28. Angelo
28
ANGELO
Dario Fontana tapped his fingers on the table in a pattern that made me want to leap across and strangle him. I didn’t, only because he’d flown in from Rome to see me so I could tend to my angel and close this deal.
“Half up front,” he said.
I snorted. Going legitimate was bullshit, but there was as much money in oceanfront real estate as there was in drug trafficking, and real estate sure as fuck made it easier to launder ill-gotten gains. When Gio was alive, this deal had seemed like a way to start building a future for myself—my father wouldn’t live forever, and I needed something other than killing in his name to keep me busy as I grew old.
“For a controlling interest,” I answered. The fucker thought I was a fool because I was my father’s muscle, and not for the first time, I wished I’d taken a greater interest in how my father actually ran his fucking empire. Negotiations were Valentin’s forte, not mine.
Ana would know exactly what to do here. She’d been helping her father make deals her whole damn life. The thought stopped me in my tracks.
Dario’s lips twisted. “If your father were serious about this deal, he’d have met me in Rome.”
“This is my deal, not my father’s,” I reminded him. “If you weren’t desperate for investment, you wouldn’t have flown to Nice to meet me,” I retorted, already bored of the conversation. “The Turkish construction firm you hired fucked you over, and now you’re desperate for a cash infusion to get it back on track.”
A faint flush spread over Dario’s cheeks. He was so fucking young. What was his father thinking, sending him out for this negotiation? Younger than Ana, even. The idea of my fiery angel by my side, or better, making deals in my place, building an empire with Valentin and me, took my breath away.
“Half up front, and controlling interest in the entire development,” I continued. “And the second half when construction is back on track.”
“And using your construction company,” he said, bitterly.
Valentin’s, really, but it wasn’t worth correcting. The terms weren’t perfect, but he wanted a foothold in Rome, and this deal would allow him to shoulder in on the mafia families that gripped that city without causing too much ire. And allow me a legitimate base of operations to launder funds through.
I set both of my hands on the table and waited.
Dario looked at me, then looked at the older man to his left—his father’s attorney, and family’s consigliere.
The older man nodded once, and Dario turned back to me. “Throw in Ana Costa, and we’ve got a deal.”
Red misted at the edge of my vision as I examined his words, twisting and turning for any meaning other than selling him my angel to close a business deal.
When I didn’t respond, he smiled. I might have allowed him to charm me if it weren’t Ana on the line.
“No fuckin’ way you and Rochefort would let that bitch run wild after what she did to Tchérnov. You’ve got to marry her off—may as well marry her off to a business partner and solidify your links to Rome. She’s a slut anyway. I’d be doing you a favor taking her off your hands.”
When I next blinked, the upstart was shoved against the wall, my fingers wrapped around his neck, as I cut off his air supply. The table was flipped, sending stacks of files and blueprints and contracts flying.
His men moved to draw their weapons. Mine were faster. In seconds, we were at the center of a room bristling with arms, testosterone and violence vibrating in the air. My favorite place to be.
“If you say her name again, if you even think her name again, I will come to Rome and I will destroy your family. I will burn every piece of property you own. I will interfere with every business deal you’ve made. My men will rape your sisters like Grégoire Tchérnov raped Ana. My boyfriend will rape your mother. And I will rape your father. Do you understand me?”
The young man shook underneath me. “Let me go!”
“You’re the one trying to do business with me, cucciolo .”
I squeezed my fingers tighter, watching his face turn red as he struggled against my weight.
“Costa!” Dario’s consigliere said. “This won’t solve anything.”
“It’ll keep Ana’s name out of this whelp’s mouth,” I said. “She deserves his respect.” Dario kicked backward, weakly, and I squeezed again.
“He won’t say a word about her again,” the older man said. He moved as if he wanted to place a calming hand on my shoulder, then jerked it back at the last minute. Good boy.
“Ana’s not going to marry a Roman child whose father sent him in case I killed you instead of making a fucking deal,” I snarled in his ear, spit spraying over his face.
“You’re as psycho as she is,” he rasped, barely able to squeeze the words out.
The red mist closed in over my vision. “How the fuck do you know how psycho she is?”
The guns in the room cocked. I didn’t fucking care. I’d kill this pipsqueak before they could kill me, and Valentin would protect my girl.
“Ana Costa fucked half of Europe, blitzed out of her mind, before she got bored and blew up that boat. I know how psycho she is and how tight her cunt is.” The upstart sneered at me, as if he knew I wouldn’t really kill him. “And now you do too, don’t you?”
In one smooth motion, I let him go, drew my gun, and shot him in the face. Blood exploded over my suit, and I swore softly. I didn’t have time to get it dry cleaned, and I sure as fuck didn’t have time to clean up the mess I’d made.
I pointed at the consigliere, the cowardly fuck. “I don’t do business with rapists.”
I did. I had. Shame wrenched through me at the thought. Ana deserved better. “And if Fontana still wants this deal, he’s going to get on his knees and apologize for sending this disgusting worm of a man to try and do business with me.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was the soldier guarding our apartment while Valentin and I fortified our positions until we could take Ana home.
“Boss, I lost her.” I didn’t have to ask who. My angel had escaped. Again.
“What the fuck do you mean, you lost her?” I shouted into my phone. “Do you think I give a fuck if she shot you? How did she get out the door?”
If I hadn’t been so terrified for Ana, I’d have admired her bravery. But as smart and capable as she was, she wouldn’t last long on the streets of Nice with half the criminals in Europe hoping to kidnap her and make her their bride.
My lips curved up, as delighted with her cleverness as I was pissed that she’d slipped through my fingers once again.
I should have bought her from her father at sixteen. I should have claimed her the moment that American upstart murdered her father. I should have chained her to the bed and trained her to crave my cock more than life itself.
The reality of having Ana on her knees in front of me was wildly different from the fantasy I’d built up in my mind over the last decade.
The reality was better .
I was going to catch my little angel and bind her so tightly to me she’d never fucking leave.
Valentin met me at a hostel downtown, the last place anyone had seen her.
My eyes flicked over his hard expression. “Half a dozen guards on that building, and she managed to fool them all.”
“Fuckin’ brilliant,” I said, dragging his head down so I could plant a hard kiss on his forehead. I straightened, sliding my hand over the gun fostered at my side as I turned toward the entrance to the hostel. “A worthy adversary.”
Valentin slammed his arm across my stomach, arresting my movement. “Interviews only. It’s not the fault of any of the kids in this hostel that she snuck in and out again.”
“Unless—”
“No,” he snapped. “You murdered Dario Fontana. We cut a swath through France when we were looking for her the first time. If we do it again, we’ll never convince anyone to take our side against Tchérnov.”
Fuck.
And beating up innocent kids wasn’t nearly as fun as taking my fury out on mafia whelps.
I pushed into the hostel, looking around at the trendy interior—young people sat on tall stools at tall tables, drinking cheap beer. They fell silent as we walked through the lobby toward a desk, brightly painted with cartoon characters and proclaiming, “ Bienvenue .” Welcome.
The kid standing behind the counter couldn’t have been more than twenty. He gulped, his eyes darting around wildly, watching us and the phalanx of men following behind. Fuck subtlety. We had to find her before my enemies did.
I swiped open my phone and revealed a picture of her from her social media—blonde hair, bright green eyes, looking like a movie star at some gala her father had shipped her off to.
My eyes fixed on the bruises on her arm, as if I could do anything about something that happened several weeks before.
Valentin slid the phone out of my hands. “Have you seen this woman?”
The kid shook his head in the negative. “But I just got on shift.” He leaned way back and hollered, “ Salman! Viens! ”
“ Je suis occupé ,” a voice whined from a back office.
Busy? He was too fucking busy to answer questions about my angel? I took two steps toward the voice before Valentin’s hard grip on my arm stopped me.
“ Tout de suite ,” the boy at the desk snapped, his eyes taking in the violence I didn’t bother to conceal from my face, the blood that stained my shirt, and the way Valentin kept me in hand.
A boy stumbled out of a room down a long hallway, zipping up his pants. He pushed curly hair out of his face and sneered. “What the fuck?”
I snatched my phone out of Valentin’s hands and turned the screen toward the boy. “Have you seen this woman?”
He looked at me, looked at Valentin, then looked at the men. “Nope,” he said.
Liar. “If you’re lying to me?—”
“You’ll what?” he interrupted. “Murder me in front of all of these people? We don’t talk to cops, and we don’t talk to the mafia. So take your threats and go somewhere else.”
I admired his audacity, but this wouldn’t do. I advanced, and he paled, no doubt seeing the threat on my face. This stronzo wouldn’t stand between me and my angel.
“She’s in danger,” I snarled.
He scoffed. I raised my hand to backhand him, only for a young woman to slip between us.
“Why are you looking for her?” she asked quietly.
“The whole fucking country is looking for her,” I said. “Except that if someone else catches her, they’ll hurt her.”
“And you won’t?” she scoffed, eyeing the blood that covered me.
My answering smile should have terrified her, but she stood her ground. “I won’t.”
The young woman scoffed again. “Are you the assholes she was running from?”
Yes. “There’s a price on her head,” I said, modulating my voice to hide my annoyance. “And the man who gave her that scar on her cheek? He’ll do anything to catch her.”
The woman eyed me up and down, her eyes flicking to Valentin, and then to the soldiers behind us. She wasn’t going to tell me. Shit.
Valentin’s gentle touch on my back calmed the fury coursing through my veins. Violence wouldn’t solve this, as much as I wanted it to.
“Please,” I said, letting my worry bleed into my voice. “She’s …” Fuck. “She’s important to me,” I admitted.
The woman pressed her full lips together, then nodded sharply. “She came in, paid for a shower, and dyed her hair brown before taking off again. She traded clothes with me.”
Valentin stopped me from stepping into the woman’s space. “What clothes did you give her?”
The woman rattled off a description. When she was done, she stared at me for a moment. “Is she really in danger?”
“Deadly,” I said.
She nodded. “I told her—” she stopped, her eyes flicking to Valentin before returning to me. “And you’ll keep her safe?”
Valentin stepped in front of me, his suave charm smoothing over my rough edges. “She’s precious to us. Please, help us find her.”
“She was asking about the best places to catch a ride out of town. I sent her to the train station. She thought she should hitchhike!”
The outrage in the woman’s voice made me laugh. Beautiful, clever, spoiled Ana would never have traveled through Europe except by plane and car.
“Let’s go get our girl.”