Shattered Dreams (Boys of Bellerose, #3)(66)

Shots fired. I disarmed them quickly, smacking their heads into each other to knock them out, before I dragged both of them out of sight, into a side alley. I couldn’t leave them alive to out my knowledge of this drug racket to Giovanni Ricci; I had no choice but to break their necks. Quick, clean, silencing them permanently. I stashed the bodies behind some dumpsters, knowing that I had no time now to deal with them. I’d come back later and ensure they disappeared permanently.

A horn sounded, and I wiped my hands on my pants, hauling ass to where I could see my driver approaching in the distance. It wasn’t until I was safely in the backseat of the sedan, driving away from the concert venue, that I realized I’d been shot.

Fucking hell.





twenty-nine





BILLIE


How the fuck Angelo had time to plan out a date while also playing a concert, I had no idea. But he’d managed it, whisking me right from the concert venue to a restaurant in the basement of a stone building that had to be hundreds of years old. He seated me in a private dining room set just for two, then disappeared for ten minutes to shower and change somewhere.

When he returned, Angel, the new Bellerose bass player, was gone, and Angelo Ricci was back. I didn’t want to say anything, because he was putting in so much effort, but I liked Angel better. He was authentic and raw and emotional… Angelo Ricci was cold and controlled.

Biting my tongue, I gave him a tight smile, and when the waiter came over to fill Angelo’s glass, I let him refill my glass of wine.

“This is fancy,” I commented, looking around the room. Dozens of candles lit the space with a warm glow, and fresh flowers filled the air with a delicate scent. It was like something out of The Bachelor, right down to Angelo’s designer suit. “I feel kind of underdressed.”

He sat back, his eyes raking over my jeans and Bellerose band shirt. “You look perfect, Bella. You always do.”

For some reason that heated my cheeks, and I nervously sipped my wine. At this rate, I’d be white-girl-wasted and talking to my imaginary crocodile before the night was over.

“So,” I started, using the most original opening word of the decade, “this is kind of weird. Right?”

Angelo’s smile was relaxed, and he apparently had no need to slam his wine like it was a drinking contest. Good for him.

“Is it really weird?” he asked with a shrug. “I feel like this is the natural relationship progression we should have had all along. Life fucked that up for a while, but we’re back on track now. Back where we should be.”

“You can’t simply go back like that,” I whispered, throat tight. Just call me Billie the Saboteur because I apparently couldn’t let the fucking past go, kept bringing it into the present. But in my defense, Dr. Candace was really the one to blame. She was all, You have to deal with the past to have a future, along with some other very insightful but painful advice.

Angelo leaned across the table and captured my hand, his movement strong and sure, like he wasn’t worried at all that I’d reject him. I had always admired his confidence, and in the few times it’d wavered, I’d loved being there to comfort and build him back up. “Bella, we’re not going back in that sense. We’re moving forward, which is the only direction one can truly take. But I will never forget the past. The times I shared with you are still some of my best memories, the moments that got me through a lot of hard shit.”

The ball of pain in my throat tightened further. “But you left me,” I choked out in a whisper. “Just… walked away.”

His jaw tightened to match the tightness in my chest. “I had no choice, Bella. My father was going to have you killed to ensure I would comply with his wishes—wishes of who I had to marry and the role I would play in the Ricci family. At the time, I didn’t have the power or the resources to stand against him, and it was too big of a risk, especially after the—”

He cut himself off abruptly, but I knew exactly what that last word was going to be: fire.

“You knew, even back then, it’d been deliberately lit?"

Angelo’s hold on my hand tightened as he blinked at me for a beat. Clearly, he’d expected me to dissolve into tears and freak out talking about the death of my parents and child. Fuck knows I wanted to, but a larger part of me wanted answers. I’d spent the last near decade crying over the tragedy that shaped the rest of my life. I already knew it was arson, but I wanted to hear it from Angelo.

I wanted to hear who the fuck was truly responsible for it.

Even if Grayson had been the hand that lit the flame, his orders had come from above.

“Yes.”

I didn’t say anything, needing him to elaborate.

“The timing was too suspicious for me to think anything else, even though I’ve never been able to find any command going through Ricci or other connected families.”

“Is Grayson’s family connected to yours?” I asked him softly.

Angelo shook his head. “No, not in any true sense. Ricci and Kahulu are both criminal organizations and have crossed paths, but that’s as far as it goes.”

So there had been another player. “Maybe the Wilsons?” I tossed out the first possibility entering my head. “But why would they want to kill my parents? Mom worked for your father, right?”