Shattered Dreams (Boys of Bellerose, #3)(75)
Thank fuck. Thank fuck. I knew there had to be a rational explanation, one that didn’t involve Grayson slitting my parent’s throats. Sure, he would have done it if someone else hadn’t got there first, but it was infinitely easier to forgive the intent than the action.
“The fire?” I asked, choking on my sadness and relief.
Gray frowned. “Already alight when I got there. I was inside for barely more than a minute, just enough to see that your parents were dead and the house ablaze. I didn’t hang around after that, just left. My intel said they would be home alone… If I’d known you were there—”
“I was supposed to be out that night,” I whispered, shaking my head. Tears coursed down my cheeks, and I swiped at them with the heel of my hand. “Thank you for telling me.”
Gray stroked my damp face tenderly. “I can give you more details, when you’re ready.”
I nodded, sniffing heavily. “I know. For now, it’s enough to know you didn’t kill them. You didn’t light the fire that nearly killed me.” In more ways than one. “Let’s deal with this Ricci mess tonight and work on us tomorrow.”
His tight expression eased noticeably, and a tiny smile of understanding softened his features. “Thank you, Prickles.”
“For what?” I frowned in confusion.
“For giving me hope that there’s still an us to work on tomorrow.” His reply was so quiet but soaked in vulnerability, a rare emotion to see from Grayson Taylor and entirely unexpected.
Swallowing back my fresh tears, I gave a nonchalant shrug. “Of course there is. I’m still in love with you, Gray. That’s what made this so hard.”
His eyes widened, then he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me closer for a kiss. “I love you, Billie Bellerose,” he rumbled against my lips. “More than I even knew I could.”
thirty-three
BILLIE
Angelo’s response, when we’d caught him up to speed, was surprising to everyone except me and Vee. She and I understood how Angelo truly felt about his father and his place in the Ricci family, so to us it was no shock when he flipped over the coffee table in a fit of rage, shattering the glass top as it landed.
After that we’d needed to relocate into different rooms so housekeeping could clean up all the broken glass, and I’d fallen asleep in Rhett’s lap while we went around and around in circles trying to decide what to do about Giovanni’s drug operation.
When we boarded our flight to Berlin a few days later, we were all zombies, dark circles under our eyes and coffee cups clutched in our hands like a fucking lifeline. It was an evening flight, and then we had the night “off” before a concert tomorrow. The exhaustion was worth it, though. Between rehearsals, changing cities, and playing a show in Manchester, we’d finally come up with a plan that everyone sort of agreed on.
It hinged almost entirely on Angelo and his crime world contacts, but I had full faith in him.
“I need to speak with my father,” he told me in a grim voice as we all settled into our seats for takeoff. I’d opted to sit beside him because, despite how tired I was, I hadn’t forgotten how nice our date had been… or how he’d left me so worked up. I wanted revenge.
I buckled myself in, then folded my legs. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
He gave a small shrug. “Probably not. But I don’t need to let on how much we know. He’ll already be suspicious since Grayson circled back and made his men and drugs disappear. I want to get an idea what the bigger picture is. Drugs are such a small part of Giovanni’s empire; I just know there’s more going on.”
“Do you think he will tell you?” I slipped my hand into his when he offered it, threading our fingers together. “The fact that he let you join the band and never said anything about this whole operation kind of says he doesn’t trust you.”
Angelo squeezed my fingers and sighed. “I have to try. Any information I can get out of him has to be useful, right?”
“Good luck with that,” Jace muttered from across the aisle, already reclining his seat, despite the fact that we hadn’t even taken off. Hannah, Bellerose’s fill-in manager, settled in last, looking totally disinterested in all of us as she scrolled her phone. She’d turned out to be okay, keeping to herself for the most part. The only time we heard from her was when the guys were late for an appointment on the schedule.
Almost immediately after takeoff, the cabin lights dimmed, and everyone tucked in for a nap on the short flight across to Berlin. I didn’t blame them and would have done the same if Angelo wasn’t totally distracting me by tracing little patterns on the inside of my knee.
I held out as long as possible, until Jace’s snoring filled the cabin and the seatbelt sign flicked off. Then I unlatched my seat belt and leaned over to kiss Angelo.
He met me with a low chuckle, his lips caressing mine with measured calm as he cupped my head in his hand. The way his fingers threaded into my hair meant he had all the control. Again.
Frustrated at being held back, I bit his lip a little harder than playful, but he just grinned against my kiss. Of course, the infuriating fuck would think that was cute.
Giving a huff, I pushed away and flopped back in my seat with an undoubtedly sour expression on my face. Maybe he’d changed his mind about being into me and I was trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Maybe it was one of those things where he’d thought he was attracted to me, but then when we’d actually hooked up, he felt like he was kissing his sister.