CHAPTER 5 - RED
CHAPTER
Red
“ P UT THAT THE FUCK BACK!” Black mist descends the second I walk into my office seeing this woman with her head bent over, the photograph from my drawer clutched in her fingers. How dare she. How the fuck dare she!
“Red...”
Oscar’s warning and his hand on my arm show he doesn’t want me unleashing the fury and guilt he thinks I own onto the woman sitting here. He’s probably right, but I shrug him off and stride over to the desk where the whore sits. The bitch possesses the audacity to rifle through the desk? My desk!
That’s the only picture remaining of Lorna. I got rid of the rest, yet now this slut touches it? This photograph was purposefully put away, never to be looked at again until I absolved my soul.
If I ever did...
The woman’s head jolts up at my unexpected presence. Reaching out, I grab her wrist and pull her arm over the desk, twisting the photo from her grasp.
“I...”
She tries to speak, but I don’t look at her. I don’t want to look at her because if I do, I’ll kill her. My eyes center only on the photograph and the face of the woman I never want to be reminded of - the one I allowed into my life when she was out to ruin it.
I keep this photo to remind myself of my guilt, not for her alleged citing me as responsible for her “depression”. Not even guilt for killing her and staging it to look like suicide. Lorna deserved to die for causing my parents’ death, so I feel no guilt at all for removing her in response.
My guilt is for, and always will be because I was stupid enough to go along with our engagement. I put up with her being in my life, when in reality, I didn’t give a shit either way. My parents liked Lorna, so I let it continue.
And that allowed her to kill them.
For that, my guilt will never subside, even once I prove Lorna worked for the Eyeties.
That is why her photo remains in my drawer.
Its presence reminds me never to become involved with a woman past the fucking stage ever again.
Yet this bitch rummages through my desk.
This Italian cunt comes in here, into my office and looks at the photograph of the woman her own father utilized for his gain?
A hole opens up within my chest and fills with acid as I slam the frame face down back in the drawer, kicking it shut.
“Red...”
My other brother is warning me now, reminding me to keep a check on myself and contain my rage, but I don’t know whether I can. What I do know is that it was a good call coming through my hidden doorway, otherwise this tart would have received warning of my arrival.
And with what I’ve just heard, her presence here now makes sense. Because this is Arianna Galvatore, now Arianna Bristoni.
Through the haze of mist filling my head, I shove my hand underneath her chin, grab her around the jaw and lift her effortlessly from my chair. “Did your father not tell you it’s bad manners to go through someone’s belongings? Or don’t they teach that in Italy?”
Holding her in front of me, I frogmarch her away from my desk and slam her against the wall, squashing her face against the fawn-colored paint. “Your lot don’t have the bollocks to do their own dirty work now, eh? Sending a man’s wife the second fake rumors hit the streets instead?”
“W-what rumors? I don’t know what y...”
“Shut it!” Her scared and confused act doesn’t fool me.
It’s too obvious. A laugh rumbles deep in my throat.
“It didn’t take your lot long to attempt to cash in.
What was the plan? Get you to root around for something of use?
Did your puppet masters presume we’d be too busy following up the lies about the bullshit death of your husband?
Believe we’d scramble to move on the unexpected opening of territories?
Well, tough luck, lady, because things have been sorely misjudged! ”
My eyes bore holes into the back of this devious little bitch’s head. I know how I work when I get angry.
And I’m angry.
Really fucking angry.
But I won’t get anything useful from this treacherous slut like this.
Taking a breath, I will myself calm. I need to hear what excuse the tiny little thing I tower over has to offer. It will give an insight into which way I need to react to the people who sent her here because it’s clear the Bristonis and Galvatores are about to strike.
Gripping her shoulders, I spin her around. A small mewl of expelled breath or pain - I don’t know which - comes from her direction as I slam her into the wall again. On this occasion, her back takes the brunt, rather than her face. I hope it hurts. I want everything to hurt her. I want...
As I look at her for the first time, an invisible hand punches me in the gut.
I’m trapped by her full, naturally dark pink lips with a pronounced cupid’s bow just itching to be tasted; how her heart-shaped face is framed by locks of glossy, jet black hair, and how it tilts slightly as she looks up at me with deep blue, almost violet eyes framed with the longest lashes.
And there, behind her wary veil, I see something altogether different: defiance along with a glint of something I cannot fathom.
My cock twitches inside my tailored trousers, and it’s this that jolts my gaze from her.
Women - especially beautiful women - usually have this effect on me, and I frequently satiate my urge.
It’s not like I can’t take my pick. But I’m not about to fuck this one!
My body might have forgotten this creature taking me off guard for a second is a Galvatore, but my brain hasn’t. And it makes me resent her further.
My jaw sets and I ignore the nerve twitching in my temple, acutely aware that my cock still hasn’t got the drift that this is an enemy: a traitor and a devious whore.
My arousal is getting uncomfortable, and I’m grateful for the coverage of my suit jacket.
Thankfully, the annoyance surrounding my reaction is enough to reignite my anger.
“Speak and tell me what you’ve been sent to do, otherwise you’ll be returning to your family in a fucking body bag! ”
“No one knows I’m here, but they will soon,” she says, slightly exposing her teeth as they dig into her bottom lip.
“Is that a threat? It sounds like a threat to me!” It makes me think I should expect the Eyeties to descend on me any moment. Is that what she’s telling me, this brazen witch?
“It’s not a threat,” she says cooly. “I meant they’ll discover I’m missing, if they haven’t already.”
I detect nervousness in her voice, but it’s not from my presence.
As much as I want to cause her terror, I’m not achieving it.
This alone annoys me as I expect that reaction from people as a bare minimum.
Plus, she’s being vague, and I don’t do vague.
“Don’t fuck around.” I then nod to Liam, who, without me voicing it, does exactly what I expect.
Arianna calmly watches Liam tip the contents of her handbag onto the desk, revealing nothing more than a small red leather purse, a lipstick and a bunch of keys. “If you’re looking for a phone, you won’t find one. I got rid of it before I got on the tube otherwise I’d be tracked.”
I laugh coldly. If she’s telling the truth, then she’s got sense, but it’s likely she isn’t. “You expect me to believe that? You’re Arianna Bristoni - sent here by your husband. You’re also a Galvatore by birth, therefore you have inbuilt lying genes.”
For a second I wonder what the man is thinking by sending this exquisite woman into a wolf’s lair, but then Roberto Bristoni has fuck all morals. Not that I give a shit about his reasoning. Or hers. But aside from her lying genes, she still possesses the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen.
And that really pisses me off!
From her lack of response coupled with my anger at my traitorous thoughts, I slam Arianna back against the wall, immediately wishing I hadn’t as my body connects with hers, her breasts crushing against my torso. “You’re not answering me. Everyone answers me!”
“Maybe everyone else has something to lose.” She looks up at me, then quickly looks away. “You’re right that I am Arianna, but wrong about my husband sending me. He didn’t. The truth is... I... I need your help.”
Oscar bursts out laughing behind me. “I’ve heard it all now! You’ve come to us for help? You’re a Galvatore! Are you fucking tapped or...”
Keeping Arianna against the wall, I raise my other hand up for silence.
I want to hear this. “Why would you come to me for help? I presume you know your family and the bastard you married are our enemies?” Even though women are kept out of most business dealings, she must know the history.
Or has she been so cosseted in her ivory tower that she doesn’t?
Conscious I might be making a grave mistake by contemplating what she’s saying as having any validity, my eyes narrow. “I’m waiting...”
“I came here because you hate us and... and I had nowhere else to go. If the rumors you speak of are about Roberto, then it’s true he’s dead. ”
My eyes sparkle with renewed malice. “Have a day off! Your lot may be desperate to set me up, but I ain’t stupid!”
“You must be!” Her eyes hold mine as she shakes her head. “What I’m saying is true. It’s not them who are desperate; it’s me . You think I’d be here asking you for help if I wasn’t?”
As the words hiss between her teeth, a tiny fleck of spittle flicks onto her chin. I want to lick it off, but instead I force myself to listen.
“Roberto is dead because I killed him. If it’s discovered it was me, the Bristonis will kill both me and my family, so I’ve made it look like I’ve gone missing.”
“Isn’t that convenient...” I smirk, my eyes turning to ice. Then I frown, spotting a visible patch of her scalp. My free hand pulls her hair to one side. “Who did that to you?” My blood ignites imagining Roberto’s hand wrapped in her silky hair. “Your husband ?”
“No, it was me. I pulled it out myself, an...”
“I bet they all say that!” I hiss, my veins pounding.
“ They might do,” she snaps, her eyes cold, “but as I just said, I did it. I pulled out a clump and scattered it around the dressing table in the room where I left his body.”
My lips form a thin line. “To make it look like you’d been kidnapped by force.” She’d thought this through, all right. My ice-cold glare cools further, unable to comprehend how this brazen whore has the audacity to come here and put me in such a position.
“This is an extremely well-orchestrated plan to make it look like we are behind your ‘missing’ status. You disappear from your home, and oh... yes, that’s it.
.. you come straight to us .” I put my finger to my mouth in mock thought.
“Yeah, I get what you were thinking. You’ve made it look like we’ve set the whole thing up. Congratulations!”
Arianna’s eyes mirror the sarcasm in my own. “Contrary to popular belief, when I killed my husband and had to get out of there, I wasn’t thinking of how I could set up a bunch of people I’ve never met!”
My jaw clenches again as I finally release my hold of her. This woman is too mouthy to be an abused doormat. The Galvatores are born liars, but something in this woman’s face and the fire in her eyes tells me she speaks the truth.