Chapter 9 Below the Belt
Below the Belt
Never will I make Alba cry again. I hope.
I fully believed that anyone within five rooms could hear Alba’s cries and Charlotte’s shouts from the Lucca Suite.
Even Grant’s professional mask cracked. They were surprised to see me, Charlotte the first to gasp, stumbling out of the bedroom.
I was bombarded with questions, mostly by Charlotte.
Not shockingly. It took Alba and Grant to slow her roll in order for them to get back to work before guests would arrive.
I helped them with a few things while Chesty and Isaac stayed in the hall.
The small bit of normalcy was comforting, relief filling me as I followed them to the first floor afterwards.
I received more joyous greetings from staff members as we made our way back to the main floor.
I found Chiari briefly, who let me know where Bobby was, before disappearing to take care of some other matters.
My bodyguards are silent, staying in the hall, as I knock on the room door. Tears fill my eyes as I step inside, seeing him fix a heating vent. His beard is trimmed, along with his hair. I smile as he comes over to hug me. My arms shake a little as I embrace him, his own arms tightening.
“Thank fuck you’re okay,” he murmurs.
“Same to you. Not the one who stopped them.” I try not to get choked up, remembering who he stopped. My stomach drops, holding him tighter. He squeezes me, and then pats my back before we separate. “Thank you, by the way.”
“No need to thank me, kiddo. They were downright bastards.” He looks past me to the hall. “Got two today?”
“Extra careful.”
“Heard they were doing that.” Bobby steps away, going back into the bedroom to work. I sit on the ground next to him.
“Mainly background checks. Double-checking everything,” I say.
“Those uh, hitmen hired by some mob boss then?” He asks frankly. I half-smile. He grabs a screwdriver. “Didn’t seem like somethin’ to beat around the bush about.”
“Yeah, but it’s complicated.”
“Should’ve known. Like the hair by the way, not trying to hide again, are you?”
I run my fingers through the darker short strands. “Needed a change. A real one.”
“A real one?”
“My choice this time. Not someone else’s,” I murmur, staring at his tool bag. I watch him tinker, not quite sure what he’s doing, but quiet as he works.
“You have the briefcase?” I ask softly.
“At home,” he mumbles.
“I need you to do a few things.”
Bobby pauses his work, brows raised in question. I flick my gaze to the bedroom door, just barely seeing the main door still open. Bobby clears his throat, scooting closer as he nods slightly. I pull out the briefcase’s key hidden where my ring is inside my jacket, handing it to him.
“Take out the laptop, and then drop it off at the cafe’s lost and found right before you clock in tomorrow morning. Tell them you found it in the lobby. Chiari will know it’s there when you clock in.”
“If someone else grabs it?”
“I input a code that makes the laptop seem like a dud and won’t work again until a certain software program is inserted.”
He nods, making a hard thinking face.
“Take the discs out, and put the empty movie covers back into the briefcase, and then bring it to the hotel and drop it off with Logan at security tomorrow evening. Say out loud, you found it in the lobby during your shift.” He scrunches his brows. “He knows what to do next.”
“And the discs?”
“Wrap them in a towel, put them in a brown paper bag. In four days, drop them off with Chiari directly and tell her you’re finally returning the clothes you borrowed when you first arrived.”
“Pretty specific there.”
“If there’s one thing I’m good at it…it’s red herrings.”
Bobby pockets the key. We glance at the shadows of my bodyguards in the hallway. He mutters, “Thought you trusted them. Something I should know?”
“It’s who could be watching them I don’t trust. And someone is. Problem is…I don’t know who.”
He grumbles low, exhaling harshly. “Never took you as a strategist, kiddo.”
“I just watch too many spy movies.” We chuckle, and I switch the topic as he goes back to work. “How’s the apartment coming along?”
Perhaps, I’m overthinking from paranoia and anxiety, but I didn’t care.
The laptop and discs were damning if in the wrong hands, which is why I have extra precautions.
I should’ve destroyed it all before giving it to Bobby, but I just can’t yet.
The potential power of those items could bring the last of the rats out of the walls.
I can see a missing piece in the puzzle, but no idea what or who.
Some things weren’t adding up from the day I left the city, and deep down the feeling of being watched hasn’t relented since I returned.
Not all the enemies were in that board room, and I’m listening to my damn gut.
Someone helped those mobsters into the hotel, and I need to find out who.
Bobby finishes his work as we talk normal stuff, and I give him a hug before he goes off to his next job. He winks at me before taking the stairs down a floor. I’m left standing with the other two in the hall, stretching my arms over my head.
“Well, I’m done today,” I say, heading to the private elevator. “Wanna watch a movie?”
“Thought you’d be tired of’em,” Chesty comments as we get on and ascend. Isaac remains quiet.
“Never,” I say with a grin, but my stomach churns as I feel Isaac beside me.
I’m gonna need to suck it up and ask what happened because I can’t take this silence much longer.
The elevator stops, opening its doors to white lilies displayed on the foyer table. The two mutter to each other as I come up on the flowers, tracing a finger along some petals. I lean in to smell them, some of my unease disappearing. I take a deep breath.
“Chesty, I’d like to talk to Isaac alone please,” I say finally. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure thing, sister.” He grunts, then disappears through one of the hall doors to the smaller apartments. I continue staring at the flowers.
“I’m gonna assume you’re angry,” I say, splitting the silence. “Is it with me?”
I turn, facing him as I lean back against the table as I grip the edges, preparing for a lecture. Maybe after a week, he decided he was angry with me and how I handled things. Except, Isaac just stares at me with a deep frown.
“No.”
He speaks! It’s one word, but he speaks!
“Then…with Leo?” His jaw tenses, blue eyes piercing mine as he straightens his posture. His hands go into his pockets, while he looks away, face contorting into anguish and ire.
I almost gape at him.
“You can’t be that mad at him,” I state. His gaze remains on the ground. “Okay, maybe you can be, want to tell me why to the point you won’t talk or look at me?”
“Where would I even start?”
“Meaning?”
He exhales sharply as he finally looks at me. “You two may love each other deeply, but that does not condone his behavior in breaking multiple promises to you, whilst using your marriage for his own damn convenience to become a chess piece against his family.”
My jaw drops. Worry is replaced by shock as he continues.
“Repeatedly, you have prevented his downfall and demise in the mafia, business, his status, and your relationship. While he’s allowed his obsession for control to blind him when it comes to you, which resulted in hurting you for months, and to the point of accusations regarding your character that were uncalled for.
Not to mention, he cut off communication with his therapist in December. ”
“He said he was going to go back.”
“Well, he hasn’t. I doubt he ever will at this point. The only one within your relationship who seems to be adjusting and communicating to help it survive is you.”
My heart feels like it’s breaking. “Isaac—”
“He hid information from you, which concerned you, and then ordered us to keep our mouths shut. More like threatened, which he does frequently. Given his reputation and inability to control his anger we, of course, listened and didn’t push him.
Even while he kept killing and torturing those you’ve done your best to forget.
If he’d just been honest with you from the start about his family, what he’s planning, and has done, then what happened last week may not have. ”
A knot forms in my stomach, bringing a sick feeling.
“Over the course of the last few months, he’s lost much of my respect given his attitude not just as a boss, but as your husband.
” Isaac’s words, though not entirely directed at me, sting as tears gather in my eyes.
“And you, Miss Autumn, I fear your constant forgiveness and loving nature has been taken advantage of. I know he loves you, but at what cost when you have to take his place as the Mafia Don due to his actions?”
“I didn’t have to do that. I chose to.”
“Which you wouldn’t have needed to do had he spoken the truth instead of hiding it.”
“What do you want me to do? Yell at him? Punish him?” My words come out sharp as the knot worsens, turning from hurt to anger. “Divorce him?”
His jaw works. I concentrate on not throwing the vase of lilies at him.
“No,” he finally answers, but the hesitation weighs heavy. “I want him to be honest with you. To not use you in his schemes as a final attempt to maintain his obsessive control.”
I gape at him. “You honestly can’t believe he’s…using me?”
“I have known him for almost a decade.” Blue eyes flit over my face, frustration lining them.
“Perhaps, he’s changed a little, but no one…
especially him, changes from a man who’s obsessed with control to not caring about it.
Not that quickly. He’s never been truly attached to anything or anyone outside the MC or the empire he built.
He may understand people, but mostly how to use them, not for companionship. ”
“Why…” I clear my throat, torn between wanting to cry or scream, “…are you saying any of this?”