17. Rocco
17
ROCCO
I storm into the house, throwing my jacket to the floor as I kick open the door to the lounge.
“What. The. Fuck.”
Before me, Cas sits curled up on the couch. Teo stands over her, monitoring her every move.
“I thought you said I was free to leave as I pleased.” She meets my anger with her own. “You set this asshole on guard dog duty?”
I don’t need to look at Teo to know he’s rolling his eyes.
The plane had been on the fucking runway when his message came through, saying hat Cas had climbed out the goddamn window.
I couldn’t get home fast enough.
He showed me the messages he’d been tracking on Lazzaro’s phone.
“This is shit, Cas. I want to see you.”
I miss you too, baby. So much. If we meet, will you get in trouble?
“Come to the Candelabra. I can keep you safe here.”
You promise?
“I need you. Now.”
Fuck, baby. I’ll try…I’ll be there soon.
Every word made me want to gouge out my eyeballs.
There were so many layers to my anger. But jealousy raged wilder and hotter than any other.
Some deep part of my logical brain registers that I have no right to be mad. I was the one who initiated the casual nature of our relationship. I was the one who wanted her to leave at the end of all this and have a normal life.
But with Claudio fucking Lazzaro? The guy she begged me to save her from?
One text and she was already willing to defy our agreement, to escape my home and fuck him instead.
“I was gone for less than four goddamn hours,” I spit out.
“He manhandled me!”
“If we’re pointing fingers,” Teo butts in. “She kicked me quite a bit too.”
She turns her rage at him. “You jumped me out of nowhere! What did you expect?”
“Teo,” I say through my teeth. “Leave us.”
My most trusted friend studies me closely for a moment before silently making his exit.
Cas bristles in the eerie silence that follows.
She was going to him. She let me touch her last night, but she was going to him.
“I’m not going to apologize,” she states stubbornly. “I didn’t break our agreement.”
“You didn’t have the opportunity to.”
“Because you had Teo drag me back to this prison!”
Her words enrage me so fiercely that I can barely see beyond the red in my vision.
“Because you were running back to him the second my back was turned. ”
Every defiant expression of her body flickers out like a candle.
“What?” she whispers, suddenly looking horrified.
“You think I was going to stand by and let you jeopardize everything I’ve done because you were that desperate to fuck him again?”
Her eyes bulge. “You’ve been tracking my phone.”
“We’ve been tracking his.”
“Rocco…”
“Not another word out of your damn mouth, Cassandra.”
I want to hit something. I want to feel something be crushed beneath my fists.
How could I have deluded myself so badly?
I was helpless around her, forced to keep her at arm's length to protect her from myself, but too weak not to touch her. Be close to her. Dream of her. Taste her.
But that didn’t mean she felt the same way.
Even though I thought I’d felt it. Even though she melted every time I held her, even though she sought me out just as much as I did her.
Had any of it been real? Was it all so that I would relax enough for her to plan her great escape?
“Rocco!”
She’s suddenly there, right in front of me. Those stunning hazel eyes pierce through my anger like a shot to the heart.
Gently she touches my clenched fists, slowly unfurling them to reveal the bloody marks my nails have made in my palms.
“You really think I would go back to him?” She whispers, and I can hear the pain in her voice. “After everything he did? After everything I did to get away.”
I snatch my hands away. “You tell me. Because from where I’m standing, that’s exactly what you were doing.”
“I told you I wanted to be part of this. I told you I could help.” Her eyes flood with tears. “I was going to him to help you, and you dare accuse me of betraying you?”
She backs away a step. “I hadn’t heard from him in weeks. You think it’s a coincidence he messaged me the second you were heading out of town?”
My entire body goes entirely still. “You were walking into a trap.”
“Willingly,” she hisses back, moving further away. “For you.”
“You damn idiot.”
She flinches at my harshness. “Maybe. But at least I was doing something to ensure all this isn’t for fucking nothing.”
I don’t call out after her when she storms away. I just fall, exhausted, onto the couch, my mind racing.
She had no proof of her intentions, but she was right. Why would anyone willingly run back to the arms of their abuser unless they needed something in return?
Hell, it was the only reason I ever sought out my own father.
And I’d come in here accusing her of something unthinkable.
I groan into my hands. What a fucking mess.
In the days that follow, Cas does not come out of her room.
Donatella tries to coax her out with food, but she refuses to even crack open the door to receive it.
“She hasn’t eaten anything in almost three days,” my housekeeper announces as she enters my office.
I rarely work from home, but with my men tying up loose ends in South Africa without me, it was easy to make my excuses instead of working at the compound.
“What do you expect me to do?”
Donatella levels me with an exasperated look. “You asked me to keep an eye on her and alert you to any concerning behavior. This is very concerning behavior.”
“If she’s going to act like a child, she’s welcome to. She’s not going to die of hunger over this.”
“I think you severely underestimate how stubborn she is.”
I put my pen down. “I still don’t hear you offering a solution.”
“You could apologize.”
“For what?”
She throws her hands up. “I don’t know, for not telling her you’d be stationing Teo here while you were gone? For immediately thinking the worst of her before considering all your options?”
“You overstep, Donatella.”
“You asked,” she snaps back. “If she doesn’t eat anything by this time tomorrow, I’ll hand in my resignation.”
Great. As if I didn’t already have enough on my plate.
Donatella leaves me to wallow in her ultimatum as I slump back into my chair.
The Guild is breathing down my throat to identify the potential rat. My father has remained eerily quiet. Lazzaro is being less than helpful, and I have no other leads right now.
As much as I hate to admit it, Cas’ plan was a good idea. If she could get him to slip up, even once…but we need to resolve this little tantrum of hers first.
Three days is too long to go without food; she must be ravenous right now. I still remember the way she attacked her food that first evening we ate together.
Struck by sudden inspiration, I leave my desk and make my way to the kitchen.
It’s been a long time since I’ve used the kitchen to make anything more than a coffee. Unless you counted when I slid Cas behind the counter to take her from behind.
My eyes linger on that particular spot a little too long.
But cooking is like riding a bike. Soon, pots are simmering on the stove as I chop and fry my way through the familiar recipe. I’m just grating the truffle to adorn the carbonara, when I sense someone behind me.
“I thought you were on a hunger strike,” I say without turning around.
“Is this some kind of cruel joke? Frying bacon with the doors open?”
I glance over my shoulder.
It’s almost startling to see her looking so small and thin again. It’s so similar to how she’d looked when she’d first arrived.
I had barely noticed the change over these last few weeks, but I realize it now. A month of steady food, regular exercise, and without the stress of an abusive asshole lingering over her had done wonders for her appearance.
But in the span of three short days, that progress seems to have faded. Her skin is grayer, her cheeks more taunt. Even her hair lies dully across her shoulders.
“It worked, didn’t it?” I say as I serve up two plates. The larger I push toward her. “Eat.”
I think she might deny me for a moment, but suddenly, she picks up the fork and begins eating ferociously.
At least Donatella will stick around now. I tuck into my own meal slowly—content to watch her consume every mouthful.
I can almost see the color returning to her cheeks as she sits back from her empty plate.
“I owe you an apology,” I begin cautiously. “I jumped to a conclusion I had no right to make.”
She points her nose in the air and looks away.
“And I’m sorry for making you feel like you were a prisoner here.” I take a deep breath. “But…”
She sighs. “But?”
“But what you did was reckless, despite your intentions. You should have told me what you were planning. I would have helped you.”
“And you would have just let me go? Willingly?” She challenges me with a hard glare. “Your sense of male pride wouldn’t have tried to stop me.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “We could have come up with a more sensible plan.”
“We didn’t have time for that,” she counters. “You don’t know him as I do. His moods are…fleeting. If I’d waited until you’d returned, he would have sobered up enough to think twice about meeting me.”
I consider this a moment. “Teo tells me he’s messaged you since.”
She pulls out her phone and slides it over for me to see.
An irrational pang of jealousy overcomes me when I re-read the old message thread:
“I need you. Now.”
Fuck, baby. I’ll try…I’ll be there soon.
Then, the new messages from Lazzaro:
“I’m waiting backstage.”
“Cas, where are you ?”
“Are you seriously giving me blue-balls right now?”
“Fuck you. I can’t believe this.”
“Ungrateful slut.”
I try not to crush the phone in my hand.
“I had an opening, and I missed it,” Cas says, seemingly entirely unbothered by the content of the messages.
I give myself a moment to calm down. “Perhaps. But perhaps not.” I gesture to the phone in my hand. “May I?”
She simply shrugs as I begin typing out a reply. I hit send and slide the phone back for her to read for herself.
I’m sorry, baby. He found out and wouldn’t let me leave.
Please, I’ll come tonight. I promise you, I’ll get away this time.
Cas looks at me curiously. “Appealing to his sense of male pride.”
“Works both ways.”
“Does this mean you’ll let me go?”
“It means I see the value in this confrontation and that I trust you will share any relevant information with me afterward.”
Cas’ phone pings with a response. We both look down at the same time.
“Bastard. Come home to me, baby. I’ll be backstage again tonight.”
“Looks like we have some work to do,” I announce, standing up and offering her a hand. “Do you think you’re up for it?”
She swallows tightly as she takes it. “I need to see him again. I need to put an end to it.”
The realization that hits me as she says this threatens to topple me.
Her hunger strike hadn’t been just about the way I had acted. I had also robbed her of a chance to get closure on the bastard, to put that piece of her life behind her.
All I can do is squeeze her hand gently. My own silent apology. “You will.”
Her answering smile makes my heart flutter. “I’m sorry for not telling you. I admit, I might have acted a little…rashly.”
I feel myself laughing for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.
“Friends?” she asks with those big, hazel eyes gazing at me so unfairly.
Who am I to deny her anything?
I pull her to me, wrapping my arms around her. And God, have I missed this closeness these last few days. I’ve missed the feeling of her pressed against my chest, of her hands grasping my shirt to pull me impossibly closer.
“Friends,” I agree, completely unable to stop myself from kissing the top of her head that she tucks under my chin.
We stand there a moment too long before I force myself to step back. “Come on, we need to make a quit pitstop.”
“Where?”
“Fifth Avenue.”
She stares at me blankly. “Why?”
“We’re going shopping.”
“Again, why?”
“Because if you’re going to confront Lazzaro tonight at the Candelabra , I will have to insist on going with you.”
Her eyes bulge at this. “W-what?”
“And you should know by now that no woman of mine would be caught dead in anything but the best.”