I let out a shaky breath before quickly reeling it in, terrified of showing any weakness and having it exploited. Pulling my shoulders back, I continue. “Coming up on three weeks ago, Giovanni brought a battle to his sons’ front door. Many lives were lost that night and resulted in his sons suffering once again. They were stabbed and thrown in cells, left for days as infection began to eat at them—”
“Why should we care about DeAngelis civil affairs?” A man to my right throws out. “That is none of our concern.”
“If it involves me, then you can guarantee it is our concern,” I bite back, hating the feel of the words preparing to come out of my mouth, “especially considering that the week Giovanni’s sons were locked down in those cells, Giovanni forced me into a marriage and then raped me to make it binding.”
Shock rumbles through the room, but I forge on, not willing to linger on the details of that day. “Giovanni plans to use his marriage to me as a way to infiltrate the Moretti empire. He sees this as some kind of gateway. If I were to die while Giovanni is my legal spouse—”
“The family will fall,” Alec murmurs, realizing the severity of the situation.
“Exactly,” I say, my voice lowering. “It is believed that Giovanni’s forces were at action this morning. Gia’s blood is on his hands.”
Murmurs fill the room and I briefly glance at Agent Davidson and catch his eye. He nods as if to tell me that I’m doing a good job before keeping his attention on the table. “Kill them,” someone cries out. “Kill them all.”
I raise my voice again, unsure of the politics and rules I’m supposed to be following, though assuming it would run in a similar way to how the boys went about dealing with their family. “I am unsure how this is supposed to play out,” I admit. “I assume that we are to vote on an appropriate course of action.”
Alec scoffs. “We will vote once we have confirmed your identity. This birth certificate is pitiful at most. I demand full DNA testing.”
“I am more than happy to supply anything that this family sees fit. However, that will take days, and I am not willing to stand around twiddling my thumbs in the meantime while Giovanni goes about his plans to infiltrate this family, and I hope, out of your loyalty to Gia, that you would not feel any different.”
A heavy silence fills the room as all eyes turn to Alec, waiting for his response, but all I get is a sharp glare that makes victory swarm through my chest. Take that, asshole. “Alright, then it’s settled. All in favor of protecting the Moretti empire by eliminating Giovanni DeAngelis, raise your hand.”
It’s unanimous. Every hand in the room silently raises and I nod. “Good,” I say, before feeling a flutter of nerves rushing through me once again. “I feel that I must also inform you that Giovanni has a newborn son. The mother of this child has importance to me, and I made a promise to her that I will not break. I fully intend on taking that child for myself and raising him, whether that be as his mother or simply as a guardian, that is undecided.”
“Will this child become your son for all Moretti purposes, your heir?” Alec questions, watching me through a narrowed gaze.
“No,” I tell him. “It has not yet been discussed but considering that DeAngelis blood runs through his veins and that his older brothers bore no children of their own, he will more than likely become the next DeAngelis heir. However, having said that, you should all be aware that any attack on this child will be seen as a personal attack upon both me and the DeAngelis family, and the full force of both families will come down on those responsible. Is that understood?”
Heads nod around the room, and I finally begin to feel the unease shifting out of my chest, loosening enough to allow me to take a proper breath. “Perfect,” I say, more than ready to dismiss this. “In the meantime, we will work on funeral arrangements for Gia. If anyone knew her on a personal level and would like to offer suggestions on what she might like, I would appreciate that. I will have a pathologist called here within the hour to have my DNA tested on a rush order and confirm it with you as soon as the results come in. Is there anything I am missing?”
“What is to happen to the DeAngelis sons once Giovanni is … dealt with?”
I shrug my shoulders. “That is their business, however I assume that they will rise up in their father’s position just as they always intended. However, with me standing at the head of this family, it is a guarantee that there will no longer be hostility between the families. My relationship with the boys is not going anywhere, nor am I. It is, and forever will be, set in stone. If anyone has any issue with that, then you are welcome to leave.”
Alec stands once again, his stare on me. “You would choose those degenerate murderers over your duty to this family?”
I stare straight back at him, not wavering for a damn second. “If you are asking me if I would choose happiness and love over a lifetime of murder, fear, and betrayal, then you’re absolutely right, I would.”
And with that, I turn on my heel and stalk toward the exit. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are three men down in our cells who need my attention. You may all be dismissed.”
29
The elevator dings its arrival, and I can barely wait for the door to fully open before I barrel out into the small hallway and step over the three bodies that we’d clearly forgotten to clean up earlier. “HOLY SHIT,” I call, rushing through to the cell to find the three guys slouched against the darkened walls. Levi’s stare is focused heavily on his hands and not the chains that lay in a heap in the center of the room. “I SURVIVED.”
Marcus flies to his feet as Roman’s head snaps toward me, his dark gaze trailing over my body, but Levi just keeps staring at his hands.
I move across the cell, crouching down before him and forcing his eyes to mine. “Come on,” I tell him. “Let’s get out of here.”
His brows furrow as he looks at me with a heavy gaze that seems so far away. He looks as though he’s caught in a world of pain, reliving those awful few days he was chained here, remembering the sting of the whip as it cracked against his chest. I reach down, brushing my fingers over the side of his face, and with a single blink of his eyes, he’s back to the guy I last saw upstairs trying to defend me from their sworn enemies. “Yeah,” he says, taking my hands and allowing me to pull him up, visibly shaken by the thirty minutes down here. “Let’s go.”
We make our way back upstairs, and having nowhere else to go, nowhere that feels safe, we stay put, willing to call this home for now. I give the boys the breakdown of everything that happened during the meeting and breathe a sigh of relief as they confirm that everything I mentioned about the DeAngelis family and their newborn brother was right.
“I think we need to have another meeting with the remaining DeAngelis family members,” Roman mutters, as I lead them through the mega-mansion despite them having already studied the layout like they’ve studied the curves of my body. “They need to be ready, and we need to confirm whose side they’re fighting on.”
I scoff. “Do I need to remind you that every last one of those bastards stood by and watched as your father forced me into a marriage and didn’t do shit about it? They knew exactly what he intended to do to me over the next few hours.”
“Trust me,” Roman says, stopping in the middle of the hallway and turning into me, taking my chin and forcing my stare to meet his. “I haven’t forgotten, and they will all suffer consequences for their actions. But we have priorities, and we can’t burn the few remaining bridges we have until we’re certain we don’t need them anymore.”
I pull my chin out of his soft grip and avert my eyes. I know he’s right and completely agree with his reasoning, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.