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“Me. I’ll be the one with all of the power here. The biggest player in the city.”
I rack my brain as I begin to put the pieces of this fucked-up puzzle together. “So the whole point of sending Matteo to that warehouse was to have him and Giuseppe kill each other.”
“Precisely. I knew Giuseppe was going to be at that warehouse because he had a weapons deal with the Russians tonight, so sending Matteo in there immediately on the offense, shooting up the place in an attempt to rescue your mother, would cause an all-out war between the two, resulting in them killing each other.”
Matteo can’t be dead. He’s stronger than that. He’s smarter than that. I refuse to believe it. He’s not dead. He can’t be.
“Why not just kill them yourself if you’re so adamant about it? Why go through all of this hassle?”
Angelo simply sits back in his chair and crosses his leg over the other. And that’s when realization dawns on me. This fucking bastard.
“Wow. Hiding away in this cabin while Giuseppe and Matteo take each other out so you can reap the benefits of both of their deaths? You’re a damn coward.”
Angelo’s face hardens. “I’m not a coward, Luxtyn. I’m thinking smarter. Not harder. Why would I get my hands dirty if I can just let them take each other out?”
“Your hands are as dirty as they come.”
“Lux, sweetie—” My mom’s gentle voice comes from beside me as she places her hand on my arm.
I turn my attention to her. “No, Mom. He needs to hear what a sorry excuse of a man he is.” I focus back on the slimy bastard sitting across from me. “I’ll kill you if anything happens to Matteo.” He waves me off as if he doesn’t believe I’ll doit, but that’s where he’s wrong. I’ll end him for this. “Why did you need to create this elaborate plan? Why did you need to kidnap us both?” I have a feeling I know the answer to this question. The furnished house and the photoshopped picture are my answer, but I need this psychopath to tell me the truth.
His face softens. “I wanted to have a relationship with you, Lux. I wanted to have a relationship with you and your mother.”
My mom gives my arm a light squeeze, reminding me she’s right there with me.
“You claim you want a relationship with us, yet you put your hands on my mom and allow Fausto to put his on me. What the hell kind of relationship do you expect?” I spit out.
“Your mother was being disobedient. She took you away from me. She hid you from me. All because she thought the life I live is too dangerous. Don’t you think that’s unreasonable? A father should never be separated from his child, so she deserves the punishment she’s received.”
“That’s enough, Angelo,” my mom utters.
“You don’t speak to me like that,” he roars. He moves faster than my brain can process and stalks over to my mom, backhanding her across the face and splitting the cut on her lip open again.
I scream and throw myself on him, running off survival mode. After finding the slickness of his eyes with my thumbs, I press them in, and a roar tears out of him before I’m being ripped off and thrown to the floor like a rag doll.
My back slams into something sharp, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s the edge of the stone fireplace hearth. I try to push myself up, but before I’m able to, there’s a grip in my hair, angling my face up. My gaze is strained, but I see Angelo standing a few feet away, rubbing his eyes.
“Luxtyn,” he warns. “That was not a very smart thing todo.” He blinks a few times. I didn’t do much damage because I barely got to push my fingers in before I was torn off him.
Fausto pulls me up to my feet by my hair, and I wince, not knowing at this point where most of the pain on my body is emanating from. Angelo does the same to my mom, pulling her up by the strands of her hair.
“Let go of her,” I grit out.
He pulls his gun from behind his back and holds it up to her temple. “Tell her the truth, Char. Tell her how you took her away from me. How you never told me about her. How you took away my chance to be her father before I even knew about her.”
I flail my arms and start kicking at anything I can get my feet on. It’s not until I feel a gun jammed into my ribs that I stop moving. “Keep it up,cara mia, and you won’t like what happens next,” Fausto whispers into my ear.
“Tell her, Char. Go on,” Angelo barks out.
My mom’s shimmering eyes roam over to mine. “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m sorry.” The vision of my mom becomes blurry as tears fill my eyes.
“Angelo’s r-right.” She takes a deep breath. “I found out I was pregnant with you after he got engaged to another woman. I didn’t tell him because I knew what it would mean. Either he’d take you from me or he’d kill us both. So I ran. I ran and never looked back. I’m so sorry,” she cries out.
“This isn’t your fault, Mom. You were only doing what you had to do to protect us both.”
“She wasn’t protecting you, Luxtyn, she was being a thief!” Angelo yells as he presses the barrel of the gun harder into her temple. She winces and attempts to pull away, but his hold on her is too firm. “And now she’s going to pay for taking away over two decades of your life from me. I was hoping timewould get her on my side, but she’s proving to be more difficult than she’s worth. But don’t worry, Lux, you and I are going to be a happy family together. You’ll see.”
