Chapter 17
Waking up alone in Dorian’s bed was starting to become something of a habit.
The next day, I opened my eyes to find myself in the same situation as the night before—well, not exactly the same. I might have been by myself, but at least it wasn’t dark. Now sunlight was streaming through the windows, filling the room with bright, airy light.
On top of that, the place wasn’t as eerily still and quiet as it had been a few hours ago. Not only could I hear footsteps moving around outside the bedroom, but I was pretty sure I could make out voices.
Multiple voices.
Did Dorian have company over?
I clutched the blankets and brought them close to my chest, unsure what to do if he did. Should I stay hidden and wait for his guests to leave?
And what if the people weren’t guests at all? What if Carlo had finally tracked me down?
I jumped out of bed and rushed over to the door. Pulling it open just a fraction of an inch, I pressed my ear against the crack and listened.
“Thank you again, brother,” Dorian’s voice carried down the hall. “These look great.”
Brother? Any fear that it was Carlo out there flew out the window, and I breathed easy.
“It was no trouble.” The second voice was just as deep as Dorian’s but not as hard or guarded. It was a little warmer, a little looser. “Like I said, that shopper I know does good work.”
“You’ll have to give me her number,” a third voice said—this one more rigid and formal. “I can think of a few girls down at La Sera who would appreciate this kind of gift.”
These had to be Dorian’s actual brothers.
“I have a feeling my guest is going to like them.”
Like them? Like what?
“Speaking of your lady,” the first brother said. “Are you going to introduce us?”
“I’ll see if she’s awake,” Dorian answered.
After closing the door as quickly and quietly as possible, I raced back to the bed. I jumped on top of the mattress just in time for it to swing open again.
“What’s going on?” I asked, faking a yawn as Dorian walked in.
“Don’t act like you just woke up,” he said matter-of-factly. “I heard you open the door to spy on us.”
Immediately, I gave up the pretense of the wide, sleepy stretch I’d been doing and let my arms flop back down by my side.
He’d heard that? Shit.
Apparently, I wasn’t half as good at sneaking as he was.
“For your information, I wasn’t spying,” I told him. “I heard voices and wanted to make sure Carlo hadn’t kicked down your door.”
Dorian shook his head, dismissing my concerns. “Stop worrying about Carlo Costa.”
“Easy for you to say.” He wasn’t the one walking around with a price on his head.
But apparently, Dorian already considered the conversation over and moved on, holding out a brand-new pair of jeans for me to take.
They looked nice...too nice.
“Here,” he said.
“What’s this?”
“Pants.”
My eyes narrowed. “Those aren’t mine.”
“They are now,” he said, dropping them down on the bed in front of me.
I pulled them up to check the label. Until that moment, I didn’t even know Gucci made jeans.
I shook my head. “I can’t wear these.”
“Of course you can. They’re your size.”
That wasn’t the point. “They also cost more than I make in a month.”
He smiled—actually smiled.
“You don’t have to pay me back, Kiera. That’s how gifts work,” he said. “Besides, you need to wear something if you want to meet my brothers.”
There was no denying that.
“Okay.” I relented and pulled them on. “But we’re not done talking about this.”
“If you say so,” he said, holding the door open for me as I zipped up the pants…and damn, if they didn’t fit like they’d been custom-made for me.
Raking my fingers through my hair, I pasted on a smile as I walked down the hall, readying myself to meet Dorian’s family.
When I rounded the corner, I was surprised to see two of the same person looking back at me.
When Dorian had said his adopted brothers were twins, I’d assumed they were fraternal, not identical.
But even though the two men shared the same features—black hair, dark eyes, perfectly chilled jawlines dusted with a few day’s growth of beard—the way they held themselves was completely different.
One was loose and the other rigid, but both shared Dorian’s intimidating presence.
“This is my brother, Gabriel D’Angelo.” Dorian gestured to the twin lounging in the leather chair, his arms dangling over the sides.
D’Angelo? That was the name of Dorian’s adoptive family? Why did it sound vaguely familiar?
“Hello.” Gabriel’s greeting was standard enough, but something in his intense, probing stare made me uneasy.
I flashed him a tight smile, careful to stay close to Dorian’s side.
Then, turning to the second twin, who was standing against the wall with his arms crossed, Dorian said, “And this is Matteo.”
Matteo swept his critical gaze from the top of my head down to my toes, openly examining me. Whatever conclusions he came to, though, his guarded expression gave nothing away.
“Pleasure to meet you, Kiera,” he said.
The sound of my name—my real name—coming out of a stranger’s mouth made my stomach drop. I turned to Dorian, looking up at him with wide eyes.
“Why does he know my name?” I asked in a panicked whisper.
“It’s okay,” he tried to assure me. “These are my brothers. I trust them with my life. More importantly, I trust them with yours.”
I shot him a pointed look. “How many times do I have to tell you it’s not me I’m worried about?”
Apparently, my whisper wasn’t quiet enough because Matteo pushed himself off the wall, stepping closer.
“Who are you worried about?” he asked, his tone brutally serious.
“I don’t want to drag anyone else into my problems,” I answered with an apologetic shake of my head.
“Is this about Carlo Costa?” Gabriel sounded strangely amused.
“How do you know about Carlo?” I asked before I could think better of it.
Dorian’s face turned to stone as he gave his brother a hard stare, silently warning the man not to say another word.
But it was too late for that.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
No one answered for a long, tense moment. Then, eventually, Gabriel shrugged.
“I don’t think my brother is in the mood to discuss family business right now,” he said.
“What is he talking about—‘family business?’”
Dorian’s jaw tightened as he drew in a deep breath. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated? What the hell does that mean?”
My mind spun…and one by one, the pieces began to fall into place.
D’Angelo…family… I’d heard those words together before.
Oh, shit—the D’Angelo crime family.
One of the most well-known criminal organizations…and not just in New York. They were known across the country. I’d read news articles about their crimes long before I’d gone into hiding.
My jaw dropped as I stared up at Dorian.
“You’re a D’Angelo? As in the D’Angelos?”
“I kept my original family name—Marchetti,” Dorian said.
As if that was the important part.
“But you are Giuseppe D’Angelo’s son?”
“We all are,” Gabriel said, stiffening his back in the chair.
Clearly, my tone had caused offense since the mood of the room was growing darker by the second.
I don’t know why I was surprised by that. Especially now that I knew I was surrounded by the fucking mob.
Feeling my throat starting to close up a little more with each anxious breath I drew, I took a step back, away from Dorian.
Gabriel didn’t like that. His expression grew even darker as he stood up from the chair. “Come on, Matteo. Let’s leave our brother alone to explain the family business to his new lady.”
Neither one said goodbye as they walked out of the apartment.
As first impressions went, that might have been the world’s worst. Apparently, I had a hidden talent for offending the hell out of mafiosos.
The ones I wasn’t sleeping with, that was.
“You’re a gangster?” I asked the second the door closed behind Dorian’s brothers.
He hesitated. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”
Complicated? From where I was standing, it seemed pretty cut and dry. “Just tell me the truth. Are you in the mob or not?”
He looked me in the eye. “I am.”
I didn’t know why I was surprised. After all, I knew Dorian was no angel. Men like him didn’t buy apartments like this by pulling small-time jobs.
“What do you do?” I demanded, but Dorian just shook his head.
“You don’t want to know, Kiera. Trust me.”
And the weird thing was he was right.
No answer he gave could pacify me. Any mafia activity he was involved with—extortion, drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling—would be upsetting.
I wasn’t proud of myself, but all I really wanted was to retreat back into ignorance. What I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me.
More importantly, it couldn’t hurt my opinion of Dorian.
All I wanted was to keep pretending that, while he might be a criminal, he wasn’t a villain. That he wasn’t evil.
How could he be?
Truly evil people didn’t kiss like him. They didn’t make love so passionately. They couldn’t make you feel like you were the only person in the whole world who mattered.
Of course, I knew that wasn’t true. The whole line of reasoning wasn’t logical…but I simply didn’t care.
Logic and reason couldn’t wrap me up in its arms and caress all my troubles and fears away. Only Dorian could do that.
So, I made the conscious decision to turn away from good judgment and plunge headfirst into the self-preserving waters of denial instead.
Without another word, I turned on my heel and started walking away.
“Where are you going?” Dorian asked.
“Back to bed,” I called out over my shoulder. “I’m going to go back to sleep, and when I wake up, I’m going to pretend everything that happened this morning was all a bad dream.”
I have no idea what Dorian thought of my plan; I only know that he didn’t try to stop me.