Going to the Belle Arti Florence had been a dream of mine since I was a little girl. I should have been over the moon to hear I was finally getting the chance my heart had dreamed of for so long.
The rest of that plan however killed it, it killed it and the dream too.
I’d willed the tears away all evening. It worked because there was nothing left of me, no tears left to cry. They were all gone.
“My thanks to you Giovanni. I can’t thank you enough. It’s perfect.” Armand raised his glass of wine and gave Pa a curt nod. “We all get everything we ever wanted.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Pa joined in and raised his glass too. He looked to me, his eyes beckoning me to raise my glass too.
I did not.
Armand took me home.
There was no point in arguing or protesting that I didn’t want him to take me home or be anywhere near me.
I just had to accept it.
And accept it when he walked inside the house and followed me up to my bedroom.
But… that was as far as my acceptance went.
He looked at me with raw sexual desire that made me sick.
We’d driven in silence on the way here.
The sound was the car engine and car itself as it drove down the road, now the silence of tension surrounded us.
I stood by my bed looking at him and he was just by the door frame.
“You really can’t stand it can you?” he asked. A menacing expression washed over his face.
“What part?” I countered.
“You tell me baby. I don’t know what riles you up more. The part about going to Europe with me or being my little slut.” He chuckled and stepped closer.
How quickly he’d changed and showed his true colors.
“I can’t stand any part of it,” I answered standing a little taller.
“You will like it, every part of it. You will. I told you weeks ago you’ll come back to me. I told you you’d be mine again and look how the tables turned in my favor.” The smile inched up his face and made his dark eyes look like coal. Like heated coal that had turned black before burning on a fire.
“Have they though? This is how you got me back? Not asking for forgiveness because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants.”
“Love your smart mouth baby. My dick will soon be in your mouth.”
Bile rose in my throat and I could have thrown up. The acid churned my stomach and weakened me.
“You had to get me back by going through my father. That was how you did it. Like tying me up to beat me, neither is real.”
He stepped closer and I backed away.
One step forward and I took one backward until I was against the wall.
He placed his hands either side of me and looked me over with that raw seduction. Evil seduction that reeked of greed and everything I never wanted.
“It doesn’t matter, Jia. It doesn’t matter one ounce of a fuck because I have you, doesn’t matter how I got you. I have you back and guess what?” He leaned in close to my ear and sickened me further when he blew out his hot breath over my neck and cupped my left breast. I grabbed his hand to stop him but he stopped me and held me still. “Jia, I simply can’t wait to fuck you again. Mark my word you’ll enjoy it. Just like you used to.”
He squeezed my breast and I couldn’t break free.
“Let go of me!”
“You would do well to start practicing enjoying me from now. Or else that asshole Xander will get the full report to the boss from me. I’ll let your father know how much his newest recruit is interfering with our upcoming union. I may even get to enjoy the pleasure of killing him myself.”
That threat was enough to make me stop.
Xander again. There I was thinking about him, as if…
No matter what, I didn’t want him dead. I was the fool again.
“You are mine Jia, whether you want to be or not.” Armand hissed into my ear and I felt like dying.
He backed away, releasing me but with a sneer.
A sneer that promised me the doom I feared.
It definitely made me wish for death.
Chapter 30
Xander
The park Wes found was approximately two miles from The Grand Marchesi.
It was small. More of a kids playground with a merry-go-round in the center. Opposite it was a chapel of love where people got hitched on a nightly basis.
The park was the area of our concern since the tunnels led right into the casino’s secret underground chamber.
Wes and I spent the last few nights doing the groundwork where we analyzed the surroundings and checked out the place.
Tonight was when we planned to go down into the tunnels and set up to break into the chamber.
That was just the first part of the said plan.
We’d only know what to do next once we got inside since there was no surveillance on the inside to hack into. Even in the normal part of Giovanni’s quarters in the casino he’d called the Castle there was no surveillance past a certain point. That was where he kept all his secrets and where I’d initially thought the blueprints were being held.
Tonight when we got down in the chamber it would be old school breaking and entering, then looking around. We’d also be putting our own surveillance down there because there was no way I’d leave it to instinct to venture into the unknown looking for the blueprints without some sort of back up.
Even if that was all we did tonight.
Getting to know Giovanni as I had over the last few weeks I knew right off the bat that it would be wishful thinking to hope we’d simply get into the chamber and find the prints just like that.
That of course was assuming we were right about them being there, which I truly hoped we were.
Providing we were, and we were able to at least locate the area or enclosure he was keeping them, then the next part of the plan would be the grab and go mission. An in and out onetime thing, balls to the wall mission that had to succeed.
Until I met Wes later, I was resuming my duties as a knight. I’d just finished my shift with Vinny in the Castle courtyard and was walking the casino floor to make sure all was in order.
The busyness of the place never ceased to amaze me, it was fucking busy all the damn time.
At least the continuous round of people flowing through stopped me from looking for Jia.
I was doing my best to get her out of my system. A little like how I did my best to get Claire’s death out of my mind.
Not forget, no… never forget.
Claire would always be there and part of my heart would always belong to her because she was my first love. Thinking of her always made me think back to how we met. How I met her father. Jack, the man I’d avoided for the last few years because I couldn’t face him. I wasn’t able to take care of his daughter the way I said I would.
And, I really wasn’t doing myself any favors by thinking about that now.
It didn’t do anyone any favors. I just thought you couldn’t put a leash on something your heart wanted. Didn’t matter what it was.
Right now I couldn’t explain to anyone what it was doing to me to stand back and watch while I essentially lost Jia to Armand.
Yes, I may have lost her all by myself with the secrets and lies. However, losing her to a guy I knew she wouldn’t be happy with enraged me. The same way it enraged me to see him driving away last night with two hookers in the back seat of his car.