Page 22 of The Price of Power
I tried my hardest to keep the fear out of my voice, but there was no way I could swallow down all of it. The men were silent for a moment, their eyes looking far more cold and calculating now that I thought about it. After giving me a second to sweat, the lead man nodded to his associates.
“Yeah, we can step outside and give you a moment alone,” he said. “But we’ll be just outside the door.”
So don’t try anything stupid.
The unspoken threat hung in the air between us.
Shit. How the hell had I missed the lethal sharpness in his voice? Had it been there the whole time?
Somehow, I managed to keep a tight smile plastered across my face until the second they closed the door behind them. I gripped my phone tight, spun around, and dialed my brother.
Just like before, it went straight to voicemail.
“Theo, you bastard,” I hissed violently into the mic. “You need to call me back right now and tell me that you didn’t do what I think you did. I mean, you’ve done some stupid stuff in your life, but this…this is next-level shit.”
So reckless that if it turned out to be true, the mob wouldn’t have to break his knee caps. I’d do it to him myself.
“Tell me this Mr. D’Angelo you flew me out here to meet with isn’t the one I’m reading about online. Tell me he’s not the Mr. D’Angelo, Theo!”
Just the thought was enough to make me unsteady. My heart started to pound, and my breathing increased.
“I don’t care about the money or the business anymore. I don’t even care if we all have to spend the rest of our lives in jail for fraud. Please just tell me you didn’t put our whole family’s life in danger by borrowing money from the goddamn mob.”
“Sorry, Liv,” a deep, familiar voice behind me echoed through the empty room.
Apparently, somewhere along the line I’d stopped whispering into the phone and my shouting had drowned out the sound of the door. I jumped at the surprise as I spun back around.
My jaw fell open. The phone, still mid-call, fell from my hand and clattered against the floor. I could barely breathe from the shock.
Standing in the doorway, filling up all the space, was Gabriel—the man who had shattered my world last night. The one who had taken me by the hand and led me to depths of both pleasure and shame I didn’t know were possible. The one I’d run like hell from when I couldn’t face what I’d done.
He stepped closer, stopping at the opposite edge of the table, his three thugs standing guard behind him, and said, “But that’s exactly what your brother has done.”
Chapter Six
OLIVIA
This couldn’t be happening. I refused to believe it.
For a second, I was even able to convince myself it might be a dream. A horrible nightmare, sure. Even worse than the recurring one I had about being back in school and showing up naked to all my finals. But a dream nonetheless.
There was no way that life could be this cruel.
But who was I kidding? Of course, it could.
“Gabriel.”
Somehow, just saying his name was enough to bring the reality of the situation crashing down on me. Suddenly, I had to grab onto the side of the table just to keep myself upright.
The man I’d given myself over to last night was a mobster?
This was exactly the kind of karmic retribution I deserved for daring to step out of my shell and indulging in a single night of unbound hedonism. The only thing left was for God himself to step in and strike me down with a lightning bolt.
Honestly, I was starting to think I’d prefer that outcome. It might have been dramatic, but at least a death like that would be quick and relatively humiliation-free.
The silence in the room stretched on for a long moment. Long enough that even the three men standing behind Gabriel—men I couldn’t believe I’d ever mistaken for lawyers—started to shift on their feet.
After another couple of seconds ticked by, Silvestri asked, “Do you know this lady, boss?”