud cackle of alarming insanity. The sound vibrated down my spine with unsettling terror, and I had to inhale deeply in order to keep the panic from suffocating me.
Raphael slithered closer like the snake he was and lifted the gun, aiming it right at me.
Sweat trickled down my back as I desperately fought to hide my trembling fear.
“You’re a brave little girl, Mila. I’ll give you that. Too bad it won’t help you when you burn in hell.”
“I’m not afraid to die, Raphael.”
He straightened his aim. “Then you’ll have no problem with what happens next.”
My entire body shook with a force that could crack bone, my own heartbeat sounding in my ear. If Elena was right, Raphael wouldn’t just be robbing me of my life, but that of the life inside me as well.
A tear slipped down my cheek and across my trembling lips, but my mind was blank. Completely devoid of any memory. Any thought.
Then a knock on the door cut through the tension that hung like thick muck in the air.
“Raphael, are you in there?”
It was Saint’s dad. I immediately recognized Mr. Russo’s voice.
“Are you in there, Raphael?”
<
br /> Raphael held his finger in front of his lips, warning me to stay quiet.
“Listen, son. I just heard Marcello’s new wife is missing. If, by any chance, you have the girl, I’d love to renegotiate our deal.”
I held my breath as Raphael slowly stalked toward the door and leaned against it. “I’m listening.”
“Do you have the girl?” Mr. Russo demanded through the door.
“First, tell me about this deal you’d like to renegotiate.”
“This girl is worth more to me than those shares of yours, Raphael. If you have her, you’ve accomplished something even I couldn’t.”
“Yeah, and what’s that?”
“Outsmarting my son so I can get my hands on the Torres girl. Now, do you have her or not? Because my willingness to renegotiate is diminishing by the second.”
Raphael kept his cruel eyes pinned on me, and I saw the way the wheels turned inside his evil head. But I didn’t know which was the lesser evil. My brother with a gun, or the fact that Mr. Russo sounded really desperate to get his hands on me.
With every beat of my heart, it became increasingly hard to breathe as I watched Raphael’s hand turn the lock and open the door.
“Come on in, Mr. Russo.” Raphael gestured for him to walk inside. “Let’s talk business.”
I inched back the farther Mr. Russo walked into the suite, his presence heavy and overwhelming.
“Mila,” Elena’s voice came from the room. “Mila, are you okay?”
Mr. Russo glanced from me to Raphael. “Is that—”
“Yeah.” Raphael closed the door. “Your son’s aunt tried to fuck up my plan by snooping.”
Mr. Russo looked at me in question. “Is Elena in that room?”
“Yes. And she’s hurt. She needs to get to a hospital,” I pleaded.
“Oh, come on,” Raphael whined. “It’s just a flesh wound.”
Mr. Russo looked at me, but there something different in his eyes. Different from the last time I saw him.
“Fine.” He unbuttoned his suit jacket and leisurely took a seat on the couch. “Let’s talk business, and let’s be quick.” He crossed his legs. “I want the girl. You want money. I’m willing to give you twenty percent less of what your shares are worth, for both your sister and your shares.”