Chapter 14 Angelo
Angelo
Sirens blare in the distance as people scurry around far below.
This building is one of the tallest in the downtown area, and my penthouse apartment commands some of the best views across the bay, but despite how pretty the sky is as the sun sinks below the horizon, I’m too busy staring at my phone while every muscle in my body throbs with tension.
I know I’m being ridiculous.
Honestly, a huge part of me is mad that I didn’t just let Chiara go. Dad went nuclear about the wedding debacle. Fired half our security team and fucking shot the idiots we’d posted outside her room.
It was carnage, but the gossip would have moved on in time.
Since she ran immediately after the wedding, I could have gotten the marriage annulled, which would have left me free to marry someone else. So why am I obsessed with the infuriating woman?
Maybe it’s because I can still recall with amazing clarity the first time we met as kids. When I asked her name, she’d stared at me with those ocean-blue eyes, her hair gleaming in the sun like spun gold. Then she giggled and ran away.
I’d chased her through the orchard for twenty minutes as she pelted me with rotten apples until my father yelled my name and broke the spell.
I don’t think she remembers that day. She acted as if we were strangers when we met at the altar.
I’d never forgotten her, even though our paths didn’t cross again until I was twenty-three and she was seventeen. Still a teenager, but hints of the woman she’d become were already there.
There had been no laughter that day. I’d hung back when my father strode over to pay his respects to Frank Farucci’s widow, not knowing what to say to the daughter frozen in grief, her eyes blank.
By the time I summoned the courage to approach her with some bullshit platitude, my father said we were leaving.
I had stared out of the window as we drove away from the cemetery, watching Chiara linger by the open grave. She’d not shed a tear throughout the service, not even when they lowered the coffin into the ground.
That was the last time I saw her until the day her stepmother dragged her up the aisle and shoved her none too gently toward me.
The look of hatred on Chiara’s face when I lifted her heavy veil had caused Father Tuccio to stumble over his words, making me feel bad for a hot second.
What kind of man forces an unwilling woman to marry him?
But I soon pushed my misgivings aside. Thanks to fate, the woman I’d fallen for years ago was now my wife, and no fucker was going to take her away from me.
The TV drama playing in the background goes unwatched as I focus on the live security footage from home. Upon Kane’s recommendation, we upgraded the cameras shortly after the wedding.
Every room in my mansion, apart from my bedroom suite and my office, has military-grade security cameras fixed in various locations, ensuring there are very few blind spots. The cameras work even in the dark. The footage they send to the cloud is crisp, and the audio is clear as a bell.
I can see and hear everything that happens in my mansion when I’m not around.
Right now, the wife who hates my guts and would happily slit my throat given half a chance lies sprawled across my ruinously expensive designer leather sofa, watching a show on the giant TV above the fireplace.
Nothing unusual about that. Monitoring her daily activities has shown me she loves trashy shows, especially reality TV. From her animated facial expressions, she seems to enjoy watching vacuous men and women do dumb things.
For her, I suppose it’s the TV version of doomscrolling on social media, which she doesn’t have access to now.
I’d been ready to leave her alone for the evening and switch into work mode, but then my asshole brother arrived.
I knew he was back in town, of course. We always keep tabs on him. At least Fina and I do. It’s questionable whether our father cares.
Luka strolls into the living room, and the two of them talk. I zoom in on Chiara’s face and grin when she gives my brother the cold shoulder. Good. I hope she tells him to fuck off.
But that doesn’t happen, and after a few minutes, they settle down to watch a new show. It kills me to see them act like an old married couple. His hands rest on her legs while she watches the television. I’m not dumb; I see the way he looks at her when he thinks she’s not paying attention.
The longer I watch them, the more my skin itches in a way that makes me want to punch something.
Or someone.
Preferably my brother.
How come he gets a free pass?
I’m being completely irrational. Chiara has every reason to hate me. Because of my family, her life is temporarily on hold, and until she gives me an heir, she won’t ever escape.
Or so she thinks.
In reality, it’s way worse than that.
Yes, I need an heir to keep my father off my back, but what she doesn’t yet understand is that I won’t ever let her go, even if she gives me a child.
Chiara is mine.
The only way she gets to leave me is in a casket.
And that won’t happen because I’d kill anyone who tried to hurt her.
Even my own flesh and blood.
A message pops up on my phone screen, temporarily distracting me from the live stream of my living room at the mansion.
Kane: The Russian’s popped up at the Serpent.
My pulse quickens. The Russian bastard is brutal. The last time we met in the ring, he pulverized me. To be fair, I’d been drinking that night, so my reflexes were slower than usual. But even so, he’d have still won our fight.
I’m not an idiot. I know when I’m outclassed.
Still, the chance of a re-match is too tempting to ignore. And besides, I could do with blowing off some steam.
Me: Add my name to the board. I’ll be there in 30.
Kyril Orliov is huge. A giant of a man. I’m no slouch in the height department, but next to him I feel short.
He leans against the ring barrier watching me like a panther as I finish taping my hands. I note he’s not bothered taping his own, and after his two previous fights, his fists are bloody.
The guy with him whispers something in his ear. Orliov drinks from his water bottle before they both smirk at me. A moment later, a petite woman appears from behind the pair of them. She’s stunning, with a curtain of shiny black hair and olive skin.
Thea Orliov.
We’ve crossed paths a few times since we move in the same circles. I made the mistake of flirting with her the first time we met, which did not go down well. She threatened to cut my balls off and force me to eat them.
Thankfully, her husband wasn’t within earshot, and eventually, we laughed about it. These days, my family and hers are respectful of each other. It would be suicide to get on the wrong side of the Russian bastard, and I’m not an idiot.
But I still want to beat him in the ring.
It’s personal now.
A matter of pride.
“You’re fucking insane, you know that, right?” Kane grumbles from my left. “He’ll annihilate you.”
“Thank you for your support. It means a lot to me.” I roll my eyes, but he shrugs. Unrepentant.
“Just telling it like it is. The fucker’s a killing machine.
” Then he leans in to make sure I don’t miss what he says next.
“If he kills you, I’ll make sure your lovely wife is well taken care of.
” Before I can tear his head off the bell rings, and I have no choice but to step away from my traitorous best friend.
“I’m impressed, mudak,” the Russian taunts as we circle each other. “Didn’t think you’d come back for more after last time.”
Kane’s mocking voice reverberates around my skull, distracting me, which is a huge fucking mistake. Kyril’s first punch nearly lands, missing me by mere millimeters.
He laughs. “Maybe you’re not so fucking useless after all.”
The crowd roars, every bastard in here eager for bloodshed. I usually win my fights, as does the Russian, so the sight of us together in the ring has seen significant sums change hands.
Tim Remington is here. That slimy fucker would never miss an opportunity to make some money at my expense because he’ll expect the Russian to win.
The cunt probably will, in all fairness, but I won’t make it fucking easy for him.
My first punch goes wide, but my second lands. He barely notices. We dance around each other while his guy yells profanities at me, calling me everything from a pussy to a snake.
I know he’s doing it to distract me, but my focus is on Kyril. A fist slams into my jaw, clouding my vision, but I shake my head and swerve to avoid the follow-up jab.
We scuffle against the ropes while his wife yells at him to hurry the fuck up because she’s hungry. It’s enough to distract him for a microsecond, letting me land a punch on his ribs. From the small wince, he must have sustained damage in his previous fight.
I can capitalize on that.
The fucker has a concrete jaw, but if he’s fighting with a cracked rib, he might tap out rather than risk a punctured lung. It’s a stupid plan but all I’ve got.
We both go in for the kill. He wants a knockout so he can go feed his wife, and I’m looking to avoid dying so Kane can’t have my wife.
The only silver lining in that scenario is that she hates him more than she hates me, so I can’t see him living long if anything happens to me.
“Tap out, mudak,” Kyril grunts. I spit blood out and drive my fist into his cracked rib. He grimaces but otherwise shows no reaction. Is this fucker a machine? A shady cyborg in a meat suit?
No wonder he never fucking loses. The bastard doesn’t seem to register pain like a normal person.
My left eye is so swollen I can barely see, and I low-key suspect I have a concussion, but I drive a second punch into his rib and hook his leg from under him. We both go down in a pile of sweaty, blood-soaked limbs while the crowd roars.
They’re looking for nothing less than a total knockout.
“You’ve leveled up, mudak,” Kyril says with a snarl. The pinch between his eyes says he’s in pain. I smirk while trying not to vomit when he hits my temple. If I survive this, I may need a brain scan.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” a female huffs as she jumps into the ring. The ref yells at her, but she ignores him. Before I can react, the bitch has me in a chokehold while resting her knee on her husband’s neck.
“Which bit of ‘I’m hungry’ did you not hear?” She glares at Kyril, and his eyes turn molten. To my surprise, instead of losing his shit like most men would, he taps out.
Thea’s arm tightens on my neck, and my vision fades. There’s no way out of this chokehold, so I tap out too.
The crowd falls deathly silent. None of them were expecting a woman to take out the two of us. Then the paralysis breaks as a guy bursts out laughing.
“Thea, darlin’, wanna marry me?”
“If you were my fucking husband, Ronan, you’d be on a leash and wearing a shock collar in public. Lucky for you, my sister is way more forgiving.”
The bubble bursts, and the club erupts in a frenzy of catcalls and aggrieved yells. Thea’s intervention has likely pissed off every single bettor in this room. Some of whom are not the forgiving type.
Kane jumps in the ring as Thea releases me. He tugs me to my feet as Kyril stands with a grimace. He pulls his wife close, and I avert my gaze as he wraps his fist around her delicate neck, not bothered that he has an audience.
“You’ve been a bad girl, Thea.”
She rolls her eyes and smirks. “That’s what happens when you get between me and my pizza. Go suck a dick, Kyril.”
“Feel free to suck mine too, hubby!” the pretty one who did his best to distract me earlier calls from the ringside.
Kyril snarls something in Russian before turning to me.
“Next time, I beat you, mudak.”
Despite the throbbing pain in my head, I grin. “Sure.”
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” Kane says. “People aren’t happy.”
“Let me know when you’re in town again,” I tell Kyril. He nods once and then climbs out of the ring with his wife locked under his arm.
“I thought you were a dead man for a moment there,” Kane says, gun in hand as we leave via the back entrance. “Never thought I’d see the day when a woman got the jump on you.”
“Neither did I.”
She’s not the first, though. Chiara has me by the balls, and she doesn’t even know it.