Shattered Dreams (Boys of Bellerose, #3)(27)
Shaking my head, I forced myself to focus on his face, lest I give him an indication of how much he physically affected me.
Not that he wasn’t pretty much well aware at this point.
“What’s up?” he said, seemingly calmer than he’d been when he stormed off. “Rhett said it was an emergency.”
Vee straightened on the couch, smoothing her pants down with her hands in a nervous gesture. “I thought it was time to give you all the details about what happened with my family and why we all almost got blown up.”
Angelo reached over and grasped her hand once more, squeezing it briefly, and she appeared to relax. “I want to start by saying sorry. I was born into the mafia. It’s the only life I’ve ever known, and I love many aspects of it, but lately the push and pull between families trying to rise to the top has left a bad taste in my mouth.”
She met Angelo’s gaze briefly, before letting out a deep breath. “I guess it really started when I was forced to marry A. Thank God he’s nothing like the rest of the family and accepted that this could only ever be a marriage in name. Never for real. The problem is, though, that females have one role to play in this world: Produce an heir. Male first and then whatever after that. No one really cares.”
“The more males, the better,” Angelo confirmed.
Vee nodded. “Correct. Now, it’s kind of hard to produce an heir when you don’t have hetero sex. So Angelo and I lied, saying I’m infertile, which resulted in my father trying to force me to see every specialist in the world. The pressure grew more intense as time went on, and we even discussed possibly just getting me pregnant once and hoping for a boy, but A…”
Angelo shook his head. “I wasn’t quite ready to make that choice.”
His gaze met mine, and fuck if fire didn’t burn in those dark depths. I’d have paid very good money to know what he was thinking in that second, but another part of me wasn’t sure I could handle it.
“Then Billie happened,” Vee said, and there was no anger in her voice. “Angelo supposedly got her pregnant and I thought that finally I’d be off the hook. As long as an heir was produced for Giovanni, then we should be in the clear, but apparently my father had other plans. He wants an Altissimo to carry the bloodline or some bullshit like that.”
She swallowed roughly, her eyes shiny. “I overheard a conversation where he admitted to joining forces with the Wilsons to take out the Riccis. He wants Altissimo to take over the syndicate Giovanni currently rules, and he won’t stand for anyone less than an Altissimo to take it. Even if it’s my husband’s child, that didn’t matter. It needed to be mine. He told his acquaintance that he'd heard from a doctor that I was perfectly fertile, so he planned to have me raped and a child forced on me by one of the men under his control. He then mentioned the bombs, the setup, and his obsessive need to wipe out the Ricci bloodline. The moment I heard that, I sent Angelo a message telling him I needed to escape and asking him to come get me from my parents house. I didn’t stop to grab anything, just headed for the gates, but I had no idea that my father had already informed the guards there that I was to be detained… by whatever means and force necessary.”
As her lips trembled, a sob rocked her forward. She got it together just as fast, while the rest of us remained in silence. The level of evil her father displayed toward his own child was not something I could understand, but I had a feeling that the others in the room weren’t quite as naive as me. Their silence wasn’t of the stunned variety. They just wanted all the information.
“The guards took me by surprise, beating me worse than I’d ever been hurt before. It was just pure luck that as they were dragging me back to the house, I managed to taser one and then mace the other with my self-defense keychain. Angelo arrived a second later and killed both guards, before I passed out from my injuries. He saved my damn life.”
She’d saved herself, but he’d definitely helped; she’d been half dead when Angelo arrived at Grayson’s, and quick medical attention had kept her breathing.
Vee turned to me then. “The bombs were part two of their plan," she elaborated on her information from before. "The Wilsons organized a location for Angelo and Billie to be at. If the bombs had worked, there would be no more Ricci heirs and the path would’ve been free for Altissimo to assassinate Giovanni and take the crown. The Wilsons were going to be the fall guys, lest any of the other mafia families grow concerned about an internal takeover.”
Gray leaned forward, legs pushing into me as he spread them slightly. “My family has ties to the Wilsons also,” he rumbled. “The web they’re weaving is getting rather complicated.”
“Your family?” Vee said, raising one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows.
Grayson nodded. “I’ve been out for eight years, but my mother’s family is part of the Kahulu cartel.”
The stunned look on Vee’s face would have made me laugh if this weren’t so fucking serious. I wasn’t surprised about Grayson; he clearly was more than just a drummer in Bellerose.
“How did you get out?” Angelo asked him.
Gray let out a sad laugh. “With a lot of sacrifice and bloodshed. But you’re never truly out, just sidelined. My fame makes it difficult for them to bring me back in, but I’ve never made the mistake of believing I was totally free.”