Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
B ianca
My phone goes off with a text, waking me up. It’s Sandro.
Hey, how about brunch today? Are you busy?
I don’t even think about it, I call him.
“Hey, is that a no for brunch?”
“No, it’s not a no. I just… Sandro, I hate it here.” I hate the way my voice is breaking as I fight back tears. “Please, can I move back into the hotel?”
“Of course you can. Is something wrong? What happened, Bianca?” His voice is hard. He’s ready to kill someone.
His concern is all it takes for the tears to flow. “I just... I hate it here. I don’t fit in with this place, the girls, and the guys, and I—” I can’t stop the tears, damn it. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Bianca,” his voice is soft and low. “Talk to me, sweetheart. What happened?”
“It’s me. It’s all me. I’m the problem. I’m always the problem.”
“You aren’t. I promise you that. Give me five, and I’m on my way. Pack up your stuff.”
“Okay.”
Gaetano
Sandro looks tired and pissed as he walks toward me, and I steel myself for him to ask about Bianca and what happened last night.
“So you know, Bianca moved back into the property. Do me a favor and let me know if you hear anyone saying anything about her.”
“Sure. Why’d she move back in?” I ask the question I know the answer to.
“I don’t fucking know, but I will find out. She won’t tell me shit. Because she knows I’m going to kill someone. How can she think I’ll let anyone get away with upsetting her and let it go? There is no letting it go.” Shaking his head, he sighs. He opens his mouth to say something, then looks me up and down.
“What?” I don’t trust the look in his eyes.
“You could get her to talk.”
“Me? Why would I be able to do that?”
His smile is wicked. “Because she hates you. With Bianca, it’s easier to get shit out of her when she’s mad. She has absolutely no filter. I’ve found out stuff she did when she was a kid when she gets mad.”
“So I’m supposed to piss her off, and she’s just going to start singing like a bird at me over something she won’t even tell you?” Fucking hell, at least Destiny and Gary are still alive. Not for long, but for now.
“Yes, do me a favor and at least try. I’m not going to be able to sleep until I wrap this shit up.”
Sighing, I give in. Because I was always going to give in. “Fine. Yeah, I’ll do it.”
“Great, go upstairs and tell her you were supposed to meet me up there. I’ll be recording in case she says something, and I need to do some searching.”
I nod and make my way up to the suite, sweating with every step. The idea of seeing Bianca is one thing, but doing it with Sandro watching is the last fucking thing I need. There are cameras everywhere on the property for insurance—our insurance against missing something important. I hadn’t thought there were cameras in Sandro’s suite, but it doesn’t surprise me.
Taking a deep breath, I knock on the door to the suite.
Bianca opens the door. The timid smile she gives me and the way her eyes light up goes straight to my chest and sends it into a painful twisting. “Hi?—”
“Tell Sandro I’m here.”
She blinks and steps back. “He’s not here. He left like ten minutes ago. I moved back in the way?—”
“Couldn’t hack it in the dorm life, huh?”
Eyes wide, she shakes her head. “You?—"
“Doesn’t surprise me at all. The princess needs to be back in her castle. And she can’t rule on a college campus.”
Those chocolate eyes shimmer with hurt, and I fucking hate it. “Why are you being such an asshole?”
“Because Sandro is worried about you, and you won’t tell him shit about what happened to cause you to move back into the property.’’ I move my eyes up to the corner of the room. She’s aware cameras were everywhere on the property—usually in the corners of the room. Thank fucking god she gets it.
She backs away from me and sits down on the sofa with a thud as her legs give out from under her. Shaking her head, she runs a hand over her face. “What do you want me to say?”
Thank fuck she gets it in every way. “I want you to tell me what happened last night. They’re already dead. Whoever hurt you. They just don’t know it yet. The moment they decided to hurt you, their lives were forfeit.”
Comprehension widens her eyes, she blinks, and a tear falls. “I thought it was over.”
“For you, not for them.”
“A girl from one of my classes?—”
“Name.” I do my best to treat her like she’s any debriefing despite wanting nothing more than to wrap her up in my arms and assure her that it wasn’t her fault.
“Destiny, her name is Destiny Collins. She asked me to go out to the property on the strip. We went, they wouldn’t let us in. She was mad that I wouldn’t pull strings to get us in. The last thing I was going to do was call Sandro. We went to another bar, and she started drinking and wouldn’t stop. While we were there, she started fighting with me, and we got kicked out of the club. Since we were both drinking, I wanted to call a car service. She wanted her brother to come get us. He did, and when we got to his place he…”
“His name?”
“Gary, he started coming onto me. I said no, and he threw me out of his place.”
I turn to leave, not trusting myself to spend one minute more than necessary with her and a camera on us.
“Gaetano, wait.”
Keeping my back to her, I do. “What, princess?”
“I’m sorry. For everything.”
I don’t respond. There’s nothing to say.
The door is barely closed behind me when my cell phone rings. It’s Sandro.
“Bring them to me. To the room in the desert.”
He doesn’t need to know they’re already there. I wanted time with them to make them suffer. “I’ll call you when they’re ready for you.”
That won’t be until their voices give out from the pain. I don’t need them talking to Sandro and telling him they’ve been there since last night.
Bianca
They were already dead. Gaetano hadn’t dropped it at scaring them. He either killed them already or had them and was torturing them now. Because of me. Because I called Bobby for help, I want to be angry at Bobby, but I can’t be. There’s no one to blame but me.
Sandro told me constantly to pick my friends better. And I finally, finally get it. There were things Destiny said and did before that never sat right with me. It was gross the way she wanted to sleep with men on a list, not men she wanted, but because they were nothing more than trophies. There was a reason I never introduced her to Sandro.
This is so fucked up. God, my mom wasn’t wrong. This world of the mafia is nothing more than death and pain. What Destiny and Gary did was fucked up. Why couldn’t I be the one to say when they had paid enough?
I never should have called Sandro crying. All I wanted was the comfort of my big brother. But he’s not just my big brother—he’s mafia. And as far as he was concerned, a slight to me was the same as one to him, and only blood would be enough to pay for that slight.
If I had calmed the fuck down and waited to ask him over brunch today, it would have… no, Gaetano already had them. My mother didn’t want me in this world, and I was out, but I was the one who called Bobby. I called Bobby because it was easy. Bobby would have let them live—it’s why I called him. But somehow, it became Gaetano instead. Gaetano, who I still dreamed of at night and touched myself to when the lights were out, and no one could hear me say his name.
Gaetano who looked at me like he wanted to kiss me while he had his hands around my throat squeezing it at the same time. He didn’t look at me like that when I was in his home. Something had changed in him, and I’m wondering if he’ll do anything about it now.
Gaetano
Sandro’s face is filled with disgust. “You cut out her tongue?”
I shrug. “She kept saying shit about how Bianca deserved it. That it was the only way Bianca would ever get fucked—if someone raped her. I might have let my temper get away from me.”
The bitch was also too damn talkative. If I’d allowed her to keep her tongue, she would have told him how she’s been here for almost a day—not the last four hours. Thankfully, when I called him four hours ago, he was in a meeting with Luca and couldn’t get away. So I told him I would be working on them until he got here.
His face hardens. “I don’t understand women like this. And him?” He yanks back the guy’s head from where it fell on his chest. The guy was on the edge of death from loss of blood. Gary’s eyes were empty sockets. “Jesus, Gaetano.”
“The bastard has raped more women than he can remember. His plan was to kidnap Bianca on her own and enjoy her. He let her go last night because he wanted to take his time without his sister nearby.” How I kept myself from killing him when he said it, I’ll never know. “I figured I’d give you the honor of cutting off his cock.”
“Good job. I’ll be taking my time.” I get the message and leave him to it.
Although the place is referred to as the room in the desert, it’s actually a wartime bunker of more than three thousand square feet built into the sand almost eighty miles outside of Vegas. We store our overflow of weapons and drugs here. A tiny two-bedroom house appears abandoned with a large empty barn. The entrance to the bunker is covered with hay in the barn. The eight acres the property sits on are fenced in, and cameras are everywhere to keep an eye on the property.
We run an incinerator here to dispose of the bodies when we’re done torturing them or if we simply need a place to get rid of someone who needed to be killed to keep our business running smoothly. While the Outfit had an interest in a mortuary and used the crematorium, it’s only during the off hours, and sometimes it’s easier to take the trip out here.
My phone rings, and the ringtone causes me to stop breathing. It’s the ringtone I assigned Bianca. Shit. I take the stairs two at a time to the topside.
“What?”
“Did you kill him?”
“Kill who?” I know exactly who she means. My hope is she drops this. “As if I would admit to anything over the phone. Where are you?”
She sighs. “Never mind. I’m back at the hotel fixing up my room.”
“Stay there in your castle where it’s safe.” Where I can’t get to her.
“Fine. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, for what? Why do you keep saying that?”
Another sigh. “For what you’re doing to them. Because of me. I didn’t want to… I don’t want any more sins on your soul because I screwed up.”
I chuckle, I can’t help it. “My sins are my own, and I own every one of them. You weren’t the one who screwed up, they were. He’s raped so many women he lost count. You were going to be next so he could take his time without his sister there. She was no better, the shit she said…”
Her gasp is filled with pain.
“Angel, none of what happened to them had anything to do with you. You were simply the tool that brought them in front of me. I did what needed to be done. There are women who have been saved because of you. Someone like him doesn’t stop until someone makes him stop. Don’t feel bad for me or them.”
A shudder of air comes out of her. “I never saw that in her. I really didn’t.”
“Because you’re a good person. There’s nothing wrong with that. But there’s a reason why Sandro feels the need to keep an eye on you—you don’t see the things you should.” From far away, I hear the cement door open. “I have to go. Take care of yourself, angel.”
I’m stuffing my phone into my pocket when Sandro steps up out of the ground.
He shakes his head. “I hate Bianca moving back into the property. At the same time, I’m also glad. The thought of her running around on campus getting close to pieces of shit like that… I’ll be sleeping better at night.”
I nod. “I’ll dispose of the bodies.”
“Gaetano.”
“Yeah?” I pause at the top of the stairs on my way to clean up the mess.
“Bianca will never say it, so I will. Thanks. I appreciate you handling this.”
I lift a shoulder. “Not a problem.”
Many hours later, I’m in bed, and in reflex, I pull up the app for Bianca’s cameras in her dorm room. The sight of it empty of her things is a punch to the gut.
Closing my eyes, I exhale slowly. This is the best thing for her and me. I just didn’t expect it to hurt as badly as a physical blow.
Bianca
I can’t fucking sleep. Frustrated to the point of tears, I give in to what I’ve been denying myself for hours. I close my eyes, allow my hand to slip beneath my panties to my wet pussy, and think of Gaetano.
Of him carrying me in his arms, of his hard body against mine, of the scent of his cologne. What would his lips feel like? The sound of my name coming out of him in a moan. Those big hands running over my body. How big and thick would he be inside me?
Wet, so wet. My fingers twirl around my thick, swollen clitoris. Oh, yes. God, please more. Around and around, harder, more pressure. Yes, it feels so good—so fucking good.
My orgasm washes over me softly, sweetly, causing a low hum of satisfaction throughout my entire body.
As nice as it is, I have no doubt it pales in comparison to how Gaetano would make me feel. The thought haunts me into a restless sleep filled with dreams of Gaetano.