Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
ANDIE
I can already hear Sarah’s peels of giggles as I walk down the long hallway of the west wing. Other than Sarah and Meribella, no one else resides in this part of the house. Come to think of it, when did Keane and Rafe move in and start living at the estate? Shouldn’t they have places of their own? Lives of their own?
I stop at an open doorway that leads into a bedroom. Sarah is happily making a mess with fingerpaints on a large piece of paper laid out on the floor. Meribella fixed her hair in curly pigtails that bounce around her head as she paints. She looks so much like Kellan, it hurts.
“Good morning,” I greet, walking inside to sit on the rug with her.
Sarah lights a smile at me when I hold out a chocolate chip muffin for her. I grabbed it from the kitchen on my way out. She looks over at Meribella, asking for permission.
“You may eat it,” Meribella tells her.
Sarah snatches it from me and dives right in, smearing chocolate over her face. Are all kids messy? I would’ve been beaten if I had so much as a crumb on my clothes. I was required to be perfect in every way—from the way I dressed, to how I talked, to my mannerisms and the way my hair was styled. I became a doll for others to dress up and play with.
When Sarah finishes her muffin, Meribella has her go wash her hands. I crumple up the muffin cup and throw it away in a trash bin in the corner.
Today, Meribella is reading a book instead of knitting. It’s a paperback of One Hundred Years of Solitude . She looks very pretty in her yellow skirt and baby blue silk blouse. Which reminds me…
“Could I ask you a huge favor?”
I was going to hit up Rita for an evening gown for tonight, but I’d rather not interact with my cousin more than I need to. Besides, with how things are between us now after what happened at dinner, she’d more than likely laugh in my face before telling me to fuck off.
Meribella closes her book and recrosses her legs. “What can I help you with?”
“I need a dress, and you look to be about my size.” If a few inches shorter, but that’s neither here nor there. As long as the dress fits.
She smiles knowingly. “Yes, I can see.”
Keane was right. The dress I’m currently wearing looks ridiculous with how my boobs are about to bust out of the bodice.
She goes over to a closet and walks inside. “I’m sure we can find you something.”
This must be her room. It’s nice. Nicer than I would expect for a live-in nanny. Then again, how would I know? As I wait for Meribella to emerge, I look around. The King Louis four-poster bed is neatly made and is covered in a pale-green silk comforter, with matching decorative pillows propped against the headboard. Beautiful oil paintings and cameos hang on the walls. There is an attached sitting room with a reading chair and a secretary desk for writing. My sights catalog all of the knickknacks adorning the nightstand, the dresser, and the wall table. All very expensive pieces. There’s a diamond bracelet left out that has to be over five carats. A pair of emerald drop earrings beside them. My father must pay her very well.
Sarah skips back out of the bathroom and resumes her painting. She’s humming a melody that sounds familiar. Where have I heard that from?
“This should fit you,” Meribella says, walking out of the closet, holding a black cocktail dress and a pair of ruby-red stilettos with black bows at the back. “Size eight, correct?”
“Thank you.” I accept the items, then ask, “How did you know what shoe size I was?”
Her cheeks pink, and she casts her eyes downward.
“Auntie Andie, come look,” Sarah chirps, tugging on the hem of my dress.
Everything inside of me freezes, and I swear my heart is about to hammer right out of my chest.
Auntie Andie? Does she know I’m her aunt?
Going down to my knees, I sit back on my heels, putting me at eye level with her. “Why did you call me that?”
Her little nose wrinkles, her forehead creases, and her mouth puckers in a pout. “Unkie Keane told me.”
“He did?” I rasp.
She nods, then smiles, her pigtails slapping her cheeks.
“He’s absolutely right. Your daddy was my brother.”
“He’s dead,” she states.
“I know, baby girl. But I’m here now. He sent me to watch over you.”
I’m not expecting her to throw herself at me, her little arms hugging my neck tightly and crushing the breath right out of me.
I glance up to find Meribella watching our interaction.
I hold Sarah to me, savoring the feeling for a minute, before releasing her. “Can you paint me a picture while I talk to Meribella?”
It’s a good thing that young children have the attention span of a goldfish. She plops back down to sit cross-legged on the floor and dips her fingers into bright yellow paint.
Standing up, I pull Meribella to the side. “There’s going to be a gathering here tonight at the house. There will be people here, dangerous people. I need you to take Sarah somewhere. I can give you money.”
Along with the old cell phone hidden in the box springs of my bed, there is also a roll of cash, about five thousand dollars. Money Kellan would give me or steal. It was my runaway fund. The dollars I meticulously saved, planning for the day Rafe and I would escape this city forever.
“I’m sorry, but your father has explicitly said he wants Sarah to attend tonight’s event. I’m to have her dressed by seven.”
The fuck she will!
I grip her arm. “You have to get her out of here. You don’t understand what’s going to happen tonight.”
Meribella shakes her head at me, and I’m tempted to knock her out and grab Sarah myself and flee. I don’t care that I’d be messing up the guys’ plans.
“Mr. Rossi?—”
“Fuck what my father wants!”
Sarah gasps and chides me, just like she did with Keane the other day. “Auntie Andie, you said a bad word.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath to calm myself. Smiling down at her, I apologize. “Sorry, baby girl.”
A throat clears from the open doorway, and Meribella takes that moment to step away from me. She sits back down and opens her book, acting like nothing happened.
“Miss Rossi, please come with me,” the guy—Matteo—tells me. I’ve been meaning to talk to him, but things have been too crazy.
I find it ironic that, not once my entire life, has anyone ever referred to me as a Rossi. I was the rejected child who wasn’t allowed to carry the family name. I was always Alexandria McCarthy. I considered it a blessing not to be burdened with the Rossi moniker because I could pretend, in a small way, that the devil wasn’t my father.
“My father is back?”
Matteo says nothing, just stands there at attention, waiting. I clock the sidearm underneath his suit jacket and decide not to ask any more questions.
Father wasn’t supposed to return until tonight before the dinner. I’m not ready yet. Him arriving home early is screwing up the plan.
I bend over and pick Sarah up, not caring that she’s getting yellow paint all over me. I hug her to me and bury my nose in her apple blossom scented hair.
“I’ll come back later,” I promise her.
It’s a promise I intend to keep. I’m taking her with me, and we are getting the hell out of here.
Matteo doesn’t talk as I follow him out of the west wing to the set of elevators that lead to the second floor. Elevators and I don’t agree with one another. They make me claustrophobic and remind me too much of the cage and the room my father would lock me inside when I was younger. This one is particularly unnerving because there isn’t even any annoying elevator music to focus on. I hate uncomfortable elevator silence. I nervously tap my fingers on the side of my thigh as the lift goes up.
The doors soundlessly swoosh open. No dings or noises to indicate we have arrived. Matteo steps out first. I can see two guards down the hallway, standing outside of my bedroom. What the fuck is going on?
“Does my father want to speak with me?”
Again, nothing. My uneasiness ramps up, my fight-or-flight instincts coming to life.
Growing up in this house, I have walked down this hallway hundreds of times. But for some reason, I’m seeing it with fresh eyes. The lighting is dim, low sconces along the wall casting eerie shadows. The sangria red walls don’t help with the ambiance. It really makes one feel like they are traversing within the bowels of hell.
Matteo murmurs something to the two guards when we get to my room, then he holds the bedroom door open for me to enter.
“I’ll take those,” he says, reaching for the dress and shoes Meribella let me borrow. I completely forgot I was carrying them.
I snatch them away from his grasp, like a child protecting a coveted toy. “This is what I’m wearing tonight,” I reply.
“Mr. Rossi has already selected your outfit for tonight.”
Is this guy serious? Whatever it is, I’m not wearing it. Daddy Dearest can bite me.
I glance over at the bed. At the red dress. It looks like blood staining the bedspread. My father used to dress me up. Always in red. I hate that fucking color.
The past two weeks have been nothing but a clusterfuck. I want just one thing to go my way. Is that too much to ask? Now I have to deal with this dickhead.
“You can tell Mr. Rossi, in the politest way possible, that he can go fuck himself. I’m not wearing that dress,” I inform Matteo, feeling indignant and a whole lot of pissed off.
The guy has the nerve to smile at me, his coal-black eyes sparkling with concealed amusement.
I feel the weight of the knife secured to my thigh. With just a swish of my hand, I could have Jax’s knife out of its holster and digging into Matteo’s throat. He looks like he could put up a fight, but it’s one I would eventually win. Maybe not, I reconsider, because I’d also have to fight the two men standing in the hallway.
Matteo approaches me, and I take a step back. I hold myself stock-still as he leans into me, invading my personal space.
“Kellan said you would return one day, and when that day came, we were to be ready.”
Matteo strolls out, shutting the door behind him before I can utter a what the fuck .