AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gabriel sighs as the car pulls off the main road and stops at the huge metal gate to Dante’s estate, the one that shut on me when I was attempting my getaway before.
“I go there for business, Tempest. We’ve been through this.”
“Alistair doesn’t.”
The conversation pauses while Alistair shows his ID to the guards at the gate, who wave us through.
“What I do or don’t do in my private life is…”
Alistair trails off when he spots the shit-eating grin on my face in the backseat. My smile widens as I smack my lips and rub my stomach happily.
“Num-num-num! I’ll take another helping of that delicious irony with a side of double standards, please!”
When the car stops, Gabriel helps me out, and both of them offer me an arm as I teeter my way up the steps to Dante’s sprawling mansion. I haven’t worn spike heels since I was a teenager, and it shows. Hope my new fiancé wasn’t expecting grace and elegance. After tonight, he won’t be seeing me in anything but boots or sneakers.
We’re ushered from the front foyer of the home down a gilded hallway and into a huge, stunning ballroom. Aballroom. I mean, I didn’t exactly grow up poor, and my brothers are killing it, but this?
This is next-level. It also feels utterly ridiculous to be putting this much effort into “celebrating” what is clearly a steaming pile of bullshit. Between the string quartet and waiters passing around trays of champagne to what must be over two hundred guests, it feels like I just walked into Jay Gatsby’s house, complete with a who’s-who guest list of gangsters.
Even I recognize some of the dangerous and powerful faces milling around the party. Michael Genovisi, head of the Scaliami mafia family, is a client of Alistair’s, and when we walk in, he makes a point of nodding at my brother. As I scan the room, my gaze lingers on a weirdly familiar-looking pretty blonde girl with a look somewhere between boredom and fear on her face.
“Eloise LeBlanc,” Gabriel murmurs under his breath. “You might have seen her at the office. Her father, André, uses us for his US-based legal needs. She’s been in with him a couple of times.”
My gaze wanders back to Eloise, and I frown when a handsome but malicious looking Italian man with dark hair and a grimace on his face moves close to her. Instantly, her whole body tenses and she recoils. Then his hand comes up to wrap around the back of her neck roughly, turning her face even paler as he leans close to snarl something in her ear.
When I glance at Alistair to ask who the hell that creep is, I freeze. My brother’s face is darkened and tense, a lethal look in his gaze as it stabs across the room to the pair.
“Massimo Carveli,” Gabriel mutters, his eyes darting toward Alistair. Our brother’s jaw is clenched like iron, with a vein popping out on his forehead. “Rumored to have killed his father last year to take over the Carveli throne.” Gabriel’s face sours. “He’s Eloise’s husband.”
My stomach clenches as I see him lean closer to the poor woman, hissing something into her ear that makes her flinch. His hand visibly tightens on the back of her neck.
“He’s hurting?—”
“Tempest.”
I glance at Gabriel, who soberly shakes his head side to side. “Leave it. Seriously. Massimo is a fucking lunatic.”
“But he’s?—”
I turn toward Alistair, blinking in surprise when I see him already storming away to the bar at the side of the ballroom with plodding, furious steps.
“Okay, what’s his?—”
“Tempest.”
I turn back to Gabriel, who shakes his head again. “Just…leave it. Trust me.”
Suddenly, I shiver as the scent of clean linen and spice invades my senses. My back straightens, a tingle sliding over my skin as the dark, malevolent energy of him billows over me like a poisonous black cloud.
I turn, and my heart skips as my eyes lock with his.
Dante.
He completely ignores me as he glances at my brother.
“Gabriel.”
“Dante,” Gabriel mutters back through clenched teeth.
