Page 21 of Velvet Cruelty

Chapter Four

Adriano Rossi

Calm follows the death of the bodyguard. The girl lies passed out on the floor, while Doc and I set up the room and Basher methodically mops up brain splatter. He won’t look at me. I don’t care. It was the right decision. Whatever Basher thought was happening, it isn’t. The girl doesn’t belong to him, and she never will. I’ve done him a favor.

“Where the fuck did we get this ring light?” Doc asks, adjusting the tripod.

Ell looks up from his seat by the fire. “Why?”

“Because it’s for teen girls who do makeup videos.”

“That doesn’t mean it won’t work.”

Doc glares at him. “Would it kill you to help us?”

“You’ve got everything under control.”

“You’re a lazy fuck, Morelli.”

Ell sits in a chair by the fire doing clean-up of his own: contacting our NYPD rats, confirming no one tied us to what happened at the cathedral. But Doc knows that. He just likes to take swipes.

The pearls on the girl’s wedding dress and the diamonds in her hair keep catching the light. Fucking ridiculous, her getting married. She couldn’t get through a sleepover without calling her whore of a stepmother to take her home. I don’t want to look at her, but she keeps catching the light too—milk-pale skin and long lashes. She sets my blood boiling when usually it moves like mud. I want her gone. Wrapped in the same plastic sheet as Cooper and thrown into the freezing Atlantic.

“Zia?” She shifts on the floor, swaying herself up onto her palms. “Zia?”

Her voice is so soft. Fluttery. I turn away from her. “Girl’s awake.”

Ell stands. “Good. Miss Whitehall, how are you feeling?”

She doesn’t answer. Her gaze falls on Cooper’s body and the color drains from her face. Doc abandons the tripod and bounces over to her. “Are you gonna puke? Because your only options are down your dress or on your former bodyguard.”

Her delicate throat contracts. “Could I please have some water?”

“Of course.” Eli gestures to Basher. “Bobby, get Miss Whitehall some water.”

Basher heads to the wooden bar and returns with a crystal tumbler full of water. She could smash it and try to cut us, or slash her wrists, but all the little girl does is sip her drink. She’s only half-finished before Morelli takes the tumbler from her. She leaves a red lipstick mark on the rim. The sight of it makes my cock ache.

“Now, Miss Whitehall, we must discuss business.”

“W-What kind of business?”

Ell raises her glass, drinking from the place her lips stained. The girl’s face goes as red as her lipstick. Typical. Eli Morelli’s need to know he can seduce any woman in his path is pathologic. But it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t belong to him, either. I clear my throat.

Ell glances at me, amused. “Forgive me. We have business with Zachery Parker. Business you will help us with.”

Her eyes are so clear you can read them like a book—all fear and guilt and hope. It was like that when she danced too, you could feel her feelings. Her joy, her sorrow.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Take off your dress.”

The room fills with a silence cold enough to cut skin.

“Please,” she whispers. “Please, Mr. Morelli?”

Ell holds out the tumbler. “Bobby?”

Basher steps forward to take the glass. His face is blank and I’m glad. If he looked the way he did before, I’d force him to do the honors again. But maybe he’d like that. He usually does, even if he won’t admit it.

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