Page 111 of Beautiful Desire

He laughs briefly before stopping himself.

“I’m sorry, but I still have no clue who you’re talking about,” he says nonchalantly.

Gritting my teeth, I seethe into the receiver, “Mydaughter, stronzo.”

My chest heaves up and down as my free hand balls into a fist. No one can make me as angry as my dear, oldcousincan. Not only is he making me angry, but he’s also testing my patience.

He gasps into the phone in mock surprise. “You have a daughter? And you don’t know where she is? My, my, thatisa problem.”

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath, to try to calm myself so I don’t do something stupid like throw my damn phone at the wall. Then I speak quietly.

“Where. Is. She?”

“Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch. She’s safe. Sheiswith family, after all. I would never hurt an innocent little baby.”

The sadistic tone of his voice sends a chill up my spine before I breathe a sigh of relief, since he’s admitted to having her and not hurting her.

“That is, unless you give me a reason to by not doing what I want.”

“You bastard—” I stop myself before I get carried away. Speaking through clenched teeth, I try again. “Whatdoyou want?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me now, cugino. It doesn’t suit you. Same thing I wanted the last time we spoke in your office. I’ll text you a time and location. And if you don’t show up, your daughter might just suffer the same fate as your dear old friend.” He laughs into the phone before the line goes dead.

Gripping the cellphone in my hand with all my strength, I feel like it’s going to break. But I can’t do that. I need it for Nero to contact me on so I can get Lily back. Instead, I reach for the nearest thing to me and launch it at the wall.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!” I scream as anger takes over my body as I throw the glass object at the wall.

I’m so worked up, you’d think I was getting ready to take part in an MMA cage fight.

“Feel better?” Fabi says, scaring the shit out of me. I had forgotten he was even here.

“Not even a little bit,” I tell him, my chest heaving as I breathe heavily.

“I figured. Now are you going to tell Gia that you broke my Father’s Day gift she bought me, or am I? I vote you.”

“Shit, man. I’m sorry. I’ll tell her and replace whatever it was that I broke.” Turning to look at him, I see the small smirk on his face. “You’re a real asshole, you know that?”

He chuckles. “So I’ve been told. But that really was a Father’s Day gift from my wife. Don’t stress about it too much. I’ve already had to replace it three times.”

At that, we both laugh.

“Was it a scotch glass?” I ask, realizing I didn’t even look at it before it shattered against the wall.

Nodding his head, he confirms, “Crystal. Now, what did that asshat have to say?”

Blowing out a puff of air, I answer, “He wants me to do the one thing I told him I would never do.”

“Which is?”

I turn my head so I’m looking directly at him. “To kill you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” he says, unfazed, as if hearing someone wants to kill him is an everyday occurrence. Which, I guess for him, it is.

“Only one of you can survive, and I won’t make the same mistake twice. I would spend as much time as you can with Gia and Nico now, because Iwillbe getting my daughter back. No matter what.”

The smile he was just sporting seconds ago is wiped off his face, and he is now staring daggers at me. Holding my ground, I maintain eye contact with him, letting him know I won’t be backing down while praying I didn’t just make the wrong decision.

CHAPTER33

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