Page 35 of Unhinged Little Angel

“Well, he’s fine back here with us,” Sin assures him.

“Yeah, go find Sal and relax. No one is going to do shit to me while I’m here.” I make a shooing motion, and he hesitates for a few seconds before he huffs and leaves to make his way to the front of the club.

Lucifer and Sin watch him go and then turn back to me.

“So, seriously, what’s the deal?” Sin eyes my ring again.

The instinctual urge to tell them it’s none of their fucking business rises in my throat like bile, burning my tongue. Except, the whole point of marrying Salvatore was to spread the word and use my association with the Morettis as a shield.

I roll my shoulders and turn towards the mirrors, feeling their eyes on my back is a hell of a lot easier than looking at their faces and waiting for a reaction.

“I married Salvatore Moretti.”

The bass from the music pounds in my chest and I can hear the muffled sounds of the crowd on the other side of a couple of curtains and doors, but the silence that falls for a few seconds in response to my announcement feels deafening.

“Ho-ly shit,” Lucifer mutters after a minute.

“That explains the jumpy bodyguard. If Salvatore finds anyone else’s fingerprints on you, is he going to shoot the kid?” Sin chuckles, and I snort.

“Maybe. The bodyguard thing is just temporary though.” As is the marriage, but I’m not about to tell them that.

“Well, good luck with all that.” I glance in the mirror to see Sin shuddering dramatically. “You couldn’t pay me enough to get mixed up in that Mafia shit.”

A slow, devious smile spreads over Lucifer’s face. “I don’t know, Alessio is pretty fucking hot.”

Alessio? Please. I don’t know how you could notice anyone else with Salvatore sitting at that table with his designer suits and calm, take-no-shit energy. Of course, if any of them so much as look at him, I’ll fucking cut them. The thought startles me and I pull the eyeliner pencil away from my eye for a beat. I definitely mean it though. The thought of anyone else even breathing the same air as Sal has my fingers twitching into fists and my pulse spiking.

I shake my head and re-focus on my makeup. It’s been a long fucking week and it’s messing with my head, that’s all.

The conversation around me devolves into white noise as I tune it out and get dressed in a black lace thong, fishnet stockings, and a red corset that has been gathering dust in the back of my closet for months. That asshole who broke in thought he was intimidating me; he was just helping me make the most out of my wardrobe. Dumb fucker.

The music changes and I hear my cue. It’s only been a week since I’ve been onstage, but it feels like a lifetime ago. The last time I stepped out under these glaring, hot lights, I was blissfully unaware I was being followed. I was still sure that Don wouldn’t have the guts to do anything more than send a stupid letter just to get under my skin. I was still Dante Torres instead of Dante Moretti.

My heels click against the stage, both the lights and the music starting low and slowly building, just like the existential panic in my chest. It’s not just my last name, I’m not sure I know who I am anymore. Confident, feisty stripper, raging vigilante withbloody knuckles, bored, sexually unsatisfied Dom, dangerous, violent, unafraid…

I don’t feel like I’m any of those things now.

Just as my heart starts to race and my knees start to quake, the spotlight lands on me. The swell of the music reaches its peak and breaks into a fast, energetic rhythm. There’s one thing Don didn’t manage to quietly strip from me this week, so I start to dance.

My body moves to the rhythm automatically, as natural and simple as breathing. I don’t have to tell myself to dance, I don’t even have to consciously remember the moves, I just have to give in to the surge in my muscles that knows exactly what to do.

I shimmy and strut, turning my back to the crowd to show off the fishnets cutting a diamond pattern over my bare ass and give them the tempting jiggle they’re looking for. The whistles and cheers are as hollow to me as they’ve ever been. I spin around and my eyes move automatically to the Morettis’ usual table. Luca’s there, but he’s alone.

Annoyingly, my heart sinks, but I’m not sure why I care. Salvatore is a busy man. Just because he’s been sitting at that table with his eyes glued to me every night I’ve worked for years doesn’t mean he doesn’t have better things to do. Watching me dance was only exciting because he couldn’t have me, just like the rest of these slobbering jackals. Now I have his ring on my finger and his last name crossing out my own, where’s the thrill in watching me spin around a pole? By the time this is all sorted out, he’ll be more eager than I am to sign the divorce papers so he can go find the next flashy, new thing to amuse himself with for a while.

I dance faster, the music raging the same way my mood is, pounding with the injustice and rejection I’ve woven together in my head into some kind of beast I can bare my teeth at and snarl. My corset comes off, but I don’t toss it into the crowd, it’stoo expensive to become someone’s jerk-off rag. I toss it farther back on the stage, towards the curtains so I can grab it when I’m finished, and I spin towards the edge, towards the crowd, so I can entice them to open their wallets for me.

As always, there’s at least one idiot in the club who doesn’t know my reputation or can’t read the ‘no touching’ signs, or both. A hand reaches out and I raise my heel, ready to deliver the small amount of justice that he deserves, but before I get the chance, the hand disappears. I drop to my knees for the part of the dance where I writhe around on the stage, and my gaze cuts through the crowd to the man who tried to grab me. His eyes are wide with fear as he stumbles away with both hands raised in surrender. Huh, usually that doesn’t happen until after I’ve broken a finger or two.

And then I see him. Not as his usual table, but right there in the throng of bodies near the stage, in a royal blue suit with a dangerous scowl on his face as he watches my would-be-groper back away.

Salvatore.

SALVATORE

It’s been a long goddamn day away from my Angioletto. Leaving him asleep in my bed this morning was almost unbearable when I could think of a hundred different ways I wanted to make him moan in a sleep-rough voice. But here he is now, within touching distance but still untouchable for a few more hours of delicious fucking torture. I don’t think the spark of heat and something sweeter in his eyes when they land on me is wishful thinking, but it’s gone too fast for me to know for sure.

He arches his back and slinks across the stage on his hands and knees, drawing horny groans and cheers from the men around me. One of them clearly didn’t learn the lesson I just finished imparting to the last asshole who tried to put his handson my angel, reaching out with the clear intent to get a handful of Dante’s ass cheek.

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