by Addison Jane
My heart rate was rising, and I pushed off the chair and forced myself to stand on shaky legs. “Sophie was beautiful, sweet, a peaceful soul,” I whispered, trying to keep my breathing under control even as a few stray tears dripped down my cheeks. “But that’s not how anyone will remember her now because our blood is tainted with yours.”
Uncle Anthony was out of his chair within milliseconds, and the men that surrounded us were glaring at me like they were trying to kill me with their eyes.
I could practically see the smoke coming out of Angelo’s nostrils like a raging bull. “Emerson,” he warned, his body wound tightly and his voice gravelly and sharp.
I should have been scared of every single man in this room. I should’ve been looking for an exit, hoping that they wouldn’t shoot me in the back as I ran out of it for disrespecting them so badly. But you know what, I didn’t care. Instead, I hit him with a dark glare, refusing to back down and allow this to be passed over like a simple detail. No, this was big, it was fucking huge.
We were part of a family who did God knows freaking what for a living.
Did they run drugs?
Did they kill people and carry out hits?
Did they step on the little people on the way to the top?
I had no idea, but what I did know was that this was going to change things.
Anthony was my uncle.
We shared blood. We were family.
I was no longer just Emerson Rossi—lover of dance, future lawyer, younger sister to Sophie Rossi.
No.
Now I was now Emerson Rossi—mob boss niece.
Fuck.
“I can understand that you are upset,” Anthony spoke to his niece, fighting to keep his temper under control. He wasn’t usually a man to tip toe lightly, but given that Emerson was in a place where she was only now learning that her life and her family history was not what she had believed for twenty-two years, he was maintaining his patience. “You have every right to be angry at me, and I take full responsibility for what has happened. I will be responsible for making sure that Tobia pays for what he has done. But you need to remember, you are not the only one who has lost someone.”
Emerson took in a sharp breath, and her hand went straight to her heart. The way the muscles in her throat moved as she swallowed and the flush across her cheeks had me clenching my fists to keep my hands from reaching out to her. Her beauty drew me in, her sharp mouth and her ability to hold strong and stand up and have her say, it all pulled me in. It made me want more, to see more of this side of her.
She wasn’t as weak as she thought she was. Emerson may have had her dreams and aspirations crushed by a father who couldn’t see his daughter’s potential, but there was a fighter underneath the obedient child he’d raised. I was going to find it and pull it out because when she lifted her chin and steeled her eyes, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“I lost my wife,” Anthony continued when Emerson didn’t reply. “A woman I loved more than life itself, and who never did a single thing to hurt a soul. My children lost their mother, my sons missed out on a women’s touch to soften them, and my daughter missed out on the woman who should have taught her all the things a mother could teach their daughter.”
I hung my head.
Anthony didn’t open up often. Many thought he was a heartless human being, who cared about nothing but money, and only had children in order to carry on the DePalma legacy. But the simple fact was he loved his children, more than anything else in this world. He was the first to encourage them to get an education, to make something of themselves if they felt like this wasn’t the lifestyle that they wanted to lead. Above all else, he wanted them to be happy.
“Why didn’t you walk away?” Emerson asked finally, her eyes bloodshot and her nose red. “If it caused you so much pain… then why do you continue to stay and put the people you care about in danger?”
Anthony adjusted his suit, pulling on his cufflinks. “Because there’s more to this than just me and my family. It’s not always about power or notoriety. It’s about being a voice for those who are unable to speak for themselves.”
Emerson’s brows pulled in together, and I could tell she was confused by his answer.
“One day soon, you’ll understand,” Anthony said before turning to me. “She’s all yours.”
I didn’t miss the subtle undertone to his voice and the sharp look in his eyes. It was a warning, one that I needed to remind myself of every time I was in Emerson’s presence. There was a pull between us, and I knew we could both feel it. Like two magnets being drawn together, it was going to be hard to fight something that felt so fucking powerful.
Sophie was gone.
Emerson was a DePalma, and Anthony would do whatever the hell he had to in order to protect her and keep her life intact. Even if that meant keeping her from me.
The threat was there, I heard it loud and clear.
I admired Anthony for his dedication and loyalty to his family and his bloodline. And when push came to shove, his blood I was not.
“Wait,” Emerson said, stepping forward. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re going to go back to New York with Angelo,” Anthony answered simply. I could tell he was already done with this conversation. He’d had his say, and had let Emerson have hers, taking the hits that she delivered with her words. But he was ready to move on.
We had cleaning up to do. The media was on our ass. We’d had to stall all of our businesses for now, which meant not only losing money but possibly pissing off a lot of other buyers and sellers. Anthony needed to focus, and so did I.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Emerson protested, her eyes moving between her uncle and me.
“No, you need a fucking bodyguard,” I replied, ready to teach Emerson and her sexy, smart mouth exactly who ran things around here.
Me.
“Have you not put all the pieces together yet, Bella?” I asked sarcastically. “Tobia is still roaming around out there. He’s not done yet, not by fucking far.”
A shudder ran through her body and goosebumps appeared on her beautiful smooth milky skin.
Anthony was already heading for the door, two men following closely behind him when Emerson spoke up again. “And what if I say no? What if I don’t want to go?”
Anthony froze, his fingers on the button of his suit jacket, his head shaking back and forth as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Right now, you have absolutely no choice in the matter. I refuse to lose another member of my family to them, and Angelo is under instruction to do whatever he needs to do in order to make that happen.”
I took a menacing step forward, part of me hoping that she would open that pretty little mouth one more time and give me an excuse to make her perfectly round ass a nice shade of red.
She managed to hold her chin high and her mouth fucking shut until her uncle walked out the door without another word. At least she was smart enough to know that Anthony didn’t mess around with the details and that there was no bargaining with a man who would so quickly cut you off at the knees if he was questioned.
What it came down to was respect.
Anthony had earned his a long time ago. He wasn’t handed his position simply because it was owed to him. He wasn’t owed anything, and if his father had felt that he wasn’t capable of running the family business, it would have been given to someone else. It was as simple as that.
Anthony had worked his way up from the bottom, just like the rest of us. He’d paid his dues and earned the loyalty of his men, and the people of the city that many men in his position could fight their entire lives for.
“Your stuff is already in the car,” I said, finally breaking the silence within the room. “Let’s get going.”
“I don’t want to do this,” Emerson replied simply, her body still frozen to the spot. I could see the fear in her eyes, mixed with confusion and shock.
I moved forward, placing my hand on
the small of her back and applying a small amount of pressure. “Noted. But at this point, you don’t have a choice, Bella. We leave you here, Tobia could come back, and like Anthony said, losing another member of this family is not going to happen. If I have to chain you to a bed in my apartment until Tobia is taken care of…” I dipped my head, my lips brushing her ear. “… then that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Her body tensed and she spun around to face me, her eyes like that of a laser, burning a hole through my body. Her lips fell open, but she was mistaken if she thought I was going to let her and her smart mouth talk back to me while both mine and Anthony’s men were still in the room with us.
“Think before you speak,” I snapped in a hushed tone, causing her to still. “When we are in private, you can tell me exactly what you think of me. Yell. Scream. I don’t give a fuck. But when there are others around us, you’re gonna learn to show me the respect that I deserve.”
She pursed her lips for a moment, but I could tell that she wasn’t about to let me get away with speaking to her like a small child.
“Respect is a two-way street,” she whispered with a slight growl in her tone.
“When you’re with me, everything is one way… my fucking way,” I shot back with a devilish smirk pulling at the corner of my mouth. “Now, we have a plane to catch. So hustle that pretty little ass out the door before I take my hand to it.”
Her body was shaking, and at that point, I couldn’t tell whether it was out of anger or due to the fact that Anthony had hit the nail on the head when he had noted that she wasn’t looking after herself. I could tell that she wanted to be strong, she wanted to yell and scream at anyone who would listen and blame us all for Sophie’s death. And to be honest, she had every right, and it would probably make her feel a lot better.
But it could wait.
She was hurting, and I could understand that, but we weren’t the enemy here, and deep down in her gut she knew that.
I was trying to keep her alive.
No, scratch that… I wanted to make her feel alive.
No more mopping, no more feeling sorry for herself and living inside her own little pity party. That in itself was a one way trip to hell, and she was going to learn quickly that that shit would not fly with me.
She needed something to live for, and I knew exactly what it was.
Revenge.
Sweet, sweet revenge.
Infuriating was an understatement when it came to describing how I felt about Angelo. Where I felt comfort and safety with Angelo, he also pushed buttons inside me that I didn’t know I had. His all-knowing attitude and the way he spoke in riddles ground my nerves, and my tongue always seemed to bite back.
And deep down I loved it.
I’d always been complacent, seeing it as my duty to follow my father’s dreams, instead of my own. Being taught that my family should always come first, dreams second, or possibly even never. My father treated me like a child, and I’d always backed down, never wanting to argue for fear of upsetting or disrespecting him or losing everything I held so dear—dance. But here was a man that I should fear, who should scare me more than any other, and I was just casually calling him a fucking asshole?
He brought out that side of me, the side that was strong and defiant. A part of me wanted to prove to him I wasn’t this little girl he treated me like, he made me want to be someone stronger. Maybe it was because I knew he would never settle for a doormat, he wasn’t that kind of man, I could see the need for a challenge in his chocolate eyes. When I was around him my body tingled, I wanted to touch him, I wanted him to grab me and make me feel the power he possessed. I didn’t want to be the girl with daddy issues, he made me want to be a strong woman who could stand on her own. Maybe even stand beside him.
Could I be that person now that I was so broken?
I really knew nothing about Angelo’s history, except for the fact that he wasn’t actually a DePalma. I wasn’t oblivious to how this whole Mafia thing worked, I knew it was dark, dangerous and illegal, and I also knew Angelo was not a man who many would stand up against and come out alive. But I was curious, how did he get to where he was?
What made Angelo tick?
What was it that created this powerful, collected, sexy man?
I licked my lips, hoping that I would soon be able to find out. Anthony had deemed that he would be my bodyguard and protector for the near future, and after a five-hour flight, we were on our way to his apartment where I would stay with him until the danger had passed.
Excitement swirled in my belly, momentarily overtaking the feelings of loss and loathing. He made me feel things I hadn’t before. Somehow, he took away the pain and lessened the ache in my chest and right now that was all I wanted, for the pain to go away.
Stepping inside his apartment, my eyes widened. We were on the top of The Carson Villas apartment complex in the middle of Brooklyn. I’d stayed in apartments owned by the Carson family before, and they exuded nothing but luxury.
Angelo’s apartment was no exception.
Usually, I wasn’t all that impressed with expensive and overpriced homes, given that I’d grown up in them and for the most part, it was like living in a museum. Everything was beautiful, but it was all untouchable. Sophie and I were never allowed to run through the house or play inside, and God help us if we accidentally knocked something over.
I hated it with a passion.
But Angelo’s apartment was different.
The length of two entire sides of the apartment was entirely made of glass panels with the occasional concrete beam in between. The kitchen, dining room, living room, foyer and the hall, to which I assumed led down to the bedrooms was all open and spacious. But not only that, it felt… homely and comfortable.
Everything was soft white and cream shades with a smattering of color in the sofa cushions, appliances, and art that was spread sporadically around the space.
“This is… unexpected,” I managed to say finally as I took a few more steps inside. The warmth of the sun that was shining outside filtered through the windows and made me feel like I wanted to curl up on the sofa and stare out at the blue sky that was scattered with fluffy white clouds.
It was warm and inviting.
Nothing like its owner.
Angelo snorted and lifted my suitcase onto his shoulder. “I dislike clutter.”
I followed behind him as he walked down the short hall and pushed opened a door. The room was large, more like a master than a guest room. It had vast windows that opened onto the other side of the building and looked out onto the street. I didn’t mind, it was still a beautiful view. The buildings old and historical, making it feel like I’d stepped back in time even if only for a moment.
I drew my hand along the intricately embroidered comforter before sitting down on the edge of the bed. Angelo watched me with almost a curiosity in his eyes. “This is nice,” I told him quietly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he answered with a subtle nod. “The floor below us is where my men stay. So, if for some reason, something happens and I’m unable to be here or get to you, go down, and one of them will help you.”
A chill caused my body to shudder at his words. Even the idea of having something happen, and to think that he wouldn’t be here, honestly scared the crap out of me.
“I’ll be back in a moment, I just need to check in now that we are back,” he said with a sharp nod as he disappeared like a ghost.
I guess even though I was against this whole scenario in the first place, a part of me knew that Angelo would keep me safe, and he had such a strong presence that people would just look at him and run the other way.
After Uncle Anthony let me know that Tobia was still out there and that he most definitely was not done trying to take out his revenge on our family, I’d reminded myself of just how badly I never wanted to go through that again. I was already scarred, he had already broken me, and for the most part of every day at this point, I was
silently fighting back the tears. Losing someone was difficult. Even in the times when you had the chance to prepare yourself for the situation where they might be gone, it was hard when they died suddenly. You wished that you’d just had that one more chance to say goodbye, but you knew that they at least had peace.
Sophie was torn from this world in a whirlwind of violence, hatred, and pain. Losing someone under circumstances where you weren’t sure whether they would ever find peace from those acts, or where you were there and still could do absolutely nothing at all to help them or free them from that hell—it seeped into your soul like a disease.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t been the only one to be destroyed by it.
I’d tried speaking to Ava on more occasion than one, thinking that maybe the two of us could get through this together, fight the demons away. She was one of my best friends, the last thing I wanted was for her to be in pain for what I realized now was my fault—or at least my family’s fault.
She should have never had to experience such a thing.
I picked up my phone, scrolling through my contacts for her name and hit call. I waiting for the ring, but instead, all I got was a tone and then a mechanical voice.
“This number has been disconnected.”
My heart sank. I’d been trying to call her for the past few days, but it had always gone to an answering machine. I’d left message after message, praying that she was doing okay, begging her to let me visit so I could hug her. Now that I knew the truth about who Tobia was, guilt swirled around me like an impending storm.
I needed to tell her, to beg for forgiveness before the press took the story and turned it into something crazier than it was.
Then again, how could it really get any crazier?
I quickly flipped through my phone again, this time finding Ava’s parents phone number and hitting dial. My knees bounced nervously and my mouth went dry as it started to ring.
