Page 2 of The Killer Cupcake
And the days blurred into a sunlit purgatory.
No news. No contact. No way out.No phone!
The isolation coiled tighter around her, thick as the forested cliffsides outside their villa. She felt it now—the same disorientation that had once hollowed him out.
What was the plan? There had to be a plan. Right?
She needed to call home. Tell Debbie to talk to Matteo. Together, they had to find a way to save the Wolf. To save her man. It was his turn for rescue.
She closed her eyes and exhaled.
Typically, she would not sunbathe on the upper deck—she was naturally bronzed by the sun and gifted with melanin by her ancestors. She hated the heat. Hated to sweat or have her hair frizz from the salt of the sea. The fireball in the sky reminded her of a life entirely different. Those sweltering days she'd spent down in the Delta on the Jensen farm, once known as the Cloverfield Plantation. Even working in the washrooms instead of the fields picking cotton or peas, she'd suffered from heat strokes. Sometimes the labor was so hard she could barely drag herself inside Big Mama's cool house and drop into bed.
It was a long time ago. Thirty-one years since she'd first met Carmelo when she was seventeen and he was nineteen—two kids from different worlds who thought loving each other was the only challenge they faced. Boy, were they wrong.
A time lost to her now, buried beneath recent memories of pain and suffering. All the people she had loved and who loved her were gone, except for her beautiful daughter and the family she, Debbie, and Brother had made.
Were the Freemans cursed?
The thought followed her like a shadow. There had been a time—oh, how clearly, she remembered—when Carmelo hadbelieved both their Dads were cursed, and had passed it down to them. But curses could be broken. And after decades of longing, she had finally surrendered to the truth her heart had always known.
She had been his wife from the very start.
No curse, no shadow, no force in this world could steal the future she would build with him.
As the yacht swayed gently beneath her, Nino's laughter wrapping around her like sunlight, she let sleep pull her under—dreaming, at last, of tomorrow, and the end of curses.
Carmelo ascendedthe short staircase to the yacht's upper deck, where a plush lounge area opened onto the breathtaking panoramic view of Lac Tremblant. The vast, glacial lake spread before him, deep and impossibly blue, cradled between mountain ridges like a sapphire held by ancient hands.
This place was a haven for the world's elite—millionaires carving fresh powder on skis during Quebec's brutal winters, oligarchs basking in luxury during the fleeting summer months. As sunlight danced upon the pristine waters, Carmelo's mind drifted back to his twenty-eighth year, to the winding coastal roads between Sorrento and the Amalfi, and that fateful meeting with Don Tommasino Battaglia after he had accomplished his ultimate revenge. His father's death.
It was 1957. The Castellamare medallion had burned in his pocket then; Mama Stewart’s last words were hard in his ear, her prophecy now visited upon him in her death. Its weight was heavier than the Beretta gifted to him by Lucky Luciano in Naples. His heart had pounded—not from fear, but from the heady anticipation of a prince about to seize his rightfulthrone. That journey had irrevocably altered his course, more profoundly than discovering his mother's suicide or firing the bullet that sent his father backward out of his chair.
He had justified it all—claimed he acted for his brothers, for the Family, for the sacred crown of la cosa nostra. But as he stood now, decades later, aboard this luxurious yacht, wealthier than his father could have dreamed, he could finally admit the raw truth: When he'd boarded that plane to Italy after his older brother was forced into joining the Vietnam War, when he'd knelt to kiss Don Tommasino's ring, he'd done it for one reason only—power. Pure, unadulterated power, to take back what was rightfully his. To one day destroy his father’s throne.
Of course, he needed power for her.
By then, she'd already torn his heart out. When the truth exploded between them, she rejected his fairytale love and refused to play her part. Worse—she agreed to marry another man, reducing their love to some bastardized half-lie.
That betrayal ignited something monstrous in him. The rage forced casualties in both their lives. The desperate, clawing need to have her believe him, forgive him, give him peace ate away at his soul. The Wolf was born in that fire.
(She would tell it differently, of course. She always did.)
She had been his last tether to the man he'd hoped to become. If he couldn't be her hero, he'd transform into something far more potent—a force she couldn't look away from, couldn't pretend didn't exist, couldn't deny. And take her back as his wife without her consent.
He approached.
Kathy lay peacefully on the wide circular sofa that faced the lake's most spectacular vista—multiple bays and seven islands stretching toward the horizon, green, like scattered emeralds. She hadn't aged, not really. Silver threads of grey wove through her dark hair like moonlight, and tiny crow's feet appeared atthe corners of her eyes when she laughed, but she remained as beautiful today as she had been every single day they'd spent together across the decades.
Carmelo eased closer, slowly, drinking in the sight of her relaxed form. He settled onto the plush sofa beside her, the cushions wide enough for them both yet somehow never wide enough to contain the magnitude of what pulsed between them. When he pulled her against him, feeling her curves melt into his chest, a wave of relief crashed over him so powerful it nearly undid him. He pressed his lips to her shoulder and murmured her name like a prayer.
Kathy…
His mother had taken her own life. Eight months after that trauma, he'd seen Kathy again—been able to hold her, to confess only fragments of his truth. Many nights across many years, he'd wished he could return to that reunion and bare his soul completely. He wished he hadn't told the one lie that had driven him from her heart, creating the perfect opening for another man to slip in and claim what should have been his forever. To touch her. To know her physically and spiritually. To ease into her heart in place of him was unforgivable. He hated Ely's ghost. He could never measure up to the memory of a war hero. He hated her. He hated himself most of all.
He should have run the night he put that bullet in his father. Should have fled straight to Mississippi, swept her up, and disappeared into whatever life they could have built together. A few years later, she had betrayed him, yes—and he had punished her for it. Oh, yes. But she was never a victim. She was an Elliott woman, fierce and strong, and unbreakable. She was Henry Freeman's daughter, tough and made from grit like her Big Mama. He learned that, too.
Now, in what should have been the happiest time of their lives, he'd told another unforgivable lie. Tonight, he would haveto confess and risk suffering the same devastating loss he'd endured years ago when her trust had shattered like crystal in his hands.
