Page 2 of Forbidden Bride (Forbidden 1)
“Oh. Sure. I mean, of course.” Blushing, she waves to us and heads out the door.
The second the door closes behind her, I tell Armani he’s an imbecile. When he acts like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, Dante and I exchange a glance. For someone who is so brilliant about business and mob shit, the man is shockingly hopeless when it comes to making a move on a woman he’s actually interested in.
Armani moves to look out the window. “If we could get back to business.”
“Go ahead,” I agree.
I’m not sure I want to know what our family’s next steps are. Because whatever it is, I know it will take time and energy away from racing. And for what? So far, all our efforts to find information about his killer have resulted in nothing but dead ends. We know a blond-haired man with a large tattoo on his neck hired the mechanic who tampered with our father’s vehicle. And that’s it. That’s all we’ve been able to uncover.
“After Dad died, we were at peace with the other crime families. Our old alliances vowed to remain so. But one of them lied.” Armani turns back to us, his expression grave. “I found out who the tattooed man works for.”
My heart thumps. My scalp prickles. Dante’s lips pull into a tight line.
“He was hired by the Brunos,” Armani finishes.
The words drop like a smoke bomb, muddling my brain so I question whether or not I heard him correctly.
Dante draws back. “But…we’re on good terms with the Brunos.”
“Apparently not, and this is their way of letting us know. The tattooed man is on their payroll. I don’t know why yet, but they orchestrated Dad’s death. Now they have to pay.”
And there it is. Whether we like it or not, we’re going back in.
Turning to the chair Dante offered me earlier, I sink into it as anger rolls to my hairline.
“That’s not all,” Armani says. “The same man was responsible for Frankie’s and Charlie’s kidnapping.”
Dante’s face turns stony. He went through hell when his wife and her sister were abducted, and although the women were rescued, the culprit was never found. Until now.
“So, what’s our plan?” Dante’s hard voice has a worried edge to it.
The hint of trepidation in his voice pangs me in the chest. This isn’t the Dante I remember. The old Dante was ice cold, solid, indifferent. He’s changed since getting married. His pregnant wife changed him into someone I don’t recognize sometimes.
Not that it isn’t for the better. He’s kinder now, more human. But not when it comes to protecting his family. The longer the Brunos go untouched and unpunished for what they did, the longer Dante’s wife and child, and our entire family, are under constant threat.
“We have to finish this thing,” Armani says. “We can’t turn back. We see it through. If we don’t, the Brunos will only get more powerful—and honestly, they’ll win. They’ll take over everything, and if this one act is any indication, they won’t stop until we’re all dead.”
He’s right. The Brunos won’t stop until they wipe the Bellanti name off the map.
I like to pretend that my family name means nothing to me, but that’s not true. I love my brothers and I’m excited about the children they’ll have and how this family will grow. Admitting that to myself is difficult. Sometimes I think I’m just feeling the way I’m expected to feel about these things—marriages and new babies, family dinners and holidays. But it’s taken some time for all of us to get used to this new connectedness. Dante, Armani, and I didn’t have happy memories of these things growing up.
Our father was a difficult man, prone to taking his anger out on us—on Dante, mostly. After our mother and sister died, we grew up raised by nannies and caregivers and whatever staff happened to be available. Holidays were empty affairs and there was never anything to look forward to except our father’s next extended business trip away from home.
All that has changed since Dante married Frankie. She’s brought us warmth and light and happiness again, like a goddamn Disney princess. Not that my sister-in-law isn’t a total badass to boot. But the Bellanti family is better now, that’s the point. I don’t want to lose any of that.
It’s worth fighting for.
“Look.” Dante clears his throat. “I’m all for putting the Brunos in their place. But what the hell started all this? Why are they after us? We can’t keep hitting—”
“Dead ends,” I interject.
He looks at me. “Exactly.”
“We’re going to get rid of the Bruno threat,” Armani assures us. “I care less about the why and more about taking out the threat once and for all.”
A beat of silence fills the room.
Dante rubs a hand over his mouth and his countenance changes. He’s morphing into that old version of himself. Hard expression, calculations rapidly firing in his eyes. He’s mirroring Armani, the two of them like peas in a pod when it comes to revenge.
“Where is the tattooed man?” Dante asks.
Armani grimaces. “I couldn’t find that information. Trust me; I tried.”
Dante bursts from his chair. “How does someone with a huge tatt on his neck and connections to a key player in the crime syndicate just disappear?”
I scoff. “Because this asshole is a ghost, apparently.”
Armani shakes his head. “He’s either extremely well protected or he’s learned how to make himself disappear. Could be a new hair color, something to cover the tattoo, colored contacts, fake passports. He could be in Europe, Asia, goddamned Greenland for all we know.”
“We may never know,” Dante says.
“You’re implying we won’t find him and put an end to this?” Armani scoffs.
“It’s true,” I interject. “Come on, someone has to say it. We may never find him.”
Armani moves closer, glaring at me. His fingers flex the way they do when he’s getting pissed. My brother is cool until he’s not, the face of calm until the volcano inside him tops out.
“Maybe you should get your head out of racing for a while and focus on the family.”
A smirk flashes across my face. “Don’t turn this around on me. I was stating a fact. It’s not personal.”
But it is, and that’s my bad. Armani takes his job as protector extremely seriously. He’s a master at drumming up the bad guys and taking them out. He was probably a professional hitman in another life because the man doesn’t miss, and he always gets away clean.
