Chapter 4
I stare down at the folder in front of me, scanning the pages I’ve repeatedly read in the last few hours since receiving it. It seems like everything someone would usually need is here, but I’m not satisfied. Not because I found her, but because it was too simple, and some of the details feel doctored. I’m not a genius by any means, but I know when something looks and smells like shit.
This folder does. All of the information is too meticulous and clean– Something I know firsthand that her life wouldn’t be if she were involved with Aldo Rossi.
Strangely, it was so easy to find her when it shouldn’t have been. I had a deep feeling that it would take much longer to find her or get a file back on her. Yet another part of me is excited.
I'm excited that she’s who she said she is. That our chance meeting at my bar wasn’t some ploy, and she lied about herself.
Then there’s the disgust that resonates in me, searing me to my core.
The disgust that she was Aldo’s. He had his hands on her, was inside her, bred her.
“Fuck.”
I drop the pages and rub my eyes with my fingers.
I can’t get her out of my head. From the moment she entered my space, her light vanilla scent infiltrating my nose, she has crowded my brain. I can still taste her on my lips, the hint of wine that she had drank and minty freshness beneath it. Her pliant curves that my hands had molded as I smoothed over them, memorizing every nook that held the desire that I wanted from her. Even the color of her milk chocolate skin captivated me immediately. I had tried gently to get a rise out of her, but she had contained herself, which only made me want her more.
Correction…. It makes me want her more.
Years ago, I made the mistake of liking another woman who knew nothing of my life. She assumed I was some rich boy enjoying my family’s inheritance. The instant she was exposed to the reality of my life, I moved her and her entire family for their safety.
Was I a person who killed without hesitation? Yes. But I was never someone innocent. It was challenging to explain what I’d inherited from my family.
I also refused to get involved with anyone outside this life.
Echo, on the other hand, knew already. She had witnessed it on the opposite side of the spectrum. Her being alive was putting her at risk, period.
Still, I was going to embed her back in it.
Even my carefully devised plan for Tommaso Rossi has halted, but that is in part because nothing has occurred. Benny, our most secure intel, is dead, and I don’t have the patience to look for anyone else. Tommaso is most likely having his men lay low and still planning Luca’s funeral.
The Council declared a funeral on neutral ground, meaning no casualties were allowed. Rossi wants blood, and nobody has answered. Nobody knows who is responsible for the attack.
I spoke with Ilya Petrov, a friend since we were both young and hard partyers. He had no idea who was responsible. He thought it was me, so he sent Vladimir as a gift because he claimed my small-built Italian men wouldn’t be able to take the bullets and keep moving.
Though we had laughed, I had never been one to take a gift for granted. If the beast of a man is willing to take a bullet for me at the orders of his boss, I wouldn’t stop him.
I now know who I will have Vladimir protect.
Echo Wren Johannsen.
What a weird fuckin’ name. But it fits her so well.
Her name sounds false, like something from a comic book, but her life isn’t.
She grew up in the city and had both her parents in her life. Her father was an accountant by day and a comic book store owner by night. He worked many hours to help his family, but it didn’t seem to work out in his favor. Her mother stayed at home for most of Echo’s youth until she started school, then returned to work. From the file, her mother had many lovers and affairs throughout her marriage, and when she began working for Tommaso Rossi, he was her longest affair– As well as her last one.
Tommaso is Aldo’s older brother. Anyone could put two and two together and figure that’s how Aldo met Echo.
Everything seemed like a natural disaster, one thing spiraling into the next until it turned into a cluster fuck. No truth has been told of the events– No real investigation has ever happened. According to the police report, the family was robbed and killed. There were no survivors.
Yet, I’m sure that the truth of the situation is known.
I look down at the picture of Echo as a teen with her younger sister, who is maybe three or four years younger than her. They look exactly alike. They were two gorgeous girls who had no clue their mother’s infidelities would lead to the massacre of their family.
The autopsy reports don’t state much, just that the parents died from gunshot wounds to the head. The girls, twelve-year-old Gaia, died from blunt force trauma. Sixteen-year-old Echo, who was also six months pregnant, died from exsanguination due to a gunshot wound to her chest.
Everything else about her has been black for ten years, which leads me to believe that she entered WITSEC. While I’m supposed to get the files for that and her name while she was there, it’s taking our guy a little longer to access them. I wonder why she left after spending almost a decade in WITSEC for protection.
Until recently.
The sharp knock on my office door stops my train of thought. Gio enters, briefly acknowledging me. “Hey.”
My best friend advances into the office and sits down in the chair across from me. He looks down at the contents of my desk and then back up at me.
“Find anything?”
He asks me.
I huff, my eyes shooting daggers at him. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
He laughs, raising his hands in surrender. “Calmati, I have what you want.”
He produces a small slip of paper with chicken scratch writing and passes it to me. “She’s at this address. Just moved two days ago. Your girl doesn’t stay in one place long.”
My girl
I can see why. She’s not safe here. Still, it also doesn’t make sense why she’s here when she could be living her life unknown somewhere far away. Or even as herself in another continent.
I don’t confirm or deny Gio’s words. He knows that I’ve been up his ass, burrowing new intestine linings about the information I want regarding Echo, but as my second, he’s been taking it in stride. Not that he never has, just that my new obsession with Echo has taken a front seat to everything.
I stand, grabbing my suit jacket. “Let’s go.”
Gio follows suit without hesitation. “Already got the car in the front. Vlad is waiting, too.”
That’s one thing about Gio– He’s an extension of me sometimes. When it comes to business, he knows what I’m going to need and does it without requiring confirmation from me. It makes his presence and loyalty all the more critical. Especially since he left his life at fifteen and was raised by my side in America.
We get in the car, each of us piling in quickly before it takes off in the direction of where Echo lives. In the back of the car, my knee bounces to the rhythm my foot sets from the anxiety of knowing we may be too late. I spiral mentally, aimlessly considering the what-ifs that could have taken place while I’ve been having people look into her and waiting for her to reappear in my hotel bar.
Sure, Tommaso is busy, but Aldo, the piece of shit that he is, is never busy. He’s too consumed with his desires to care about anybody else. Echo poses a threat to him. She’s the lone survivor in a killing where she can identify his face. Plus, it doesn’t make it any easier that more than a decade ago, she was carrying his baby.
I remember being acquainted with him years ago due to my ties with his sister. Aldo had been so proud of his angel. He had said that he’d met a girl so pure that he knew he had to have her right away, that he’d enjoyed claiming her, making her his, taking her virginity, and being with her over and over.
I cringe at the memory that assaults me, forcing me to recall how I hadn’t cared at that time. I hadn’t realized that the girl he’d been talking about all those years ago would be invading my thoughts at present, haunting my dreams and every waking moment. Or that she was younger than us by a decade minimum. Younger than someone like Aldo Rossi should have been messing with, considering that he’s older than me, and Tommaso, his older brother, had been having an affair with Echo’s mother at the time.
I wonder what happened to the baby, but let the idea go. There was no mention of a child in her file after the murders, so I’m aware of the obvious.
The baby didn’t make it.
Somehow, that doesn’t sit right with me, and I think it’s not fair that she had to have her innocence stripped away from her so brutally. But I’m aware, even without talking to her yet, that she has accepted it, and I appreciate that irony. I don’t want an innocent woman. I want someone who knows danger, who looks it in the face. The less frightened she is of this life, the easier it will be for both of us.
Echo’s personality screams to me that she is exactly that.
“So, you’re gonna keep her?”
I glance at Gio. He already knows what’s going to happen. He doesn’t have to ask, but he likes to. He likes to remind me of my duties. “I'm sure she didn’t come to that bar by accident.”
I look out the window at the city buildings that pollute the area. “She’s mine now.”
Across from me, he nods. “You think Don Domenico is going to be okay with that?”
“I really don’t give a fuck.”
My uncle is nothing like my father. Even though they grew up in the same household, my uncle married for love, which sprouted foolish ideals that every person deserved love. This notion seemed foolish, especially when they discovered his wife couldn’t have babies. Still, he stood by for thirty years until my aunt’s cancer took her less than five years ago.
Because of that, he declared that any of my father's children would become the next Don in line, and if something happened to him, then my father would act as Don. My father, one of the most loyal to a rotten fault people I knew, had married my mother out of obligation, and I had been born a record ten months later.
My memories of my father as a child are brutal. I remember my mother always sheltering me from him, telling me to go into another room when he came home, keeping us apart. If we had to spend time with him as a family, she ensured I knew to be quiet.
She had protected me. Even when she’d taken me to Italy and raised me away from him. He had felt like I was too weak of a child to be around. But when I was twelve, she tried to hide and send me away to keep me from my father’s life. My mother said she wanted me to have a better life and opportunities.
She had fucked up, not realizing that this life was my only opportunity, and she had faltered on rule number one.
Never trust anybody.
Her best friend, Gio’s mother, had sold her out, thinking that she was in love with my father. And in return, like so many unfortunate souls, my father had killed both of them in the compound fire.
It had been at that time, at twelve years old, that I had made my first move on the chessboard ever. I had promised Gio that our mothers would be avenged and his five-year-old little sister, Isabella, possibly my little sister, would have their day. A few years older than me, Gio had pledged his allegiance to me. We had already been friends since he took care of some of the landscaping in the compound and was the only person close to my age. Bonding had been instant for us.
We’d been smart, methodical, and calculating. The aneurysm that took my father seven years later was fatal and ironic.
Before that, my father taught me everything I needed to know about being Capo. Once he was gone, that became my position.
Now I’m just waiting for my Uncle Domenico to pass as Don, though I’m in no rush.
He’s a good Don. He rules with a fair hand and heart. Two things that I don’t have.
I’m tainted, and so is my view of the world and people.
Rightfully so.
Gio clears his throat. “I think he’ll be more understanding than you think. Just lie and tell him you’ve been fucking for years.”
I chuckle. “No.”
I don’t say anything more, and Gio knows that is the end of the conversation. My uncle is more of a father to me than my own. I’m not going to lie to him, but he’s going to accept Echo.
He has no choice.
The car slows, pulling over into a parallel parked spot, and I look at the building number. I figured from the number on the paper that she lives on the third floor, but I don’t like the odds. Why would she put herself in such a jeopardizing situation? The neighborhood, while not the worst, definitely isn’t the best. I don’t know what her financial situation is, but the dress she was wearing the last time I saw her clarified that she doesn’t need money.
Barely patient enough for the car to park, I get out, put my jacket on, and conceal my gun. Instinctively, I look up at the building, counting the floors and looking for alternate escape routes immediately before I scour the area.
It feels like a calm neighborhood.
Knowing the order, Gio stays in the car, and Vlad gets out, following me into the building we get access to when a person leaves. Three more of my men enter with us, and we all take the stairs, not trusting the elevator. By the time we get to the apartment that belongs to Echo, I ring the doorbell, which doesn’t resound in the apartment. Without hesitation and expertise, I pick the lock and then enter.
My senses skyrocket in alert at the quiet that shouldn’t greet us. I was told she hadn’t left her apartment all day. Yet, it sounds empty.
It also looks bare. Or unpacked.
I remove my gun from the holster, the safety gets taken off next, and I canvas the area. The entry hallway opens to a living room that's tiny and only holds a huge armchair, then a small television that can’t be any bigger than thirty-two inches. A window to my right gives me a vision of a galley kitchen that dead ends with a closet pantry, and the humming from the old kitchen light is the only thing that can be heard. To my left is another small hallway that has a bathroom on the left and a room to the right where my vision automatically falls on a sleeping Echo. Even with Vlad flanking me and my men outside the apartment, listening for anything, I don’t like the idea of anybody seeing her in such a vulnerable state.
I put my gun away, turning to see that Vlad has stepped away to give me the privacy I need without having to say anything. I appreciate his attentiveness. Gio would have woken her up for me to demand answers.
Slowly, I enter and look around at the boxes that still surround her room. From the way it seems, she was unpacking and decided to take a nap. I see the bottled wine on her nightstand that’s half empty and the glass that is drained of any contents except the last few drops from a previous glass. When my eyes fall on her again, it takes everything in me not to wake her up by running my fingers over the brown skin that’s exposed. She’s on her side, her back facing me. Her left arm cradles her head while her right one rests between her thighs. What grabs my attention the most is the shirt she’s wearing that has ridden up her body to expose her round ass in boyshorts, enticing me to touch her.
Instead, I control my primal urges and walk around her bed to look at her. I plant myself on the opposite side of her full bed, which barely seems big enough for the both of us, and look down at her.
Resting, she breathes evenly. Her full lips are poked out unintentionally, making them appear far too luscious to ignore, and I recall the night at the bar when she returned my kiss with as much gusto as I had been able to give her at the moment. I hadn’t wanted to appear desperate, but I was. If I could have kept her that night, I would have.
Now, she’ll never get away from me.
On cue, her eyes open, focusing on me as if she feels my presence. She smiles, giving the opposite reaction of what I expect when a woman wakes up to a strange man in her space.
“Took you long enough.”
She mutters with a yawn.
What?
Her hand, which was just under her pillow, bracing her head while she slept, stretches out, and she touches my hand. Her sharp, pointed nails scrape over my rough knuckles and tangle our hands together. My heart, which seems only to react where it concerns her, speeds up a beat, and I exhale a soft breath, containing myself.
My free hand runs over her hair, fluffing her soft curls while I stop at her nape and massage it gently. “Is that so, Bellissima?”
Dark orbs that look close to black stare up at me innocently, and I’m taken over by frustration at the softness she makes me feel.
Roughly, my hand clasps around her hair, pulling her up from her relaxed position. Her lips end up a few inches from mine, her nose touching mine. I inhale her scent like a man taking his last breath, skimming over her delicate skin. After I’ve had my fill of her aroma, I place a quick peck on the spot just below her ear. “Were you waiting for me?”
She gasps when I close my fist tighter in her curls. Her eyes close tightly, but the sound goes straight to my balls, making them tighten as I grow hard. I pull her face back, staring at it, captivated.
She’s so fucking beautiful. I want to devour, consume, and control her. I almost want to beg her to let me. But I’ve never begged for anything. Especially something spoiled by an enemy.
It makes me angry to think that Aldo puts his hands on her. Disgusted.
I release her hair, standing up from the bed abruptly, and she catches herself with her hands, looking up at me in question. “What? What’s wrong?”
I look down at her. “You found me for a reason, Echo. Get your stuff, let’s go.”
“What?”
She stumbles from her bed, her shirt that does nothing to cover her ass rides up further to expose her boyshorts. Those same curves that mesmerized me at the bar captivate me even more now that they’re on full display.
I can’t recall how many times since I last saw her, I’ve imagined plowing into her from behind, reveling in the feeling of her huge, round ass clapping back against me.
Fuck.
I look around her room to distract myself, and my eyes fall on some pants hanging on the end of her bed. I grab them, thrusting them into her arms. “It’s not safe here. If I found you, Rossi will in no time.”
Fear crosses her face, and I see that she has no clue what she’s doing. “Rossi? Which one? You think so?”
She sits on the bed and quickly pulls the pants over her legs as far as they go up before she stands. The jig that she has to do to pull them the remaining way up makes her ass shake too much for my cock as she buttons them up.
“Rossi. Any of them.”
I respond curtly. “Whoever let you out of WITSEC did a shitty job protecting you.”
She falters. “You know about that?”
I groan. “Of course I do. Why do you think I’m here?”
She’s more fucking naive than I thought.
Maybe her being at the bar and finding me is a coincidence. She had been about to leave when I had instructed Vlad to intervene with her asshole ex-boyfriend. Perhaps she did leave WITSEC because she wanted to live a life versus cower in one, but she didn't know anything about me.
She had thought that I was Damiano Bianchi with entrepreneurial properties. While I am, maybe she has no idea about the other side of me. Damiano Bianchi, with Mafia ties and life.
I frown at her. “Hurry up, toots. We don’t have all day.”
I toss her purse to her and try to tame my patronizing tone. “Let’s get you somewhere safe, then we’ll talk.”
She nods, throwing her purse over her shoulder and draping it over her front. I grasp her elbow and move her out of the room. Vlad is standing by the window, but his gaze falls on me, and he nods.
They found her, too.
“How many?” I ask.
“Many?”
Echo looks stunned, but something about her body language says otherwise.
The mountain of a man shakes his head, and I understand that the threat has been neutralized. It must mean that whoever Aldo sent was checking up on a lead, but they weren’t prepared enough.
Anger scorches through me.
The fact that he hurt her in the past and is trying to do the same now that he knows she’s alive makes me want to kill him even more.
I should have killed him a long time ago.
Still holding onto Echo, we head towards her door, and she falters once again. “No, wait.”
She fights against me, her elbow coming free. I attempt to grab her when I stop and realize she’s holding the picture of her and her sister. The same one that I have a copy of on file. She clasps the frame against her chest, then walks to the door willingly. I allow her one glance back before Vlad blocks both of our views and urges us out of the building.
The humane side of me is sad for her, for all of her losses, and I shrug it away.
I haven’t felt that way since my mother.
Look where loving her got me.