Chapter 8
Renzo Iannelli looked like the mob bosses in movies—standing tall and arrogant, looking down on the crowd below, in a fancy suit that would probably cost me more than a year’s worth of salaries I wasn’t old enough to earn.
Normal people like me were like bowling pins to men like him.
Our purpose was to be knocked down or bulldozed aside to make room.
I scanned the area. If I was going to run, this was probably my chance.
However, aside from this mansion, the size of the White House, there was nothing around for miles except for sweeping hills covered with vineyards, all of it exposed.
Nothing to hide behind to avoid getting shot down.
Nowhere safe while my hands were tied behind my back.
I could head back down the street to the next mansion over, but from the sprawling size of the estate, they’d probably catch me before I made it there.
“Someone tell me what the fuck this is.” Renzo Iannelli gestured at me as though I were an inconvenience. His voice was just as I remembered it: thick and resonant, making you listen despite yourself, yet so low and deep, so you couldn’t help but remember the way his words vibrated.
“What do you think this is, asshole? It’s not like I asked to get tied up and dragged here.”
He gave me nothing more than a stray glance before deeming me as worthy of attention as a pebble in his shoe.
After seven months in the system, I was used to that by now.
Short, underfed, and paired with ill-fitted clothing, most glances I got weren’t favorable.
I wasn’t big to begin with, but I’d lost nine pounds in the last four months.
The clothing the Hayeses gave me definitely didn’t help either—old in style or with frayed seams, always a size or two too large or small, and shoes with the sole unglued.
“Who is this? Vinny, where is Ms. Burch?”
“This is Ms. Burch.” It was the voice of the man who’d spoken my name while coercing me into the vehicle.
The guy had no right to be the type of good-looking the girls at school giggled and gossiped about, all brown-haired and rugged, with dark eyes as soulless as his boss’ on a face made for scowling.
Iannelli frowned, looking me over from head to toe. “She’s a kid, Vinny.”
“I’m fifteen. Not a kid.” I jerked in Vinny’s grip.
“You’re underage. Means you’re a kid.”
“And you’re a twat who murders people. Doesn’t mean you liked to be called it.”
One of his brows jerked up before he turned back to my dear captor, Vinny, with a death glare. Vinny looked completely unaffected.
“You didn’t want to hear it,” Vinny said. “Had to show you instead.”
“Wonderful.” Renzo glared down at me. “Get her out of here.”
Dirtbag two, tall and gray at the hairline, pulled me backward by my wrists. With a soft snip at my back, my arms were free despite his tight grasp.
I tried to wrench myself away. “Hey, hey, hey. I’m not a freaking sack of potatoes.”
Renzo pulled his gun from the back of his pants. He didn’t raise it, but the threat was there all the same. “You seem not to realize your predicament.”
“She’s feral, boss,” said dirtbag two.
“No, I’m angry.” I lurched, twisted, and thrashed.
Renzo lunged. He fisted my shirt and hauled me forward so harshly that I dangled from his grip on my tippy-toes.
“Enough!” A muscle twitched in his jaw. From this close, his eyes gleamed in the sunlight. I got a nose full of the citrusy yet earthy scent of his cologne. “You need to learn when to shut up, kid. Anyone else, and you’d already be dead.”
I gritted my teeth. I wouldn’t thank him even if he pulled me out of a burning building. “Then why aren’t I?”
“I don’t hurt kids, no matter how much they annoy me.”
Bullshit, he didn’t hurt kids. I was hurting. I was in pain. Hurt wasn’t just physical.
“I swear I’ll annoy you so bad, you’ll take that back.”
He huffed, as though amused. “You want to die?”
“I want my brother back, but you can’t give me that, can you? He was an innocent man caught in the crossfire of one of your stupid gunfights, and you killed him.”
The sun mocked me by placing a halo of light around his dark, perfectly styled hair. It gleamed against the gold chain and flower of life pendant dangling around his neck, only adding to his world-dominion aura.
I shoved him, but he didn’t even budge. Someone chuckled. I shoved him again and again.
“Is that why you fed me? Was it a guilt sandwich? Did you really think that would make anything better?” The jeers and snickers of his lackeys spurred me on in my rage.
I slapped at him, punched, and lashed out with everything I had.
He blocked some. He let others land. He didn’t retaliate, and I hated him even more for it.
I screamed. My eyes filled with tears, and my chest squeezed.
When my arms couldn’t take anymore and fell to my sides, sore and exhausted, I slumped to my knees, then my rear. “I hate you! I hate you…”
“Che palle.” Iannelli groaned, whatever that meant. He tossed his head back and swept a hand down his face, muttering more incomprehensible Italian. “You get it all out? Feel better?”
I heaved through the tears flowing down my face faster than I could wipe them away.
“You took everything. Everything! Don’t you get that? Don’t you care?”
I needed him to admit it. I needed him to be my monster. The villain in my story, whom I could blame for all the wrongs in my life, but he gave me nothing. No denial. No confession. Even now, he didn’t care. His empty stare was heartless.
“I swear I’m going to destroy you, even if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll make you regret everything you ever did.”
He crouched before me, his pose nonchalant, almost careless. His shadow blocked the sun. “How exactly would you do that, little girl? You have no family. No money. No means. Nothing but a scraggly notepad and a pen.”
“They got your attention, though, didn’t they?”
His creeping smile was less than friendly. “Those letters were the whim of a child, spoken like a spoiled little brat who didn’t get her way.”
“I’ll tell the whole world about the cops up your sleeve and how you kidnapped—”
He grasped my chin in an unforgiving grip.
“I’ve killed men for less.”
“I’m not scared of you,” I mumbled, mouth scrunched in his grasp.
“Don’t lie. You’re trembling.”
I shook my head as much as I could. “Only with how much I wish I could kill you myself.”
“Strong words for a cerbiatta. One harsh twist, and pop, your neck breaks.” The grip on my chin tightened painfully, and I saw the debate in his eyes.
The hesitation. The turmoil. His nostrils flared, and his eyes widened.
For a moment, I really thought he would do it before he forcefully nudged my chin to the side and released me.
Back upright, his presence loomed. “Do you even know why you’re here? ”
I blinked up at him. The answer made me more nervous than the idea of him killing me. I’d contemplated a lot of reasons for the abduction on the drive over, but that was before I knew he ordered it.
“Your brother was well acquainted with my father and an outlaw motorcycle club with heavy ties to the sex trade and the abduction of young women. A good ol’ messenger boy with no scruples. You know what I think, piccola? I think he got exactly what he deserved.”
My breath caught. No, Noah would never. He was good. He was the best the world had to offer. He was my rock, my idol. “You’re lying.”
Again, that smile tilted his lips. “I don’t lie if I have nothing to gain.”
“Stop it.” I gritted my teeth.
His smile was cruel, one that hid so many secrets I cringed beneath it.
“Don’t you think I have better things to do with my days than entertain a grungy schoolgirl who looks like she last showered a month ago?” To emphasize his point, he wiped his hands on a handkerchief.
I shook my head. “No, Noah would never. Never. He wouldn’t. You’re lying. You’ve got the wrong person.”
“You never wondered why he was there? Why his body was found near Elio Iannelli’s?”
“No. It’s not true.” Tears flowed down my face. My whole body shook. “No, no.”
“Looks to me as though you’re as clueless as he was. Careful you don’t meet the same fate, piccola. Take her home.”
Just like that, he turned away from me in his overpriced suit and strutted back up his stairs, as though I and everyone else were inconsequential.
Maybe he really thought we were. His minions dragged me back to the car and stuffed me in the back seat without fanfare.
I didn’t resist. I didn’t protest. That was the second time I met Renzo Iannelli, and once again, he tilted everything I knew on its axis.
Before they shoved the hood back on my head, my eyes caught a house number and street name.