Page 8 of Nico (Belles & Mobsters 2)

I gripped my fingers around my glass of water but was scared to pick it up and spill it. The feeling of loneliness I felt on the day I buried my husband came back. Despite our disagreements, I missed having someone I could talk to. We were friends long before we became lovers.Death comes in three, they said. I tended to believe it might have been a true superstition. My grandmother passed away three years ago, my father followed the year after, and William the year after him.

Now, I felt more alone amongst crowds of people than when I was alone. Yes, the fear kept me back too, but so did the sense of being unable to connect with others.

“Actually, I’m sorry.” I stood up abruptly, grabbing my purse. I couldn’t bear sitting here during lunch, pretending everything was fine when my life has been slowly but consistently falling apart. I couldn’t stay around this mobster and keep my cool for much longer. “I just remembered I have to be somewhere. Um… for the girls.”

“What?” Angie’s eyes stared at me in shock. “You said your mother-in-law would take the twins for the afternoon and you are free. I took the rest of the afternoon off.”

I shook my head, glancing between three of them, and focusing on Angie as I told her, “I’m really sorry, Angie. Next time.”

Without a backward glance, I rushed through the restaurant. I heard Angie call out to me, but I didn’t stop. She wouldn’t come after me. I knew her well enough to be sure of it.

ChapterThree

NICO

Iwatched her rush out of the restaurant, leaving us all behind. I couldn’t remember the last time a woman left without a backward glance at me... at least not willingly. Usually, they had to be pushed out when I was done with them.

Bianca! Beautiful name, and it fit her perfectly. Hell, might as well have named her Snow White. She’d fit the part to a tee. Her face was pale as snow and her ruby red lips and dark hair along with those eyes were a stark contrast against her complexion. Beautiful indeed!

I wanted her. And what I want, I always get. I gave her a free pass the first time I spotted her, when I didn’t know who she was. Now, the circumstances have changed. I’d use her to extract my revenge, fuck her, and then ensure she was taken care of for the rest of her life. It was an ideal scenario.

In my experience, falling in love tended to be a clusterfuck. All you had to do was look at Luciano who had been hunting for his wife for years and was in Italy right now collecting her.

My parents’ marriage taught me that marrying for love could destroy you. My father was a weak prick that cost my sister her life. While my mother spiraled out of control after her death, she wasn’t much better beforehand. My father’s infidelities and skirt chasing, very much like Benito King’s, caused havoc in her previously perfect life. She was the only daughter of the famous Cassidy real estate tycoon. My father was a greedy bastard that liked to prey on wealthy and beautiful women. Unfortunately, my mother fell for it without seeing his true colors until it was way too late. Marriages in our world were for life. Nicoletta, my sister, paid the ultimate price. Bianca Carter was the first piece of the puzzle in avenging her death.

I sensed fear rolling off her when Angie told her my name. Fear mixed with desperation. Despite her composure, Bianca wasn’t good at hiding her feelings. I wondered how much she knew about the mafia or what her husband had done.

Did she know who I was? Usually, women knew the Morrelli's vast real estate portfolio and flocked for the wealth we represented. My legitimate business and wealth kept me out of the news and off the radar. I have tripled the real estate portfolio and built an information technology company that I used in both my legal and illegal activities. The latter was what led me to Bianca.

When I laid the trap for her husband, it seemed William Carter and his wife knew nothing of the mafia. Could I have been wrong? The way she watched me with a guarded expression made me believe her fear was connected to my underworld activities. Although I struggled to comprehend how she would ever know. She wasn’t part of any of it and had very little contact with her mother. Yet if Bianca knew more than I suspected, it would certainly explain her fear.

She didn’t seem like a woman that would have been eager to jump into underworld activities. But my sixth sense warned me to keep my guard up because there was something else going on with this woman. And I have learned to trust my instincts. It was what kept me alive in the underworld and made me a worthy opponent in all my businesses, legitimate and illegitimate.

“Shouldn’t you go after your friend?” I asked Angie. A true friend would have left us behind and ensured her friend was alright. It told me those two were not close friends.

“Oh, I’ve known Bianca since we were kids,” she brushed it off. “When she doesn’t want to be bothered, she shuts off the entire world. There could be a new world war on her front step and she’d still insist on being left alone.”

Definitely not close friends. Just as well, because I didn’t particularly like Angie Hartman.

“Does Bianca have a last name?” I asked her, though I knew it. In the past three years, I have learned all there was about Bianca and her life.

“Bianca Carter,” she replied, slightly reluctant.

William Carter.He was the only man that dared to steal from me and got away with it. Well, technically he didn’t get away with it. Death found him, but he certainly never paid the money back. And with interest, he now owed me millions. Better yet, his widow did.

The trap I laid out for Bianca’s husband worked out better than I could have ever hoped for. It was my way to get to Bianca Carter, to make her husband indebted to me. And now, the debt was hers, and there was only one way to settle it. She’d be my revenge.

Mine to own.

“Bianca swore off dating,” Angie continued on, the purr insinuating I had no chance with her friend, but she herself was more than willing. The way she looked between Gabito and I told me she wouldn’t be opposed to both of us fucking her.

No way in hell. I would never be even remotely interested in Angie. She was a misguided young woman that was after money and status. She was smart, but none of that would help her in her conquest of the men she was after. Most of those men were married or had arrangements with other women from our social circles. It ensured they didn’t get wrapped up with gold diggers.

But Bianca Carter on the other hand.

Yes, I would be interested. Not to share but to own. My eyes traveled across the restaurant. The woman was gone, not a trace of her, except for a light scent of her lingering perfume of lilacs. She disappeared as quickly as she entered my life.

Bianca Carter would be mine. To own. To possess. To destroy.

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