Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Genevieve
It’s been five days since I left Julian.
My family was supposed to be here two days ago, but they couldn’t get a flight out and they needed to take care of things at home.
In the meantime, I’ve been able to get the rest of my things out of Julian’s house.
And I’ve gotten to spend time with Michel and his family.
His parents and siblings help my sadness from missing my own family.
Once in a while, I even miss Julian. I’ve talked to Michel about it.
I know he has feelings for me and if I’m being honest, I have feelings for him too.
But I’m so afraid of making the same mistakes I made with Julian.
Today, I’m starting my new job. Michel’s parents told me that I could pick any job I wanted.
I chose the concierge position. I thought about working at the pool, but Michel did his growly thing.
It makes me giggle when he does it. I asked him why he didn’t want me to work in the pool area.
He said it was because he wouldn’t be able to see me as often.
I have to admit, that made me a little sad too.
Michel is the one who trained me at the front desk.
And he’s made sure that I never work alone, in case Julian shows up again.
But so far, I haven’t heard from him. Part of me is worried that he’s going to pop up again and cause problems. But the other part is hopeful he’s finally given up.
Michel: Have lunch with me?
Genevieve: Sure. I take lunch in 10 min. Meet you in the restaurant?
Michel: I’ll come and get you. See you in 5
I smile as I read his text. Spending all this time with Michel has made me realize just how much I was missing with Julian.
I thought I had the best relationship, but Michel constantly shows me what I was missing.
Someone who makes me smile all the time.
Who makes me feel like I’m important no matter what he’s doing.
He always texts me to ask me how my day is going or comes by the front desk to check on me.
I used to think that having someone like that would be stifling.
But it’s not. It feels good to have someone that wants to make sure I’m okay, especially after what happened with Julian.
I’ve even made a few friends here and that’s been different for me.
When I was with Julian, he didn’t want me to invite people over.
Didn’t matter who it was. So I felt like I couldn’t make friends, because how can I make friends that I can’t invite to my home?
I was talking to Noelle the other day and I told her that.
She said that it’s odd he felt that way.
She asked if he had any friends that would come over.
I told her yes, it was just me who couldn’t invite people over.
He and Randall had friends over all the time.
And now that I really think about it, it did seem weird.
Julian never wanted to do things with me in public either.
We rarely went out to dinner or just out for drives.
I see Michel walking over to me and I can’t help the smile on my face.
He’s gorgeous, with dark, wavy hair and electric-blue eyes.
They look like they’re glowing as he’s walking towards me, and I love it.
I watch women stare at him as he walks around the hotel.
Every once in a while one will come up and talk to him.
But I’ve never seen him do anything more than be polite to them.
“Hi, mon rêve,” he says as he kisses my cheek.
The one thing I’ve noticed about Michel is that he lets me do things at my own pace.
He said he never wants me to feel like he’s pushing me too fast. There have been a few times I want to just say fuck it and go all in with him.
But there’s still a small part of me that’s scared I’m moving too fast. But I know I want him in my life, that part I’m not on the fence about.
I worry about what my family will think of me.
That I just run from man to man. But that’s really not what’s happened here, I’m just afraid of disappointing my parents.
Michel says hi to Abigail, she’s one of the friends I’ve made here.
She helped train me, and I’ll be working most of my shifts with her.
She also knows about me and Michel, that we like each other.
She told me that she’s never really seen him with a woman around the hotel.
It’s nice to know that he’s not a player.
Because I’ve heard stories about his younger brother, Henri, and how he’s a ladies man.
“Are you ready for lunch?” He smiles as he takes my hand.
“I’m ready. See you after lunch, Abby,” I say as I wave at her. I see Chelsea taking my place, I don’t think she likes me very much. She’s never said hi to me and she stares at Michel way too long. Michel kisses my hand as we walk, I lean my head on his arm.
“Did you ever date Chelsea?” I ask him.
“No. Why?”
“She’s just giving me weird vibes. And she stares at you a lot.”
Michel
While I’ve never dated Chelsea, she has flirted with me for a while now. But I don’t want Genevieve to feel weird about it. So I keep it to myself. I’ve also had a feeling that we haven’t heard the last of Julian.
“MICHEL!” we hear someone yell.
I turn and see some of our Lake Renegade family walking towards us.
“Whoa. Those are some big men, do you know them?” Genevieve whispers to me.
I laugh. “That’s some of our family. Come on, you’ll love them.”
I hug them and introduce each of them to Genevieve. Ten of them are here, and while I’m happy to see them, I don’t think they’re here for fun. Especially because I asked Sebastiano to look into Julian.
“I’m hungry. Let’s have lunch,” Apollo Athanasiou says as he sways like he’s going to pass out.
“You just ate on the plane. A whole chicken,” a woman says to him as she stares at him.
“You sound surprised. I mean he’s your husband, shouldn’t you be used to his bottomless pit of a stomach?” Apollo’s older brother, Eros, laughs.
“Husband? Whoa. We’ve missed a lot.” I laugh.
“I’m Seraphina. I’ve heard lots about you and your family.” She smiles at us.
“Um, hello? I’m about to pass out over here…” Apollo sighs dramatically.
“It’s nice to meet you, and I do remember Apollo’s infamous stomach. We were just headed to lunch.”
“Wooooo! Let’s eat first and talk later. Food.” Apollo laughs as he picks Seraphina up and kisses her.
We all head into the restaurant and get seated. Our Lake Renegade family can get a little loud, but it’s always a good time. We order our lunch and they start asking Genevieve all kinds of questions.
“So no one told us you were coming. I’m guessing something’s up?” I say as I look at all of them.
“Maybe we should have lunch first and then we can talk,” Enea Mancini says.
It must be bad if the head of the Chicago Mafia is here. Along with Giacomo Bastianini, president of the Cimaruta MC, and the two heads of the shifter families, Zeus Athanasiou and Panagiotis Nikolaidis. If this really was just a family visit, they wouldn’t all be here. Now I’m worried.
Our food gets to us and we keep the conversation light as we eat. It’s really hard not to ask questions. I’ve learned that there’s a certain way they do things. And I have to respect that. I just hope my girl isn’t in danger, but I’m pretty sure this is about her.
We finish up and Genevieve has to get back to work. The guys head to my office and I walk her back to the front desk.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
“I’m sure everything’s fine.”
“You seemed worried that they’re here.”
“No, not worried. Just surprised,” I say as I kiss her forehead.
“You’d tell me if there was something wrong, right?”
“Of course I would. I’ll be back at the end of your shift.”
She nods as I lean down and kiss her.
I make my way to my office and find all the guys standing around.
“We don’t all fit in there.” Sebastiano laughs.
I chuckle. “Let’s go to the conference room. It should be big enough.”
We walk past Amélie and Noelle’s offices and they come running out to hug everyone. Hunter is behind them, smiling.
“You should both come with us,” Enea says to them.
“Is everything okay?” Amélie asks.
“Not really,” Luciana Bastianini answers.
Noelle frowns as we all sit around the table.
“So Sebastiano and I dug into Julian’s background.
He has a brother named Randall and they’re both deputies with the Larimar county sheriff’s department.
Their parents died in a home invasion five years ago.
The brothers were out that night and that’s supposedly how they survived,” Francesco Bastianini says.
“You said ‘supposedly.’ You don’t believe their story?” I ask.
“Honestly? No. They both have a record of being aggressive cops. They’ve both been written up several times, and they’ve both been on paid leave for incidents that have occurred. They worked at five different sheriff’s departments before landing at Larimar. Five departments in eight years.”
“That seems kind of excessive.” Amélie frowns.
“Has Genevieve said anything about the brothers being violent?”
“She said Julian was never physically violent. But he has a bad temper. We all saw that side of him. He did grab her, but she never said if that was normal for him. Why are you asking if the brothers were violent? I didn’t know about his brother, so I never asked,” I tell everyone.
“There’s some weird things in their files. I had Salvatore check on them both since they’re cops.”
Salvatore Mancini is the sheriff of Lake Renegade. We met him a few months ago when he helped Hunter take down the Crimson Royals.
“Why do I feel like he found out something bad?”
“Well, we don’t know if it’s what we think it is. But there were disappearances surrounding them. And people being killed under sketchy circumstances.”
“What do you mean ‘sketchy’?” Hunter asks.
“Remember how we said they’ve worked for the different departments?
Well, Sal’s working on getting more information.
But what we do know is that by each time they left, there were around ten separate deaths while they were there.
Okay, I know, that doesn’t seem that weird.
But this does. Both their names were on every one of those reports.
From the first report to the last report,” Sebastiano says as he looks at each of us.
“Are you saying they killed people?” I ask.
“We don’t know. But it sounds like it, doesn’t it? And this is why I didn’t want to talk in front of Genevieve. We didn’t want to scare her, and we also wanted to know how you feel about her,” Enea says.
I know what Enea’s getting at. Because he’s the head of the Chicago Mafia, he wants to know if she’s my woman. That I plan on having a future with her. Otherwise, she won’t be told things that are going on or that they’re mafia.
“I plan on marrying her,” I say as Enea nods.
“Okay. Well, we need to sit down with her and tell her these things.”
“Her family will be here in two days. They were supposed to be here a few days ago, but they had to make sure their winery was taken care of.”
“It’s up to you, we can wait for them or we can talk to Genevieve now and then again when her family gets here.”
“I worry that she’ll be scared, and right now she’s alone in the penthouse. I’ve been wanting to ask her if I can stay with her. But I don’t want to push her too fast.”
They all start laughing.
“Fast is what we do.” Apollo laughs.
I laugh. I can’t deny that, I know that all of them were living with their spouses within days, for some of them. We spend the next few hours catching up on everything that’s going on in both of our families. Then we get them checked into their rooms.