AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My chest tightens with the knowledge that she could be the one. The one that I never thought would appear amongst the sea of women who come in and out of my life. The woman who’s very being causes my body to ignite with desire, at the same time she manages to enthrall me with her wit, her resourcefulness and even that redheaded temper of hers.
Isabella doesn’t want a relationship with a man like me. She sees me for exactly the type of man that I am. Her body wants what it wants, though, and is unable to resist the temptations of sin. But whether she wants a relationship or not, I’m not about to let her go.
Chapter12
Isabella
The overhead speakerchimes with the sound of a doorbell. Lorenzo sits up in bed. “Stay here,” he says, kissing my lips with a chaste kiss before sliding out of bed and into his dress pants.
The intricacies of his tattoos run from the bottom of his hairline, all the way down his back and across his broad shoulders. I study the scrolls but they are in Italian and intertwined so tightly that it’s hard for me to discern the words. I vow to read the story they tell another time as he slides into his shirt and walks out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
Lorenzo walks back into the bedroom a moment later, smirking as he places my clothes and purse on the foot of the bed. “Always best to hide the evidence,” he says, before leaving again and closing the door behind him.
I grab my purse, power up my phone, and load the pictures of Dominic and Emelia to its photo gallery from the gold pin that was attached to my shirt.
Each and every one show them fairly close-up, but the ones I envisioned would work are more than perfect. Emelia looks distressed, truly distraught if that’s the emotion someone is looking for. To others it probably just plays to perhaps a dislike for the particular dress she’s holding.
But to the De Rosa family, it will appear the Larussios have taken her, just like they wanted. I smile and crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my breasts, pleased with the performance that Emelia gave. I absently scroll through the headlines of late, catching up to the competition who are sure to want the prints I have and willing to pay a hefty price.
For now, I’ll keep them to myself. Larry may not have been in cahoots with the Larussios and may have given them my personal information, but I haven’t heard one word from him since sending him my letter.
Just another reason not to trust men…
I power down my phone and toss it on his side of the bed, snuggling back into the luxurious coverings. Lorenzo is probably dealing with some of the aftermath from this morning. Certainly, even in his position, the investigation with the police won’t end with only one conversation in the parking lot. The sight of all that blood and Lorenzo’s voice telling me not to look. The way he protected me from men who could have kidnapped me, raped, or tortured the information that they wanted out of me and dumped me into the nearest concrete pond. But the eyes and dark beating heart of the man who protected me are the last things I think about before drifting away.
A gentle shake to my shoulders rouses me from a sound sleep. I look up through hazy eyes. “Hi, I must have gone back to sleep,” I say groggily.
He smirks. “It sounded like a great dream. Lots of little pants and moans.” He places my hand over his dress pants so I can feel the hardened state of his cock.
My eyes roll, but it’s hard not to laugh. “It was a pretty great dream,” I tell him, unable to control a smile.
He slides into bed fully clothed except for socks and pulls me to him. “My cousins were here. I went over what happened and told them that you would be staying with me.”
I prop up on my elbow. “They must hate me after the pictures that I printed of Dominic and Emelia, and that I intended to print from the funeral.”
Lorenzo strokes a finger down the side of my cheek. “They weren’t pleased, but what matters is that you didn’t print the story. They also know that you intended to help us with the story today, no matter the reason. The story you write today, the images you capture along with the note we send to De Rosa will undoubtedly get back to the other families. It is intended to.”
I nuzzle into his chest. “I didn’t print the story because you showed up at my house and took it. Surely, they won’t think any better of me when they find out that it was you who stopped me and not some sudden change of heart on my part.”
His arm tightens around me. “I’d like to think you would have stopped yourself from printing the story with the roses without my intervention, but perhaps we’ll never know that. The need for payback sometimes far outweighs rational thought.”
“If it helps at all, I was conflicted. All the thoughts of the families getting together, keeping things secret and sacred kept swirling through my mind as I wrote it. All my younger memories of the families taking care of us. Those were good memories.”
“But your father going to prison for a Larussio changed that?” he asks.
His arm wraps around me tighter, protectively, making me feel safe enough to try to share some of what I feel. “It doesn’t matter which crime family really. All of them bother me. I have this deep-seated anger that my father chose the Larussios over me. It’s not you, your family, or the De Rosas really; it’s just the fact that it wasn’t me and my mother when she was alive that he chose. She was never good enough to be faithful to, and I was not important enough for him to stand up for.”
Lorenzo kisses my forehead. “I don’t know what living with your father was like. Talking with my uncles, they all knew what a womanizer he was, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love you with all of his heart. I know this much, your father telling you the truth would have changed how you felt about the Larussios. Give him a chance to tell you the entire story one day.”
I glance up at him. “Two more years, then he’s done.”
“Did you research Marco?”
I nod. “He’s an old man now, like my father. He was the one that my father was supposed to get close to in order to get information for your family?”
Lorenzo nods. “And your father did exactly as he was asked. Only they found out. Fortunately for him, the cop on their payroll handled things before the soldiers could get their hands on him. The De Rosas were furious. The cop planted drugs on him and arrested him for dealing, which comes with a hefty sentence in the old country. The man thought he could get him to talk and flip on the Larussios without killing him.
“He was wrong, but he probably saved your dad’s life by arresting him, because if the De Rosas had gotten to him first…” He shrugs. “My older cousins laughed when they were telling me this. They said, ‘You don’t know Lucas Pellegrini like we do. He was never going to rat us out, especially to the policia, and he never did.’”
