I don't remember much of the next hour or so. Everything was a bit of a haze. I must have screamed, or perhaps I'd maintained enough presence of mind to call 9-1-1. I do know that there were bright lights, and eventually a cop, who led me into the living room, handing me tissue after tissue as I cried my eyes out. Later on, the same cop—I think—led me to an ambulance, but I wasn't sure why, except that they wanted me to go to the hospital.
It wasn't until I was at the hospital and got an injection from the doctor that I started to calm down—but in that detached, sort of loopy way that comes with some really decent drugs. I didn't really start to come to until that night, and I noticed that I was now in a room in the hospital. Everything was painted that sort of vomit-inducing color that looks like baby blue and mint green were mixed, and I was laying on one of those reclining beds. “Wha . . . What happened?”
“It's okay, Bella,” Uncle Carlo said from my left, his voice soft and concerned. Bella was a nickname he often called me. I looked at him and took a deep breath. Carlo was wearing his dark blue suit, one of his suits that I associated with him and work. He must have come straight from the office, where he worked in his day job as owner of Bertoli's Pizza, the largest independent pizza delivery company in the state of Washington. Carlo had even once gotten on television with Guy Fieri, if you can dig that. He had other businesses, including Bertoli Trucking, Sicily Dry Cleaning, and a few others he was a minority investor in, but his day job was at the pizza company.
“Uncle . . . oh, it was so horrible!” I said, my voice still sounding slightly separated from my body. I felt like a little girl again, telling him about the monster under my bed or something. “There was so much blood!”
“I know,” he replied, taking my hand in his. “I saw a little of the crime scene. The police didn’t tell me they had brought you here until after I arrived. Tell me exactly what you saw.”
I recounted my memory, starting with the APE and ending with my seeing Angela's body. It didn't take long. After all, until seeing the open window, everything had been a boring yet normal late summer day. I had just taken the last of my first sessions for the semester and had been looking forward to a good year. The only dark mark was Vincent Drake in the background, but I hadn't seen or heard from him at all that day.
I finished my recollection, waiting while Uncle Carlo sat back, nodding to himself. It’s one of the things that makes him good at what he does, in my opinion. Regardless of how much of a storm he might be feeling emotionally, when it came time to make a decision, he forced himself to step back, setting his feelings aside for the moment.
“There were things you didn’t see,” he finally said, sitting forward. “The police haven’t told me much, only what I was able to quickly see when I came to take you to the hospital, but I did overhear some things. Those fools never could keep their damn mouths shut.”
“What did I miss?” I asked, starting to tremble. “Was it bad?”
He nodded. “The killer is most likely Vincent Drake. Tell me what you know about him.”
I sighed, regretting limiting my actions to just a restraining order. Uncle Carlo had been right the first time. “I took Drake's class last fall semester. He was teaching Conceptual Sculpting. He always wore these cheap suits, the kind that you'd get at a Goodwill or something, and they always looked like they were about ten years out of date on his frame. I swear he bought himself a six pack of discount suits when he was thirty, and twenty years later, he was still working his way through them, waiting for the seams to give out or something.”
Uncle Carlo chuckled at my description. “That’s one of the things I love about you, Adriana. You’ve always been a born artist, with such great descriptions of people and things. Tell me about your relationship with him.”
“What relationship? The guy was a loser from day one. I hated the course,” I protested, a bit of my natural temper flaring up. I come from Sicilian and Scottish roots, so me not having a temper would have been a miracle. When he gave me a look, I sighed and fell back into my recollections. “For the first few classes, things were normal. He was creepy, but nothing I haven't had to handle before. It wasn't until the midterm project that he started to really focus on me. The sculpture I did wasn't the best, in my opinion, but it was special to me because I tried to carve Dad as if he'd survived all the years to now. I'd poured my heart into it and planned on giving it to Mom for her birthday before all this started and ruined it for me. For some reason, Vincent really took to it, and he started obsessing over me.”
“Eventually, I filed a sexual harassment complaint against him with the school, but they did nothing, saying it wasn't enough to do anything against a tenured professor. They just warned him and told me to stay away.”
“Adriana, why did you put so much trust in these incompetent fools? Have I not shown you how useless they are?”
“You have, and I don't know why,” I said. “I guess . . . I guess because I know what you would’ve done. He has a family, after all—a wife and supposedly, a daughter.”
“Had a family . . .” he said. “It was on the news while you were out. He killed his wife before coming to your apartment. Another stabbing. There’s talk of some sort of letter or manifesto, but no details have been released. I have men working on it now. Good men.”
I shivered again, finally realizing just how insane Vincent Drake was. “So what am I to do?”
He smiled, then patted my hand and stood up. “You’re young and you’re idealistic, my Bella. Part of that is my fault, part your mother's. Your artistic streak has made you fiercely independent, and we agreed to give you some free reign to try things your way. But now it’s time to do things my way.”
I gulped and nodded as he continued.
“You will stay the night here. I’ll have a man posted outside your room, and then, starting tomorrow, Daniel will become your driver and your bodyguard.”
“Daniel?” I asked, trying not to sound too excited or surprised. “Daniel Neiman?”
He nodded, but still caught the tone of my voice. “Be careful, Adriana. Daniel’s a good man, and is as loyal a Soldier as any of my men, but he does have a weakness for pretty young women, as I’m sure you know. I won’t tolerate anything going on between you two. Do you understand, Adriana? I’ve seen the way you look at him, and if it were anyone but you, I’d just assign someone else, but Daniel is the best at what he does.”
I nodded, swallowing my objections. While Daniel was charming and there was a certain magnetism about him, he could also be a first-class bastard. My physical attraction stopped there. “I understand. You have nothing to worry about, trust me.”
After Uncle Carlo left, I lay back, my mind whirling. As if I didn’t already have enough on my mind, now I’d have to deal with Daniel around the clock. He was easy on the eyes. I’d have my hands full keeping myself from jumping his bones. He’s got this Germanic or Nordic look about him, with piercing, amazing blue eyes to go along with blond hair, a square jaw and a chiseled physique.
He came to Uncle Carlo's house when his parents were murdered by a mobster who'd mistaken his family for someone else. I didn't even know his real name. Carlo had gotten him a fake identity in order to keep him safe from the Russians, who undoubtedly would’ve tried to hunt him down in order to eliminate all evidence of their screw-up. I’m not sure why Uncle felt it was his responsibility, but despite being the boss, he did have a heart. Daniel was raised in Uncle Carlo's house, and when I came, he was like one of the staff's children.
Now, at twenty-five, he looked like an Adonis, like someone who should have been making movies or causing housewives to have hot flashes on television rather than as a member of Uncle Carlo's organization. He'd gone to work for Carlo almost immediately after junior high school, starting as an errand boy before working his way up, not through brown nosing or anything, but through hard work and a level of dedication that was both frightening and inspiring.
Still, Daniel had his drawbacks, na
mely his cockiness. While most of the time it came across as good humor and banter, it annoyed the hell out of me. He knew he was hot, and he wasn’t ashamed to flaunt it. He was God’s gift to women, and I admit I’d fantasized about him more than once, which was probably why he sometimes got on my nerves.
But anything between Daniel and me would have to remain a fantasy. Uncle Carlo had made that clear more than once. He put up with Daniel’s womanizing as long as I, his Bella, remained hands-off. That, and that it didn’t interfere with his job.
And that’s what worried me—now Daniel was assigned to me. The most efficient and dedicated operative in Uncle Carlo's organization, and one of the sexiest men on the planet, was to become my bodyguard and driver, by my side virtually twenty-four hours a day.
I shivered and lay back. Life was going to get very, very interesting.
Chapter 2
Daniel
The little Hispanic girl wiggled back and forth on my lap, trying her best to entice me with her moves. Unfortunately for her, I was distracted as the music just wasn't sexy at all. I get it. Bass heavy dance music gives the girl a chance to shake her ass, and the throb of the bass can reverberate through your body to add to the illusion of her touching you, but I can't stand it. Finally, I lost my patience and lifted her off me. “Not happening tonight, chica. Find yourself another disco stick.”
“But yours is the biggest here, Papi,” she complained, reaching down and cupping my crotch. She made contact, a clear violation of the club's rules, but I was still wearing my pants, and I was the sort of patron that the normal rules didn't apply to anyway. “Dios mio, you must be stuffing those pants.”
Stuff my pants? Hardly. “Maybe you'll find out another time. Now beat it. I'm not in the mood.”
She wiggled her tits, clearly surgically enhanced but an overall good job, then shrugged when she saw I was serious. She was a pro and knew when to back off. She smiled when I held out a twenty. “For your efforts. Just not tonight.”
“Next time you're in here, just ask for Carmen. I'll make sure you get taken care of.”
I nodded in understanding, and she walked off, knowing how to move her ass in the barely there miniskirt and high heels to make sure I got one last good look at her wares.
I downed the rest of my drink and got up from the seat, making sure my pants were unstained. Not seeing anything in the dim lights of the club, I shrugged and buttoned up my coat, making sure my tie and everything looked exactly as they should. Semi-satisfied, I turned and left the club, getting ready for the rest of the night's work.
Thankfully, I didn't have too many assignments that night. Don Bertoli knows exactly how much to push a man and when to give him some time off to unwind. After taking care of some problems with one of the local motorcycle clubs two weeks prior, Boss had put me on light duty. “Those gear heads may be as stupid as two ducks fucking, but they know how to swing a mean wrench,” the Don explained when he’d visited me in my apartment, where I was healing from a swollen shut eye. The motorcyclists had fared far worse. “You handled yourself well, Daniel. Enjoy the time, and we'll work you back into the rotation when the time comes.”
The time had started a week ago—nothing too extreme, just a few visits to the businesses that had relationships with Don Bertoli to make sure they were up to date with their payments. Sure, collection work was newbie shit, but it was easy, and it kept me from sitting around my apartment for too long. Tonight, on top of the strip club I'd just visited—with a nice wad of cash in my pocket for the efforts—I had two more stops to make before three in the morning.
I was in the parking lot when my cellphone rang. As only ten people in the world had the number to my work phone, I knew it had to be important and pulled it out. “Neiman,” I greeted. “What's up?”
“Daniel, it’s Carlo,” a mid-tone, accented voice said in my ear, and I immediately stiffened. “I need your services.”
“Of course, Don Bertoli,” I said immediately, sliding behind the wheel of my car. “What do you need?”
“First, go home and get some sleep,” he said. “I’ve asked another man to do the rest of your pickups for the night. What did you get done?”
“Williams' Market and the Starlight Club, sir. I was thinking of going to the others closer to closing time. Give them a chance to make sure they have the cash on hand.”
I heard Don Bertoli's warm chuckle and was pleased. “You’re wise beyond your young years, Daniel. But don’t worry about that tonight. Tomorrow morning at six, I want you at Harborview Medical Center to pick up my niece.”
“Adriana?” I asked. Adriana and I had been friends when I was a child, and while I couldn't say the same any longer, we still would run into each other from time to time. “What happened, Boss?”
“Some psycho piece of shit instructor is obsessed with her, stalked her, and killed her roommate this afternoon. Now don't worry. I have a man watching her room right now, but I know Adriana. She’ll want to go back to classes, and you’re the best man for the job. You’re young enough that you won’t stick out too much amongst the college students, but more importantly, I know that you are a man of honor. You’d never allow anyone to harm her.”
“You have my word,” I swore immediately. My benefactor had treated me well in the twenty-five years I'd been under his protection.
“Protect her like she's the most important person in the entire world. If you see Christ himself resurrected and saying Adriana is not one of the saved, you are to slay the Lamb, do you understand?”
“Absolutely. I’ll be there at six.”
There was a sigh on the other end of the line, and I could tell he had something difficult to say. “Daniel, what I say next is not because I don’t love you like one of my own. You've been a better man than many of them, and I look upon you with the same pride that I do my own sons. You know that, right?”
“I do, sir. And I see you as the closest thing I’ll ever have to a father. You know that.”
“And I appreciate that, my boy. But Adriana, she’s blood, and she is the closest thing I will ever have to a daughter. I won’t have her with a man in this kind of business. So I’ll say this again, even though I know you’ve heard it before, if only so that you know exactly where I’m coming from. If you so much as touch her, let alone do what you’ve done with all those other women, I will make sure that your cock is chopped off and stuffed up your ass before you die a miserable death. Understood?”
“Understood,” I said, a fine sweat breaking out on my brow despite the coolness of the evening. “Perfectly.”
“Good. Give me a call in the morning when you are at the hospital. Good night, Daniel.”
“Good night, sir.”
The phone went silent in my ear, and I closed it with a slightly trembling hand. I'd known Adriana from the first day she came to the Don's house, and for years, she'd been that one woman who was always untouchable. Don Bertoli had no problems with my sleeping around. He felt that young men should be virile, and if I was a one-time only bedmate, that was my choice. He'd even gifted me with some of the girls who worked for him from time to time, including a semi-famous actress who'd done a few science fiction shows in Vancouver—the sort of stuff that had a decent dedicated following of geeks, but didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting any awards.
From the beginning, Adriana had been off limits. Not just to me, but to everyone in the Don's organization, and it was spelled out to us in very clear terms. Touch Adriana Bertoli, and die.
The problem was, she was my weakness. In my twenty-five years on this Earth, I'd trained myself to ignore pain, to ignore exhaustion, and to ignore every temptation. Money meant almost nothing to me. I had enough from what the Don gave me, and he'd taught me how to invest it well so that I would have more than enough when I wanted it. Physical possessions, the same. The only reason I drove a BMW was because as a member of the Bertoli family, it was expected that I drive a nicer class of car than the average jackass on
the road. Stylish, understated, and with a sense of power. That’s what a Bertoli man drove, and that’s what I drove.
But sex was both one of my most potent tools and also one of my biggest weaknesses. Oh, the average slut that I went to Pound Town with, I didn't even give a second thought to. I'd never felt guilty fucking just about any woman that caught my attention, and with my cock, who could blame me? It’s not like they’d turn me down. It's not everyday that a woman gets to feel a legitimate nine inches of thick man meat inside them. I can’t help I was blessed with size and endurance—give me five or ten, and I’ll saddle up for round two and round three. Turning your regular Girl Next Door into a cock slut just so happened to be a hobby of mine.
Adriana, though . . . she was different. Sexy, intelligent, and self-assured in a way that no other woman I'd met was, she’d been the subject of some of my earliest masturbation fantasies back when I was in high school and needed to rub one out at least once a day. Where other women would melt at a look from my eyes and a smirk, she always returned my taunts with verve and spice, usually with something along the lines of once I had her, I'd be the one addicted to her and not the other way around. Not that I would’ve ever touched her if she acted like other women. I am rather fond of my balls, after all, and would prefer to keep them attached.
I started up my Beamer and turned on the lights, taking a deep breath as I put the stick shift into first and pulled out of the strip club's parking lot. I couldn’t help but feel a little anxious. Adriana was the ultimate forbidden fruit, and I had to admit that my greatest goal in life was to have just one night with her.
Homecoming: A Secret Baby Romance Page 9
