Chapter 8 Angel
Angel
He was thirty-six—exactly twice my age. A ‘businessman’ according to my father, which was code for he made his money by doing illegal shit. That was it. That was the entire breadth of information I managed to glean from my father. To say I was frustrated would be an understatement.
Even if he didn’t voice it, I knew the truth.
Gaven Belmonte was a talented man … in the art of killing.
More than that, he obviously had my father’s complete and utter confidence because it was only a few short days after our little dinner date that I found myself striding along the street next to him as we ran errands and did things any normal couple would do to prepare for their wedding.
Except we were as far from a normal couple as possible.
“You seem nervous.” Gaven’s words were lilted with amusement.
I shrugged and lied. “Of course not.”
“Oh?” I could feel the burn of his attention on the side of my face, but I ignored it as I perused the veils and shoes on the shelf of what felt like the hundredth shop we’d visited today.
I scowled at the white lace and the stick heels that would topple any awkward bride and send them straight to the floor.
Heels definitely had to be the invention of a man.
They certainly seemed to only do two things—raise a woman’s ass and keep them from running away.
Heat encompassed my back where I stood in front of the stand of stilettos.
“See something you like?” he asked.
Dimly aware that the two of us are being watched by the guards that have followed us this time—due to my insistence—as well as the store clerk’s, I tempered my response. “I’m not into heels,” I said.
Reaching past me, Gaven plucked a pair of diamond studded stilettos from the shelf and held them in front of my face. “Really? I think these would suit you perfectly.”
I gaped at the three-inch spike on the back of the shoe.
“No.” I snatched it from his hand and set it back on the shelf before turning and sliding past him.
I exited the shop and started walking, knowing full well he’d follow.
He had no other choice. Halfway up the block, I stopped outside of a jewelry shop, my eyes finding the ad centered in the window.
A young woman held out her hand to showcase the beautiful, studded diamond ring she wore.
Bright sparkling eyes, a gasp frozen in time, all expressing how happy she looked while I stood there with a frown.
I couldn’t help but wonder if it was an actual woman and not an ad, was she genuinely happy or was it all a sham?
Like my engagement, I thought with a scowl, my own fingers fiddling with the empty-for-now space where a ring would soon sit.
Sighing, I ripped my eyes away from the photograph and looked back to make sure I wasn’t alone before continuing down the road.
Although this was supposed to be another 'date'—if one could even call these forced outings dates—Gaven was several paces back, speaking quietly to my father as our guards scanned the street.
"Don't go too far ahead, Miss Price," one of the guards called out.
"I'm not," I replied lightly, throwing him a tight smile.
It didn't matter, though, how many steps ahead I took, it wouldn't take long at all for Gaven to catch up with me. Both literally and figuratively, the feeling of his eyes tracking me through the crowd practically burned against my skin. If I ran, he would chase because, for all I knew, these were my last days with any modicum of freedom. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if I could actually do it.
I’d contemplated it before. The thought of being trapped in a world soaked in blood and vengeance was part of the reason I’d gone into computer technology as a major to begin with.
There was so much you could do with technology these days—one could even rewrite an existence if one knew how.
I could fabricate a completely new identity.
To do that, though … I’d have to say goodbye to everything I’d ever known. My family. My home. My dad…
Despite being a mafia boss, my father had always been good to his family; I’d been allowed to leave the house, study, travel, and converse, exist away from the family business—just not without guards.
That didn't mean Gaven would be the same though. For all I knew, he’d keep me locked up until he was sure I was carrying his heir.
An heir … My hands went to my stomach. A child that I would conceive with him to continue the Price lineage.
I shook my head. His wants were preposterous.
I was too young to have a baby. Hell, I was hardly old enough to be getting married, especially to someone like Gaven Belmonte.
I peeked back once more at my forced fiancé.
And yet … I couldn't help but watch him when he wasn't staring at me.
His face was so perfectly cut—almost the epitome of DaVinci's law of human beauty. I suspect had he not lived a life of crime and blood, he would’ve been a model or an actor and he would've kept that handsome symmetry.
Now, however, his nose leaned slightly to the side, as if it had been broken one too many times, and there was a small scar above his eyebrow that ruined the portrait of perfection.
It was that one and another—smaller and slightly curved that peeked out from his collar.
The edge of marred beauty on Gaven was by far even more dangerous.
The perfection may have been soiled, but the image of a savage man who hungered for something darker was all too foreboding.
From where he stood several paces back among several other guards, Gaven’s eyes lifted and met mine.
His lips curled up in amusement as if he could sense the direction of my thoughts.
A startling amount of heat rushed to the surface of my skin as I whipped around and faced away from him, nearly tripping in my haste to get away from that impenetrable gaze of his.
I could never tell what he was thinking, but I found myself wanting more and more to know what lay beyond his closed mind.
The night at the restaurant was fresh in my memory—almost like a haunting nightmare, except …
I hadn’t exactly resisted as hard as I’d thought I would.
His fingers had been expert as they’d plied me open and penetrated my pussy.
He’d made me feel things, sensations that no boy ever had.
My minuscule level of experience was nothing compared to the apparent knowledge he had of the female body. He’d played me like an instrument. Plucking at my strings with all of the competence of a master. I’d have been an idiot if I didn’t at least admit that he was intriguing to me.
God, even after a few days of thinking about the deal my father had struck with him, I still couldn’t believe it.
Ever since, too, Jackie had been in her own bubble of silent and petty rage.
She acted as if this was all something I wanted when that was the furthest thing from the truth.
My father didn’t even seem to care much that he was ruining all of my well-laid plans.
The sickening sensation of betrayal flared, and I bit the inside of my lip to keep my face flat.
I was being watched, constantly under scrutiny, not just by my father and his guards, but now Gaven too.
The thought only made the emotions build and I was struggling to keep a hold of myself, so I forced my attention on the nearby storefronts.
Don’t lose your calm, I commanded myself, taking a deep breath.
You can play the part. At the very least, until I made the ultimate decision on what I wanted to do.
If I wanted to follow through with this or if I could manage to make my getaway.
With the silly pep talk over, I felt the tumultuous emotions inside of me ease just as a bright array of pink roses caught my attention.
Following the sight of it across the street, I was hyper-aware that Gaven and company were trailing behind.
In the back of my mind, I was watching them even as I moved toward the flowers.
I wondered if I could grab a few to take back to the house or even ask the florist for samples.
What kind of flowers do I even like? The silly, simple question made me pause as I stared at the array of bulbs.
For some reason, it seemed like such a ridiculous question, but it made the image of myself dressed in white, walking down the aisle on my father’s arm burn brightly in my mind.
It could happen, I realized. I could actually end up following through with it all and marrying Gaven Belmonte.
Would it be such a bad thing? I asked myself.
I didn’t know him well enough to know what he would expect.
An heir, for sure, apparently. But after that …
would it be a decent relationship? My father wouldn’t ever force me to marry someone who would hurt me. That much I knew for sure.
Over the years, I had tried to separate myself from my family, burying myself in daydreams and passions, into my studies.
Yet … at that time, that had been my only focus.
There were no real hobbies or likes, hell, even dislikes that I’d discovered about myself.
While Jackie had been learning the family ropes to become a perfect mold of our father, I’d become the exact opposite.
Turned to anything that wasn’t my family with such intensity, that now I wondered if I really knew anything about myself at all outside of the future ‘what ifs’ that would now never happen.