Blood Always

31

*** I spent the next two days entrenched in acquiring and analyzing security footage to track down Sal. It was the perfect distraction from the chaos of the wedding. Mom was popping Xanax nightly like they were Skittles and racing around each day like a meth-head on a binge, setting up last-minute wedding details and avoiding planning pitfalls. She’d survive, but I still felt a twinge of guilt that such an enormous burden had fallen on her shoulders. Not enough to step in and relieve some of the workload, apparently, but guilty enough to stay out of her path. I was pretty certain she preferred it that way. That was one of the few ways we were alike. We were both control freaks when it came to what mattered most to us. I refused to leave the scouring of video footage to anyone else, and she would never be comfortable trusting anyone with the finer details of event planning. Every hour or so, I would take a break to pack up my apartment. Matteo had offered to send movers to do all the work, but I preferred to pack my own boxes and simply leave the heavy lifting to the hired help. We didn’t see each other during those couple of days. He had his hands full with my mother since the reception would take place at his home. Despite the last-minute invitation, over eight hundred guests had RSVPed for the after party. Between Matteo and my mother, all necessary arrangements had been made—parking attendants, caterers, rental equipment, flowers and décor, staff for serving and clean up—the list went on and on. When my alarm went off early Wednesday morning, I nearly threw my phone across the room in my haste to make it go away. Had it not been for the movers coming bright and early, I would have rolled back over and passed out. Long days and short nights were catching up with me. Instead, I forced myself from bed and threw on leggings and an Under Armor workout tank I’d set out for the day. Two cups of coffee later, and I was ready to relocate my life to the home of my future husband and his boss, one of the most brutal, deranged made men in history. I had completely ignored the existence of Angelo Sartori until that morning. I’d had too many other things to think about. But if I was honest with myself, I could admit that my avoidance was primarily owed to fear. Most men didn’t scare me, but Angelo wasn’t any ordinary man. He was evil incarnate. Saying he was the Devil would imply at some point the man had been an angel and simply fallen from grace. That was too kind for Angelo. He was rotten to the core. What did that say about men like Matteo who followed his rule? The answer left an acidic tang in my mouth that made me want to rinse and spit. That was the other reason I’d been so hesitant to contemplate my new housemate. A growing part of me wanted to like Matteo. Wanted to let him inside my walls and welcome the opportunity to not defend my borders alone. But how did I reconcile the Matteo I’d started to know with a man who would take orders from a monster? A monster who had beheaded his own wife when he suspected her of desiring other men—not even having an affair, just the paranoid delusions of a madman. Was this something he did under the cover of night in a fit of jealous rage? Nope. He’d gathered his men at the very house I’d be living in, calmly explained her crimes, then used an axe to sever her head and left it on the back porch as a lesson in treachery. Our families may not have been close, but word gets around about something so heinous. Especially when it wasn’t the first time he’d responded in a grossly irrational manner. Angelo Sartori was a lunatic. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I told Matteo I’d walk if Sartori so much as looked at me funny. I’d keep a bag ready, my gun on me, and the wall to my back. Cozy, huh? For that reason alone, I had packed a week’s worth of clothes along with my essentials so that I could stay at my apartment until the bitter end. Matteo didn’t know this, but he’d figure it out soon enough. It took the movers all of an hour to load up my life’s belongings, sans furniture. I decided it would be best to sell my apartment furnished rather than try to cram my stuff into his place. I wasn’t the type to grow attached to material possessions, so I was good to sluff the extra like an old skin. It was a three-hour commute from Manhattan to his home in the Hamptons. Had Matteo not owned an apartment in the city, I would have never agreed to move so far away. Most of my work could be done remotely, but I still wasn’t crazy about being so far removed from the action. Once the movers and I were allowed through the gated entry, Matteo met us at the front door in joggers and a T-shirt. It was the first time I’d seen him dressed so casually, if you didn’t count our midnight Facetime session. He looked like an i********: model—suave and fashionably casual—but instead of a façade, his looks were purely functional. Muscles for fighting rather than photographs, which was infinitely more attractive. He walked to my car, opening the driver’s door for me. “Welcome home,” he murmured, his attention snagged by my breasts squeezed into a sports bra I should have retired a cup size ago. “Eyes up here, tiger. We’ve got company, remember?” His gaze was so penetrating, my skin blossomed into goosebumps. “Gentlemen,” he called to the movers, not taking his eyes from me. “Let me show you around.” He led us inside, pointing out the kitchen and a room he’d repurposed as an office for me. Then we made our way to the bedroom. Our bedroom. I’d never in my life regularly shared a bed with anyone. Not one of my sisters. Not a man. We’d had our own rooms growing up, and I’d never found anyone I liked enough to share more than a night of s*x. I could insist on having my own room, but I was willing to see where things led before I fought that battle. My place in New York was spacious for the city, but Matteo’s bedroom put mine to shame. “It’s huge,” I blurted, forgetting momentarily that we weren’t alone. When I glanced over at the movers, both men stared at me with furrowed brows. “Mail order bride,” I said with a shrug. Their eyes bulged, and I just managed to keep in the laugh that was desperate to claw its way out. The men nodded, fleeing the room and muttering about getting started. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?” Matteo leaned against the door frame, watching me wander into the room and take in the enormous vaulted ceilings, marble fireplace, and solid wall of mirrors framing the bed. Everything was monochromatic in the exact same shade of cream. The entire house was much more Cape-Cod-Chic that I would have expected of him, but it suited the area. “Shiplap on the ceilings, an upholstered headboard, and faux fur ornamental chairs? Fashionable, but not exactly what I had expected.”