Chapter 15
I’m quiet when Kaiser drives us away from the church. He came back soon after Father Francis admitted his involvement in the brotherhood. I figured the priest couldn’t be trusted, but now I know.
It’s all information.
“I’ll see you at the engagement party,” Father Francis says.
“What engagement party?”
His eyes crinkle with a condescending smile. “Yours.”
Right. I’m a little distracted, chewing over everything I’ve learned about Kaiser and my situation.
I can’t believe what he told me about the Vesuvio guy. My father wouldn’t poison someone directly. It’s not his style. He sells poisons to people. If he had poisoned someone, no one would ever find out. So, I know he didn’t do it.
The real thing that bothers me is that I have no idea why my own father reduced me to a bargaining chip. I know why Fraternitas wanted me—I’m leverage to get my father to do their bidding—but I don’t understand why my father would so willingly hand me over. Isn’t he even going to try to fight?
I look up and recognize the street names. We’re in a section of the city close to my father’s lab. He hasn’t made any move to contact me, but I’m tired of waiting.
I check my door, but it’s locked. Kaiser isn’t taking chances that I’ll throw myself from a moving car.
And I’m supposed to be pretending I’ll be a good little wife. Get more intel.
Let his guard drop. Making him chase me through the city will set me back.
“Can we stop and see Papa?” I hold my breath, hoping he’ll say yes. So far, pretending to defer to Kaiser has still allowed me to get my way. Mostly. I’m filing everything I learn about him away so I can figure out how to manipulate him.
Kaiser says nothing, but he takes a right at the light. A few minutes later, he’s in front of LilyRose, our business’s flagship store.
“Go ahead,” he says. I don’t hesitate. I exit the car and rush into the store.
The first half is an atrium-like space, clean and airy, with a pale wood floor.
I hurry past the stands that showcase glass vials of perfume and signs inviting customers to book a consultation so our staff can help them customize a signature blend.
The store is mostly empty of customers, but Katya, the manager, sees me and comes over.
“Bella. How are you?”
“Hey, Katya. I was just in the area and thought I’d drop in to see Papa.”
Her eyebrows draw together. “I see. He told us he’d be working off-site for a few days. Are you able to reach him on his cell?”
“Oh yeah,” I wave a hand. “I just forgot. I’m busy with school these days.”
Her face brightens as she asks me about school. We chit chat and then I excuse myself to grab something from the store room.
Deeper in the store, the ceiling drops and the colors darken. The place is less zen and more like a luxurious den with thick Turkish rugs leading to private meeting spaces. I hear murmuring behind one door. Some employees must be in a consult. Probably Solange and Jon.
As I walk, I try my father’s cell, but it goes to voicemail. He must be working from home. Or maybe he took a trip out to one of our farms. Which is rare but not unheard of.
What I don’t like is that he didn’t tell me. He turned me over to Kaiser, told me I was going to marry him, and then left town?
Or maybe Fraternitas has him locked down. All the more reason to figure out how to free him and fight back.
I quicken my steps. I’m not heading for the storeroom but my father’s private lab.
Once I pass the employee’s spaces and the deep stockroom, the scent of roses and lily of the valley hits me.
The sweet floral perfume was my mother’s signature scent.
The place smells so much like her, I can imagine her rounding the corner in one of her floral kimonos.
It makes my heart ache, but I welcome the pain.
I miss her.
I always wondered if Papa was aware that he was keeping Mom’s memory alive in his workplace.
I don’t know why he surrounds himself with the scent of her when he can barely say her name.
He doesn’t even wear his wedding ring anymore.
Sometimes it’s like he doesn’t want to remember she even existed, and if I’m honest, that hurts as much as my grief.
But it’s old pain. I have bigger problems to deal with right now.
I enter my father’s office. It looks business-y but has a door that leads to an open workspace.
Most people would assume my father compiles his perfumes up here in the workspace or the smaller lab.
Only a few people know the truth—Papa’s main lab is in the basement, several floors below the main floor, along with his secret greenhouses.
On the far wall are a set of paintings. On the left, a watercolor of a lily and a rose. On the right, a peace lily surrounded by lavender. And in the middle, a belladonna plant growing between the trunks of two trees. They’re all signed Shoshonna B, and my mother painted them.
I touch the frame of the left painting and hesitate. If I press a certain pattern, a hidden door will open and lead me to my father’s secret lab. He might be down there, hidden from Fraternitas. Or he might be avoiding all his secret labs so as not to lead Fraternitas to them.
A phone rings in my father’s office, shattering the silence and making me jump. I wait for it to stop ringing, but as soon as it does, it starts again. It’s an old-fashioned phone, with a cord and a ring that could wake the dead.
I head back into his office and pick it up. It’s my father’s private line, coming from our house.
“Hello?”
“Belladonna.”
“Papa.” My shoulders relax, hearing his voice. I can imagine him here at his workspace, wearing his microscope goggles, the kind my mother used to tease him about. She’d pick me up, mischief sparkling in her brown eyes. “What do you think about having a Papa who looks like a bug?”
“You’re in my office.”
I glance up, looking for cameras. I don’t see them, but they must be here. I never thought about it.
“You’re looking well.”
“Thank you.” I fiddle with the skirt Kaiser wanted me to wear. My outfit is more preppy than usual, but I guess I look good. Normal. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Did you need something?”
“Yes. I need you to tell me what’s really going on. ”
A pause. He’s hesitating, which makes me wonder if someone’s listening in. “Now is not the time.”
“Papa, please. We need to talk.”
“I know. We will, soon. When we’re truly alone.”
So he does think Fraternitas is monitoring this conversation. They’ve bugged his phone line or his office. Or both.
Drat.
“I don’t even know when I’m allowed to see you.”
“I’ll be at the engagement party.”
“What is this engagement party?” I ask before I remember Father Francis mentioned it to me, too. “When is it?”
“Early August. Fraternitas is making the arrangements.”
“And the wedding?”
“It depends on a few things, but it will happen. Probably before the end of the year.”
Ugh. My first real semester starts at the end of August. I never thought I’d be attending university as a married woman.
Kill me now.
“You can’t be serious about this,” I sigh into the mouthpiece. “This is all so sudden and… I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand. I am your father and the head of this house. One day you will inherit all of this, but until then, you will obey me.”
My breath comes faster. “Papa, please talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” He’s doing what he always does, withdrawing from me. It only makes me frantic, and when I finally lose it and start crying or raging, he tells me I’m too emotional.
I bite my lip to keep from lashing out at him. I can do this. I can remain calm. Give him a taste of his own medicine.
“I am your daughter, and you’re asking me to enter shark-infested waters.” It’s more like he’s throwing me in, but I refuse to believe I don’t have a choice. “I deserve to know what’s going on.”
“I know you don’t want this marriage, but it’s for the best. There’s a lot at play—”
“They think you poisoned some mob guy,” I blurt. I don’t care if we’re bugged and Fraternitas overhears this part. I want them to know the truth. “I know you didn’t. We just have to prove—”
“Not now, Belladonna.” His voice is harsh. I flinch like I’ve been struck. “The deal is done. The marriage is happening.”
I shake my head. He must see it on the cameras because he says, “I negotiated for you to be able to attend school and have access to your greenhouse. It’s not the prison sentence—”
“It is!” I’m losing it. My emotions are like a storm, too big for me to control.
Energy surges through me. I want to grab things and smash them.
“Bella, enough.” Papa is quiet in the face of my temper tantrums. It’s so unfair. I hate acting childish around him.
Even when I was a child, my feelings were sometimes like a tsunami crashing over me. My father never knew what to do. My mother was the only one who would hold me until the storm died away. Once she was gone, my father shut down even more.
Whenever I threw a tantrum, he simply turned away.
“You will marry Kaiser. He will be good for you. He will protect you.”
“I don’t need—”
He cuts me off. “You want more independence, but that comes with responsibility. And you’re too reckless. You would wreck your own life, and I will not have that.”
“I won’t.”
“You will. You already have. Poisoning the entire lacrosse team? Making enemies your first week on campus and for what?”
My lower lip trembles the way it used to when I was little and Papa lectured me. He wants an answer. “They were mean to my friend,” I say in a small voice. I even sound childish.
“Is she powerful? Does she have assets that would make her a good ally?”
“No. I don’t know,” I whisper.
“So you did all of this with no strategy? You never think of the consequences.” I can hear his disgust. “I have tried to teach you, but you refuse to learn patience. Planning. You need to grow up.”
My eyes burn with unshed tears. I refuse to cry or scream at him. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
“Fraternitas can look after you. You’re their responsibility now. The sooner you give in to your fate, the better.”
Before I can argue, he hangs up.
Kaiser
I sit in the car, watching people come and go past the parfumerie. A meter man rolls by and pauses. I’m illegally parked, but he doesn’t tag my vehicle and just moves on.
Bella’s been inside for a few minutes. My fingers are tingling again, that pins and needles sensation, the kind I get from sitting too still for too long. My dead limbs, waking up.
I want to go after her. Grab her by the scruff of her neck, like a little wayward kitten. Most fucktoys I can’t wait to be rid of, but her? I want her close. At all times.
For fuck’s sake, I slept with her on top of me. I still can’t believe it.
She must have drugged me. I don’t know how, but why else would I sleep like she slipped me a sleeping pill?
She’s driving me crazy again. I can figure out most opponents after studying them for a few seconds. Her? I’ve watched her for weeks and still don’t understand her.
I need to figure her out, fast, or she’ll be the death of me.
Right now she’ll be talking with her father.
We have his office and home rigged with cameras.
We haven’t told him this, but we believe he knows.
Still, it’ll be interesting to hear what Bella says to him.
She might be naive enough to think her father has more control over his domain. She’ll be less guarded.
I need all the insight into her mind I can get. And speaking of insight…
I pull out my phone and dial Father Francis. He greets me, and I ask, “What did she say?”
“She asked about you, actually. She’s curious about you.”
“Trying to find my weakness.”
“I believe so, yes. A fascinating young woman. You have your hands full with her. She was very well behaved, but I can tell her brain was working overtime. She’s not yet resigned to her fate.”
I don’t answer. I’m watching the LilyRose storefront closely. I should be relieved that Bella is her father’s problem for a few minutes, but I just want to go after her.
“I told her some details of your childhood. She has more questions, and I encouraged her to ask you.”
My body gets tight, my muscles ready to spring into action.
Father Francis interprets my silence correctly. “You don’t have to share if you’re not comfortable—”
“No. She can ask.” As much as I hate talking about my past, I want her to know. But I have to be careful. Back then, I was at my weakest. And I don’t want to reveal my weakness to her.
“I meant what I said earlier. About trust. It’s the foundation for any intimacy. If you share some of your secrets with her, it would be a show of good faith. A sign you are willing to trust her.”
Which will allow me to lure her in closer.
“All right.”
After the call ends, I think about it. I don’t have to tell her everything. Just enough details to make her feel like I’m opening up. If she feels sorry for me, it’ll be easier to convince her to soothe my pain. A trap and my sob story will be the bait.
Except I don’t want to lie to her. The thought sets my teeth on edge. I want her to look at me with those soft brown eyes, which are way more expressive than eyes have a right to be. I want her to really trust me, and not just because I manipulated her.
But because she wants to.
I glance at the store. Bella’s been inside for a while now. I don’t like having her out of my sight. She’s my responsibility now. Is her father giving her all sorts of new ways to poison me?
I tap on my phone, texting one of my Fraternitas brothers, Argos. He’s a tech genius and in charge of security. St. James will have made sure we have eyes on the Boscos.
Argus texts me back a link. I click on it, and my screen fills with a live feed. Bella stands in an office, holding a black landline phone to her ear. Her face is frozen in a mask that tells me she’s furious but trying not to cry.
I don’t know what’s going on, but I know this: I’m going to kill whoever put that look on my little bride’s face.