32. Building Bridges #2
He stepped forward and began a body search as I grinned at the guard behind him, who stood with his hand on his own gun.
“If he’s unarmed, he’s cleared,” the third man shouted from the booth.
“Ah, see.” I winked. “Family privileges.”
They all stepped back and let me through the gate, the main guard walking a few paces behind me all the way to the front door. A butler led me through the ground floor towards an office where two bodyguards waited outside, then knocked to announce my presence.
I strolled in as Piero rose from his chair, looking deeply unsettled and, if possible, even worse than he had last night. Clearly, he hadn’t slept at all.
“Buccini.”
“Caruso.” I held out my hand to him as I had last night. He shook it hesitantly and gestured to a chair in front of his desk. I spotted the nearly empty glass of whiskey.
“Can I offer you a drink?” he asked when he saw me staring.
“It’s a little early, but why the fuck not?” I replied. I frowned as he tried to stand again, wincing in pain. “Let me get it.”
I moved over to the drinks station and poured us both two new glasses. He downed his in one go as I sat back down in my chair, studying him. He was a man on the fucking edge.
“So… you changed your mind?” he asked, searching for the divorce papers on me.
“About the divorce? Never.”
“Then why are you here wasting my time, Buccini?”
“Because your daughter, my wife, loves you. And if someone she loves is in danger, I make it my business to keep them safe.”
His lips parted, but he quickly masked his surprise by narrowing his eyes. “That’s an odd kind of threat.”
“Let’s cut the bullshit, Piero. We both know I’m not the danger I’m referring to. If I’d wanted to harm you, I’d have done it a long time ago.”
He swallowed, and sweat began beading above his brow. “I don’t know what you are suggesting, Buccini. Is there another rival of yours trying to destroy my city? We both know you are the most dangerous man in Rome and the only threat to me and my daughter.”
I lifted my chin, my tongue rolling in my mouth as I studied how much he was shitting himself. Yes, it could have been because I’d stormed into his office without warning, but I’d had enough one-to-one conversations with this man over the years to know he didn’t normally spook this easily.
His eyes shifted to the wall cabinet behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see what he was looking at. There was nothing but photo frames, many of Aria, and ornaments. He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote something down.
“My daughter is the most important thing to me, Buccini,” he said, his throat tightening with emotion as he continued to write. Then he twisted the paper and pushed it silently towards me.
Can I trust you to protect her?
I glanced up at him as it clicked. He thought his office was bugged and that this conversation wasn’t safe to have out loud.
“Same. I’ll always protect her. You don’t need to worry about her safety, Piero.”
We held each other’s gaze. His nostrils flared, and then he exhaled as if he might actually believe me.
He wrote again, his words spoken over the sound of the pen scratching along the paper. “How can I trust you? Knowing who you are and what you do?”
The paper slid back towards me.
Because you won’t divorce her, they want me to use my daughter to take you down.
I grabbed the pen and scribbled a reply. “I have no idea who you think I am, Caruso. But you can keep investigating me until you figure it out, because I have nothing to hide.”
They?
“So you still refuse to admit any involvement in the drug shipment we confiscated at the port? The one we found in a warehouse under the CEO of one of the many companies you have shares in?”
The two masked men who broke into my house last night and did this.
He lifted his shirt with a wince, and I glared at the fresh bruising along the left side of his ribs.
“As I told the police, I have very little involvement in transport. I’m merely an investor in that company and have proved my innocence by showing them all my correspondence with the CEO. I had no idea about that shipment.”
What did they say?
“What about Damiano? My daughter’s bodyguard mysteriously disappeared after you were spotted outside her apartment, and then his ear arrived at my door.”
I have to convince her to spy on you and betray you. I have two days to get you arrested, or they’ll kill me and take her.
Rage surged through my veins at the thought of someone threatening Aria and her father. I grabbed the paper, forcing the grit from my voice as I tried to keep up with our conversation for show while scribbling my reply.
“He’s still missing? I guess if he’s walking around with one ear, he probably doesn’t want to be seen.”
Who the fuck are they? Are they working for Callum?
“What is the point of this, Buccini? What are you doing here?” Piero growled, maintaining the pretence as he shook his head and wrote, I don’t know.
“I want us to work together. Drop this bullshit investigation and let’s make Rome the best it can be by uniting our forces.”
You need to trust me, Piero. I can keep you and Aria safe, but only if you tell me everything you know.
He chuckled, though it was the fakest laugh I’d ever heard.
He’d never win any awards for his acting.
“I’d never work with you, Buccini. Over my dead body.
You are the last man in Rome I will ever trust. The very fact that you stole my daughter and forced her to marry you means we will never see eye to eye. ”
I don’t have any other choice but to trust you, Buccini. They are watching my every move. It’s too dangerous for me to meet you again. I will find a way to get everything I’ve put together over the last few days about what I think is really happening here.
“Then I guess you are right, Caruso. I am wasting my time.”
I stood up, grabbing the paper one last time.
Play along for now. Until I know who we are dealing with, do what they say. It’s the only way you will stay alive.
He looked at me, nodded, and pressed his lips together. I could see the fear and gratitude in his eyes. He still wasn’t sure about me, but I was his best option, and he knew it.
“Will I expect to see you and my daughter at the city fundraiser tomorrow night?”
If anything happens to me, don’t let them come for her.
“We will be there. Just so you know, Mayor...” I held his gaze and smiled, knowing this would be heard by more than just us. “Anyone who tries to take Arianna from me will be dragged so far beyond my mercy that when I finally grant them death, it will feel like a kindness.”
I marched out of the house and down the drive, my heart pounding with adrenaline and the need to see Aria.
I knew it. My instincts told me this was bigger than we thought, and they were never wrong.
I sped a few roads away on my bike, then pulled over to call Alessio and Gio.
After I’d filled them in, I forced myself to calm down, knowing they would be using every resource we had to find those men who threatened Piero.
It wasn’t often that a situation bothered me as much as this, but just knowing that Aria was at the centre of it somehow had me shaking with rage.
I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She was in the safest place.
At my side. No one was taking her from me.
I needed my Bella Ribelle. She was mine. The very thought of her waiting at home, naked and desperate for me, had me zooming between cars to get back in record time.
I was already undoing my cufflinks and rolling up my sleeves, my dick hardening against my zip, as the lift doors opened to my apartment.
I heard the sound of hurried footsteps along the polished floors down the hallway and smirked.
Of course, she didn’t do what she was fucking told.
I stepped out and nodded at Big-T—Belio.
“Go for lunch,” I ordered, knowing I already had ample men on guard in the building and that I didn’t need him to overhear my wife’s moans. He swapped places with me in the lift, and as I headed for my room, I spotted Raya coming out of the living area.
“Put your headphones on and read for the next two hours. Don’t take them off unless you want to be traumatised by hearing me fucking my wife.”
Her face scrunched up in disgust. “Ew. Too much information, Sani. And two hours?”
My lips twisted. “At least. Three if you want to be extra safe.”
“Gross,” she muttered before slamming her bedroom door shut.
I opened mine and stood in the doorway. Big, alert blue eyes stared up at me from her kneeling position on the floor. Her naked tits rose and fell rapidly, as if she’d just run a marathon, and she looked… guilty as fuck.
“Looking a little out of breath there, Bella Ribelle.”
She swallowed, squeezing her hands together behind her back and holding my gaze. My dick throbbed beneath my trousers as I took her in. She was a work of art. Maybe I’d ask Elle to paint her just like this so I could hang it on every wall in my apartment.
Leaning my shoulder against the door frame, I pulled out the paper and added one more tally mark to the list. Eleven punishments.
Eleven orgasms I was about to deny her. Enough to have tears stream down her face with indescribable need.
By the time I’d used her body in every way possible, she’d be begging for release. If she could last that long…