Page 48 of Vicious Temptation
The last time I felt this angry?—
The last time was when Delilah died. When I raged at the hospital, the doctors, the ephemeral nature of the illness, God, whoever and whatever I could find to be angry at for taking her, for leaving me a widower without my wife and my children without a mother. I couldn’t find a singular target to be angry at, who deserved my fury, so I found anything and anyone I could pin the blame on. This feels like that, except this time, I have something more concrete. Someone.
Masseo D’Amelio. The Bratva. Targets for my rage—except exactly like last time, there’s nothing I can do about it.
There was no one I could take my rage out on when Delilah died. For over a year, I punished myself instead, living like a fucking monk, punishing myself like one, too. I worked out obsessively, ate as healthily as I could, barely drank, and didn’t so much as touch myself when I needed a release. I funneled all that rage into myself, and hid it from everyone around me. I did a good job of it, too, for the most part. Agnes, I think, could see how much pain I was in, could see that I was punishing myself with it. But she focused on my children, on keeping them from seeing it, and I’ve always been incredibly thankful for that.
Once again, there’s no way for me to express the rage I feel. I take the back roads home, driving well over the speed limit, but even then, I can’t take the risks I would have as a younger man. I have a family to take care of, to go home to. I can’t drive like a wild man, go on a bender, or pick up a gun and carve a bloody trail through everyone who dared look the other way while Bella was abused and assaulted. Even in this world, there are consequences for that. Maybe not legal ones, but worse. I won’t go to jail, if I get caught, or if the wrong people decide I’m a liability. I’ll end up sitting on a tarp while pieces of me are plucked off for hours, and then I’ll end up dead. And my family will be a casualty, too.
I’ve stayed safe in a brutal world because I don’t take sides in these kinds of conflicts. I stick to business, and keep my hands as clean as I can. I don’t get involved in the politics of the criminal underworld that my family has made their money in. I don’t care about their feuds and their wars and their marriages. And in return, I’ve never worried about coming home to find my family in danger because of the business I do.
The only absolute way to know that I’m not putting them in danger now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is to send Bella home. But I think of her this morning, curled on her side in my vast bed, her face so peaceful once she finally managed to sleep. I think of her face nearly a month ago, tear-stained and panicked, as she ran from her father’s office. And I know that as surely as I need to protect my own family, I need to protect her, too.
Her father won’t do it. No one else will. It needs to be me.
The threat is minimal, I promise myself. Hardly even worth considering. Bella was a consolation prize, Masseo had said. The event was monumental to her, traumatic, but to the Bratva, she was just a substitute. Something easily forgotten. And the only man who had a personal reason to want something from her is dead.
I still feel unsettled, though, as I park my car and hand the keys to Aldo, walking inside. I feel restless, and I consider going down to the gym for a second workout, just to ease the tension. There’s only one other way I can think of that I’d prefer to ease it, and that’s not an option for me.
It’s not even something I should be thinking of.
I hear voices from the kitchen, and set down my bag, striding quickly in that direction. Seeing Cecelia and Danny always lifts my spirits, and just the sound of their voices usually makes me feel lighter, but today, it just reminds me of how much I’m responsible for. Of what I need to protect.
Danny is reading at one end of the table. Cecelia is on a stepstool, helping Agnes make latticework for a pie crust. And I see Bella sitting across from Danny, a laptop open in front of her, as she looks at something intently on the screen.
The moment she hears my footsteps, her head snaps up, and she closes the laptop immediately. There’s a guilty expression on her face, and I frown, looking at her from the doorway.
“What were you looking at?” I ask, and she bites her lip.
Now I really want to know.
16
BELLA
My heart nearly stops in my chest when I hear Gabriel’s footsteps in the kitchen, earlier than he usually comes home, and I slam the laptop shut. Shit, is all I can think, barely keeping from blurting the word out as he looks at me from the doorway, wanting to know what I was doing.
Of course, he wants to know. I sink my teeth into my lip, wondering if there’s some way I can get out of answering. Or if I should lie, and say I was looking up something for the kids, something about an educational show I was looking into or something like that. Anything other than shopping for myself during work hours.
But I have a feeling that Gabriel will know if I lie. If he does, it will just make it worse. And we just got past my mistake of having Clara over without asking. Between that and the disturbance of my nightmares and all of the past trauma I revealed to him, I don’t know how much more understanding he has left. I think I’ve already pushed past what most men would be willing to put up with.
“Bella?” He looks at me curiously, but with a flicker of concern. I’m being weird by not answering, I know that. I’m making it worse than it is.
Reluctantly, I open the laptop back up, turning it so he can see the screen. It’s a website specializing in photography equipment, some of the best that can be had. “I’m sorry for looking at it while I was working,” I apologize quickly. “I know I shouldn’t have. But I wasn’t really doing anything, so I thought?—”
“It’s fine,” Gabriel says, almost offhandedly, as he walks over and inclines his head to look at the screen. “This looks like good equipment,” he says, and I flush. I can only imagine what he’s thinking—probably how foolish it is for me to even think about spending that kind of money on something that’s nothing but a hobby.
“It is,” I say hesitantly. “But I was just looking. I wasn’t planning on buying it.”
He looks at me narrowly, his voice lowering. Danny isn’t going to pay attention to this conversation, but I get the impression that he’s keeping it somewhat quiet from Cecelia, and maybe Agnes. “Does your father give you an allowance, Bella?”
My stomach tightens. Clara and I talked about this moment, the one where I might try to leverage my job with Gabriel into something else, into the possibility of independence. But I’m not ready for that yet. I’m so far from ready.
But I also can’t lie to Gabriel. I sense that that’s part of what this entire thing is balanced on—the idea that I might come with baggage. I might not be able to be open with him about everything, but I won’t actually lie to him.
“No,” I admit quietly, matching my tone to his. “He used to. Before I moved in here. But he hasn’t added anything to my card since. So I assume?—”
“That since I’m providing everything for you, he doesn’t think he needs to do the same.” Gabriel’s tone is clipped, and I feel my cheeks flush as I close the laptop sharply again.