Chapter 14
The house is dark when I enter, corridors dimly lit but not inviting, eluding that everybody is asleep, patrolling, or gone. It takes me a moment to close the door before I embrace the quiet atmosphere I knew I would be coming home to. Quickly, I pass by my office, not caring to go to it like I usually would. I’m not interested in looking at emails from work or otherwise. The kitchen would typically be my next stop to grab something to eat, but I ignore that familiarity, too.
Exhausted, I walk up the stairs to the suite. Covered in darkness aside from the television, I see the rise and fall of Echo’s chest in bed. A slight smile crosses my face as I watch her. Though she claimed she would be awake when I got home, I knew she wouldn’t.
The flight had taken longer than I’d wanted, plus we had left late into the evening. All I had thought about the last three days was getting home to her, and everybody had seen it. Gio had commented on how antsy I had seemed unless I was talking to or texting Echo. My uncle would throw that knowing smirk in my direction when I caught him looking at me. Plus, the amount of times I had watched her walk around the house from the security cameras had been endless. She’s consuming my brain, and I have stopped fighting it.
She inhales a deep breath, almost like a soft snore, then turns and looks at me. Dark brown eyes I can’t read stare for a long time, and she smiles through hooded eyes, recognizing who I am. “Hey, when did you get home?”
Instantly, I feel myself harden. I missed her fucking voice, her fucking body, and that smart fucking mouth. “I just got in right now.”
I stalk towards her while unbuttoning my suit jacket, and she sits up.
Moving to her knees, her lace nightgown I know she wore just for me falls to the top of her thighs, and she meets me at the edge of the bed, looking up at me. Her arms wrap around my neck, and her head rests against my chest for a brief second. “You smell so good.”
She inhales my scent again. “Like home.”
“Yeah?”
I pull her in closer, my arms wrapping around her. I breathe in what I can from her. The vanilla scent I’ve become accustomed to and love invades my senses. “I like the way you said that.”
My hands slide lower on her body, grasping her ass cheeks, and I squeeze them roughly, eliciting a raspy squeal. Echo pulls back for a second. Her eyes meet mine as she takes her bottom lip between her teeth. Her hands skirt from around my neck to where she pushes my suit jacket off my shoulders, and I let it fall to the floor.
Exploring me, her hands unbutton my shirt one at a time, and she kisses each expanse of tattooed skin that is revealed. When she gets low enough, she moves the shirt aside and moves her lips over my nipple, softly taking it between her teeth, applying pressure, then licking it. Her eyes raise to look at me. A devilish smirk graces her face.
“Sei così bella.”
I take her face between my hands, gently guiding her to where our lips meet.
Initially, it’s a slow, lingering kiss. We take our time acclimating to each other, though we are fully aware of our wants and bodies. Echo’s hands skate down my front, pulling the unbuttoned shirt out of my pants and pushing my shirt off my shoulders where it hangs on my arms. Her body lengthens against my chest, stretching along me like a cat as her hands skim around my hips to stop at my belt buckle before she starts to undo it. Hot, wispy breaths slink across my lips, and she takes my lower lip between her teeth, biting down softly.
A loud knock on the door disturbs us. My hands drop from where they still hold her face captive, and Echo groans. She looks up at me. “It’s gotta be important.”
She’s right, and I’m not happy. I step back from her, looking down at the enticing body that I won’t be burying myself in right now. “Stay here.”
She shrugs as if to say she’s not going anywhere, and I head to the door. Pulling my shirt back up to my shoulders, I open my door. Gio stands by the door but steps further away when I exit.
“Che succede?”
He nods his head to come closer, and I exit the room. He shows me his phone when I’m close enough for his comfort. I meet his gaze before taking the phone and looking down at the text from another man we have inside Tommaso’s.
Below it is a picture. I press the image to enlarge it, then swear when I see it fully.
Laid on what looks like a futon, Reynaldo is positioned facedown, his hands bound behind his back and his feet tied. His bloodied mouth is stuffed with fleshy meat that I can only assume is his cock, and his face is pale and ghostly. The one thing that my eyes are drawn to is the heel that sticks out his ass but is bloodied as well.
The background is dirty and disheveled behind him, things askew, but the legs visible on his side make me frown.
“It’s a stripper that he was with.”
Gio begins, already aware of what I’m thinking. “He was beaten to death with the shoe.”
He adds next.
“The one up his ass?” I ask.
“Si, and fucked with it, too.”
Gio looks around, unamused. “Rardo says that Tommaso is trying to declare war.”
I frown, then scoff. “How? Does he know who did this?”
“No,”
Gio shakes his head, “he’s going to try to go to The Council to do it. His family is under attack, so he has the right to protect.”
My brain goes into overdrive at this admission. While The Council won’t directly permit him to attack other families, they will allow him to protect what is his. If any other family is found on his territory without sanction, he will have the authority to do what he sees fit.
So long as there’s proof.
That also means that Echo simply being under my protection isn’t enough. Tommaso is bold and far more calculative than Aldo. What one brother lacks, the other makes up, making them the perfect team to take over once Lorenzo, their father, dies. While he has pretty much stepped down to let them run the majority of their empire, he still enjoys peace and the transactions we all do.
Like my uncle, they were there when The Council was commissioned, and they want no more fighting between families. They’ve come out of a long line of war and only want peace. We younger members are at each other’s throats or allied together.
I don’t want to take away the tiny amount of freedom I gave Echo because I thought she would be safe now that they had seen us together, but something must be done to ensure they know she’s untouchable. I know it will be some time before she will get pregnant since she told me that she stopped taking her birth control when I told her, and even that may not be significant enough.
Echo isn’t dumb. I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t plan on getting pregnant, which also means that I will have to take measures into my own hands to ensure her protection.
“What will you do with her?”
Gio asks me. I look at my friend, uncertain of what I will do but aware of the easiest thing to do short of upending the entire Rossi family.
“We have to get married.”
We both turn and look at Echo, standing in our bedroom doorway. While I’m unhappy that she’s standing in the nightgown, which leaves very little to the imagination, I’m more infuriated that she was listening.
“Get back in the room,”
I tell her. “Ora.”
There’s no room for misinterpretation in my words, but Echo ignores me, exiting the room. She walks up to me, her brown eyes begging me for something she hasn’t voiced yet, and I despise it. I know what she’s asking me, but I won't show weakness even in front of my best friend, whom I trust with everything.
I can’t allow her to get under my skin, though she lives there now.
I grab her arm, turn her around, and force her towards the room door, but she doesn’t move. Her wild curls whip around, and she faces me. “Stop letting your pride get in the way, Dami.”
I stop at the nickname that I’m only used to close people addressing me as. Though she’s yelled it in the throes of an orgasm, it somehow doesn’t feel the same. This time, it feels like she’s using it against me. She’s well aware of what it means to me.
I scoff. “My pride? Amore, it’s not pride. It’s trying to protect you from yourself.”
“Protect me?”
The same angered and bruised expression she had at the restaurant returns, like she’s offended that I don’t believe she can protect herself. Like she’s impervious to bullets. “If you would just listen to m–”
I cut her off. “What? What are you going to say to me that I don’t know?”
She looks like I’ve just attacked her, and a part of me feels like I did. Echo is more intelligent and more manipulative than people know, but I see it. In the same way, I see she’s hiding something even though I haven't figured it out yet.
She looks past me at Gio, speaking directly to him. “I’ve been here a little over a month, right? But they don’t know under what circumstances. If we rush a wedding, they will assume it’s because I’m pregnant. Not only will I be protected by the marriage, but any attack against me and the baby will be inciting retribution.”
“But you’re not pregnant,”
Gio responds to Echo.
Filled with fury at the disrespect around me, I look at both of them. Gio instantly understands and starts heading for the stairs to leave us alone.
“But they don’t know that.”
Echo looks at me finally. While her face shows that she’s begging me to listen to her, her eyes state that she’s angry about something. “Not that I want it to happen, but pregnant or not, miscarriages happen- If we need to use that excuse. Pregnancy is peculiar. It can take me months to show, giving us time to work on it. Once I am pregnant, they will know when I start to show.”
I start to waiver on the idea of her plan. A rushed wedding and fake pregnancy will give us the time to plan for anything Tommaso may try. I still have to get the proper tests done to determine if she’s fertile, but they don’t have to know that. They only need to know that we have been to a doctor or had a doctor come to us. They only need to know that we got married in a rush, and whatever they assume will be up to them.
If they do present any danger, that gives me leave to kill them all like I’ve been trying for years. Not even The Council will have a reason to deem my actions punishable.
Over her head, I look at Gio, who gives me a slanted nod. “It could work.”
“Metaphorically, all we need is for the seed to be planted, and they will grow their own assumptions.”
She looks between Gio and me. “All of them.”
I instantly know who she means. “I won’t lie to my uncle.”
“I get it.”
She nods. “Maybe lie is too strong a word. What if you avoid the question until I am actually pregnant?”
I don’t like the idea that she is creating such a strategically manipulative plan, but I can’t help but admit that it is good. She will be safe with speculation that she’s pregnant whispered between families. Nobody would dare touch her. Nobody is that daring right now, but I don’t want to take that chance.
I can’t take that chance.
They’ve seen my vengeful wrath before, and I know they don’t want it again. Even though some people are protected as of now.
Echo steps closer to me. Her hands take mine, massaging my calluses against her soft ones as she looks up at me. Eyes that are nothing like the conniving plan she just set in motion shine at me, pulling me into them. I pull my right hand from hers, and it moves to cup her cheek.
“This had better work,”
I tell her. I lean in, pressing my lips to hers. “If they try somethin-”
“Then all our strength will be used to diminish them and anybody that helps them to ash.”
Aroused by her eager energy to destroy people, I search her face and am only met with the certainty of promises from her. I don’t say anything to her or Gio, who waits on the top step, witnessing our interaction quietly.
My arm encircles Echo’s waist, and I lift her. Her legs snake around my hips, her arms tangle around my neck again, and she kisses that spot below my earlobe and on my neck, smiling against my skin. Before I can get us back in the room, Gio is gone, and my mind is set on one task.
My heir.