Chapter 21 Bella
BELLA
The window is open and a soft breeze is blowing in from outside while I watch Anthony color.
But sweat slicks down my side, making my shirt cling to my back, and my mind is somewhere else.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what happened this morning.
You’re going to show me.
Being stripped by Slava and then being made to spread my pussy to him on his desk while I dripped onto the surface was humiliating.
And unfortunately, it was also the most erotic thing I’ve ever experienced.
I had to bite back the moan tickling my throat. Even now, my pussy clenches at the memory of it all, and I can’t stop the burst of pleasure fluttering through myself when I squeeze my thighs together.
I didn’t want him to just look. Maybe that was why I kept tempting him throughout the day.
Disappointingly, he remained completely professional.
And frustratingly appropriate.
Five years of grief, planning, and using my hatred for him like a lifeline, now my body wants nothing more than to be fucked senseless by that Russian murderer.
I sigh, maybe a little too loudly, and Anthony looks up from his coloring book.
"Aunt Bella?" he asks.
"Yes, peanut?"
"What's your favorite color?"
I open my mouth. Green, I almost say, but the word doesn’t come out. Because it isn’t green.
Green was Luca’s favorite color. But what is mine?
Have I ever had a favorite color? Or is this just another thing of Luca’s that became mine after he died—the same way everything about Luca became mine?
Everything from the chin-jut he taught me, to our inherited stubbornness, and apparently our shared inability to escape the orbit of Slava Romanov.
"You know, peanut," I say. “I’m not sure if I have one.”
Anthony finds my answer baffling. "You don’t have a favorite color?"
"Maybe I'm still deciding."
He considers this with the seriousness of a six-year-old for whom favorite colors are a matter of life and death.
Then, he holds out to me the big box of markers—the one with sixty-four colors. “I can help you find one.”
I sit up, glad for a change in the activity. “Sure.”
“Pick one,” he says. “I always pick yellow because yellow is my favorite color.”
I look at the box and reach forward. My hand skips straight past green towards the other end of the color spectrum.
For a light gray that reminds me of winter.
The same shade as Slava’s eyes.
I don’t want to take it, but Anthony looks at me with delight in his eyes. So, I muster up a fake smile, grab the winter gray, and swear I can feel Slava’s eyes burning into my heart.
With the mystery of my favorite color solved, Anthony holds up his finished page.
"It's perfect," I tell him.
He examines it for a moment himself, seems to agree, and flips to a new page. Then, he holds his hand out. “Can I use your favorite color, Aunt Bella?”
“Of course you can, peanut.”
As Anthony resumes coloring, I pull out my phone and reinstall Snapchat. A few seconds later, I’m in, and the photos I sent myself are now safely back on my phone.
Excitement thrums down my spine. This is the reward for the humiliation I endured today and the unresolved tension coiling in my belly.
I open the image and zoom in, studying the list of names.
Vincent
Marco
Dominic
Luca
Alessandro
Nicolas
Salvatore
Francesco
Tommaso
All first names. No last names. There are three names crossed out: Vincent, Nicolas, and Salvatore.
I frown at the screen, scrolling through the image again.
This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t seem like a hit list. Because if it is, then shouldn’t Luca’s name be crossed out?
And also, don’t you need more than just a first name for a hit list?
There has to be at least a couple of thousands of Marcos and Dominics in New York alone.
Unless these are people specific enough that first names are all he needs.
Then, I look at the only circled name: Alessandro.
What does that mean? A priority target? Or something else entirely?
My eyes keep going over the list, and my attention turns towards Nicolas, which has been crossed out as well.
Is that Nico? It has to be, right? How many Nicolases could possibly be connected to both Slava and a list of Italian names?
Wait.
Thinking about Nico starts pulling on a thread that I’ve been trying to ignore since the fundraiser gala.
He raped and murdered my little sister Gia.
That’s what Nico told me about Slava when I went to confront him. But that’s not what Ludmilla said.
When Gia died, a part of Slava’s heart died with her.
One of them is telling me a lie, and I’m hell bent on finding out which one. I close out the photo, open up a new tab on my browser, and start a new search for Gia D’Ambrosio.
The results are sparse. Disturbingly sparse, actually. For a woman who was apparently the daughter of a major crime family, there’s almost nothing. No social media archives, no news articles, no photos.
It’s like someone went through the internet with a digital eraser and scrubbed her from existence.
But obituaries are harder to erase entirely, especially ones from local papers.
I find it buried in an archived copy of a Staten Island newsletter from six years ago. It’s the barest of barebones, but it says enough.
Gia Maria D’Ambrosio, 28, passed away on March 3rd. She is survived by her father, Leonardo D’Ambrosio, her mother Martina, her older brother Vincent, and her younger brother Nicolas. A private service will be held for immediate family.
Wait, what? I read it again.
Then again.
Her younger brother Nicolas.
Younger brother.
Little sister, Nico said. My little sister.
But according to this obituary, Gia was his older sister. The phone suddenly feels heavy in my hands and my throat goes dry.
It could be a mistake. Obituaries get details wrong all the time. But I’m having a hard time believing that.
Which means Nico lied.
It’s a small enough of a lie, the kind of thing you change to make a story hit harder. After all, little sister sounds more sympathetic than older sister.
But why lie about that to me? What does it gain him?
And if he lied about that, what else is he lying about?
The two things I know that he did not do, are the two crimes you accuse him of.
I stare at the list of names again. Vincent is at the top, crossed out. Is that Vincent D’Ambrosio? Gia’s older brother?
If it is, then it certainly is another point in favor of this being a hit list. But there’s something about it nagging at me and telling me that this can’t possibly be a hit list.
I look closer again at the letters. They’re neat and round in a consistent way that suggests years of practice.
Wait a minute…
I’ve seen plenty of male handwriting in my lifetime—everything from Luca’s chicken scratch, Dad’s blocky prints, and Slava’s skinny script—but not a single one of them looks like this. They’re always straight and hurried.
Not this.
These letters are neat and round in a softer way, with tiny little flourishes that suggest years of careful practice.
This list was written by a woman!
My jaw falls open at the realization. But immediately, a wave of something hot and ugly pours into my belly.
Why the fuck does Slava have some woman’s list of names in his safe?
I don’t want to feel this unreasonable jealousy for some unknown and unnamed woman, but I do.
My stomach twists and my heart claws at my chest with green talons.
Who is she? A girlfriend? A lover? Some other trust fund princess who gets to curl up in his bed, kicking her legs while she writes neat little lists of names that he keeps locked away like precious secrets in his safe?
Does he hold her on his desk and demand her strip in that low, dangerous voice? Did he scoop her into his arms when she needed rescuing? Did he dare her to kiss him?
And does he lay her down on his bed at night, kiss her into its soft caress, while he makes love to her until the sun rises?
So what if he has some woman? I tell myself viciously. Why should I care? Why do I care?
I don’t. I absolutely don’t fucking care.
But my hands are shaking as I pick up the phone again. There’s a reckless energy building in my chest that feels dangerous and destructive.
I don’t care, and I can prove it right now.
I open up a fresh message to Nico. A few taps and the list of names is attached to the message.
My finger hovers over the send button for exactly one second before I jab it with more force than necessary.
Sent.
Fuck you, Slava.
And fuck you, anonymous woman with the pretty handwriting that he keeps in his safe.
I stare at the message. Sent. Delivered. Read.
But no response. I breathe and wait. One minute turns to five, and then five into ten.
Nothing.
Fucking whatever.
Then, my phone rings, and I nearly drop it when I see the name on it: Slava Romanov.
I don’t want to fucking talk to him right now, so I hit ignore. A second later, his call comes again. When I ignore him again, he sends a text.
Pick up the fucking phone or I’m coming over.
Sparing Anthony one final look, I get up from my seat, walk into the bathroom, and start running the shower so he can’t hear.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“When the fuck were you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“Don’t play stupid, Bella.” There’s a dark edge in his voice. “I know what Nico told you.”
“Then mystery fucking solved.” I rake my hand through my hair. “Why are you calling me?”
“Are you fucking him?”
His voice is dangerously low now. The rough edge of barely contained jealousy in his accusation makes him sound hot. And just like that, wet heat starts pooling between my legs again.
Maybe it’s the recklessness still burning in my veins. Maybe it’s my own hot jealousy at the nameless woman whose handwriting is in Slava’s safe. Or maybe it’s that self-destructive impulse I can’t control whenever I’m around him urging me on, but I hear myself say:
“So what if I’m fucking him?” I clench my jaw. “What’s it to you? You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
Slava falls silent on the other end, and I can practically see him brooding in my mind.
Is he pacing restlessly in front of those floor-to-ceiling windows, shirtless and pissed off?
Are his hands opening and closing by his side?
Is he imagining his fingers wrapping around my throat until I confess the truth that I’m not fucking Nico D’Ambrosio?
Then Slava speaks, and his voice is as cold as ice. “Is that why you’re going to the yacht party? To fuck Nico?”
Yacht party? What yacht party? But I don’t back down now, not after all these accusations.
“Yeah, that’s exactly why I’m going.”
The lie trips off my tongue like I was born for this, like antagonizing dangerous men is my calling. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.
“Nico’s going to send a car for me, and I’m going to let him fuck my brains out every way a man can fuck a woman. And if you’re so fucking interested, I’ll even let him record him fucking me so you won’t miss a fucking thing.”
“You’re not going to that party,” he growls. “Not with Nico, and definitely not alone.”
“The fuck I can’t.”
“Because you’re going with me.”
“Excuse me?”
“And if I see Nico so much as think about touching you when we’re there.” His voice is heavy and strained now. “I’m going to cut off his hands and make you wear them around your neck.”
Then, he hangs up.
I sit there in the sudden silence, phone pressed to my ear, the dial tone the only sound in my empty apartment.
Holy shit.
Holy fuck.
I set the phone down with trembling hands and press my palms against my flushed face, trying to process what the fuck just happened. Slava threatened to cut off Nico’s hands because he thinks Nico is fucking me.
He’s completely, absolutely, and totally jealous.
And so am I.
But that means—
No. I shake my head violently and swallow. Don’t go there.
But it’s already too late.