Dangerous Beauty: Part Four: Beautifully Broken (29 page)

Rolling his eyes at their appearance in his office, Mickey gave the lot of them a dismissive wave of his hand. “You all may as well leave. I refuse to surrender to your games, you fucking bastards.”

Apparently he’d said something hilarious because the motherfuckers laughed.
Fuck them
, Mickey thought with a shrug of his shoulders. They could kiss his exceptionally sculpted ass. He wouldn’t entertain such foolishness. He wasn’t a fucking kid anymore. He was a man now, had been for quite a while …

“This is no game, Mickey,” Nathan chuckled. “You know the deal. Tell me where my consigliere is, and I’ll release you from his duties …”

“Just let it go, Nate.”

“I can’t do that, Mickey, and you know that. I’m in need of his help. This is a critical time for this organization—”

“He’ll be back on Monday.”

“But he told me he’d have this peace deal wrapped up by Monday, Mikilo. How can he do that if he is not here?”

“He just …” Mickey sighed, clenching his jaw tight. “He needs more time.”

“After he convinced Nathan to move forward with this ludicrous deal, he decides it is acceptable to request more time?” Lucca interjected. “We should have gone with my plan.”

“Your plan, though effective in dealing with the Bonaducci clan, was not going to keep us out of war with the other families, Lucca,” Mickey argued. “You should have more faith in our brother, as should Nathan …”

Turning from his contract, Lucca looked at Mickey through narrowed, disbelieving eyes. “So you agree with this peace?”

“No,
we
agree with his strategy, Lucca.” Lucca wasn’t fooling Mickey, not in the slightest. If he was really against Kyle’s idea in the conference room weeks back, he would have put up way more of a fight then that little chair throwing
outburst. That was child’s play compared to the man’s actual episodes. “Don’t act as if your little
bitch tantrum
was anything more than a façade to get your dose of Davina Delavigne.” The giant stalker lived to hear that woman—who normally wasn’t the most talkative woman in Carter’s organization—speak. He lashed out because he knew she had the balls to tell him to shut the fuck up. He was obsessed with the poor woman, in the most serial-killer like of ways, had every man in the Salerno Organization scared shitless to even look in the woman’s direction. Chuckling at his brother’s obsessive behavior, Mickey smirked. “Her few words to you were enough to keep this little
crush
you have burning hot, were they not?”

“I am a thirty-one-year-old man, I do not …
crush
.” He said the word with much distaste, before returning his attention to his contract, seemingly unfazed by Mickey’s taunting. “I will have that woman as my wife. The manner in which I go about getting her attention is of no concern to you.”

Mickey snorted. “And they say I’m the psychotic one.”

Lucca flashed him a wicked smile.

Fucker.

“Would the two of you please stop your bickering and focus?” Dante, the self-proclaimed peace maker, jumped in. “We need to move forward with the deal, Mikilo. This is the only reason why we wish to know where Kyle is …”

“Lies.” Bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, and Mickey knew it. “Sit your gay ass down, Dante.”

Dante laughed.

“I’m not telling you shit. That goes for Lucca, too, and double for Nathan.”

“Wait,” Nathan said, feigning confusion. “Double for me to sit my gay ass down, or double that I won’t be told shit?”

Lucca and Dante burst into laughter.

Mickey’s fists clenched. “Kiss my ass, Nate. I’m still not talking.”

“Oh come on.” He gave Mickey’s shoulder a good natured slap. “You’re hurting my feelings, Mick. I’m your Don. Now come,” he rested against the edge of the desk, “tell me where I can find my consigliere. Did he go to Hope Beach? To Disney with the children?”

“No,” Mickey answered simply. “Neither of the places. Now will you just let it go, Nathan?”

“Sure,” he said, surprising Mickey.

Mickey frowned. “Yes?”

Nathan nodded. “Of course.” He stood from the edge of the desk. “You’ve kept your silence much longer than I thought you would, Mikilo. Whatever it is keeping him away, it must be important.”

“It is.”

“Then he is excused. As are you. There is much to do today, so we go now. Come …”

“Wait, so just like that,” Mickey stopped him, still in disbelief, “I’m excused?” This made no sense. Nate didn’t give up like this, ever. What was he pulling?

“Yes, brother,” he chuckled.

“Such a disappointment,” Lucca sighed, standing up from the desk. “I actually wanted to know where he was. Since when do we keep secrets from one another?”

Dante chuckled. “Let the man have his privacy. I still say he’s with the woman … Reanna. Gabriel and I have a bet going.”

“I get in on that,” Lucca said. “I say he’s with the woman, too. Finally stopped being a bitch and went after what he wanted.”

“You think so, huh?” Dante asked through a chuckle. “Okay, then. On three we look at the kid and see if we’re right …”

The fuckers didn’t even wait till three. They didn’t even give him a fucking chance to process what they were saying so that he could school his features, put on his best fucking poker face. They just looked at him,
fucking looked at him
, and Mickey’s expression resembled that off a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

Shit!

“I fucking knew!” Dante exclaimed, victoriously clapping his hands.

Lucca’s laughter was as uproarious as it was obnoxious. Mickey had to fight to stay in his seat; he’d never wanted to break his own brother’s nose until this moment.

“Fucking bastards,” he spat. “Go to hell.”

“All right, all right, enough of that you two.” Nathan gave Mickey’s shoulder a pat. “Don’t listen to them, Mikilo. We know nothing.” He looked down for a moment before lifting his eyes back to Mickey’s. “Though if that were the case, if he were gone for that reason, all of us,” he said the words loud enough to silence Lucca and Dante, “would be very happy for our brother.” He looked back at Mickey. “And we’d understand why he’d want time, away from this ... world, for himself and the woman he loves to nurture their new relationship, before facing all they will have to face upon their return home. I understand that more than anyone.” He gripped his shoulder, giving him a light shake. “Are we okay?”

Nodding and relieved that Nathan stepped in, Mickey gave his brother’s hand a pat and stood from his seat. “Yes,” he sighed happily. “Thank you, Nathan,” he emphasized shooting a glare at the other two bastards.

And just as he was about to curse them out for their bullshit ass bet game they pulled, the fucking phone rang again …

Groaning Mickey slammed his fist on the desk, surely startling his brother. “Fuck!” He was sick of that sound.

“Answer it,” Nathan prompted, motioning toward the phone. “It will be your last act as consigliere today.”

“What’s the point in answering it?” he grumbled, waving a dismissive hand toward the thing. “The second I say my name they hang up the phone.”

“Then don’t say your name.” Dante shrugged, even as he walked toward the door. “Just say the name you and your brother share.”

Rolling his eyes at the bastard’s logic, Mickey reached forward and snatched up the phone.

“This is …” He sighed, deciding he better take a bit of the edge out of his voice. “This is Valente.”

He got no response to that … at first. And had he not heard the heavy breathing still sounding in his ear he’d have hung up, thinking that the caller had done the same. But instead of hanging up, he stated his name again.

“This is Valente,” he repeated. “Who am I speaking to?”

This time there was a response, one he definitely hadn’t been expecting.

“Val-ente, Ka-Kyle Valente?”

Mickey frowned, as the shuddering sniffles of an obviously shaken woman sounded over the phone.

“Is it really you?”

It was if the room around him went black and every ounce of Mickey’s focus zeroed in on her voice. He’d never heard it before, so it wasn’t that he recognized it or anything, it was more like a feeling. An intense, disconcerting feeling deep in the pit of his stomach that made his entire body tense.

“Who is this?” Mickey asked, even as the feeling in his gut intensified.

“Is this Kyle?” the heavily accented woman cried. “Kyle, I must sp-speak to Kyle Valente.
Per favore
…”

“This is him.”

He hadn’t thought it through, he’d just lied. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time—to lie and say that he was Kyle. The pure, agonizing desperation in the woman’s voice had made him do it, made him … curious, even though that ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach
continuously
intensified.

“Y-yes?” the woman wept through a stuttered whisper. “This is you. Kyle? My Kyle?” She laughed joyfully, even as she continued to cry. “
Mi bambino. Oh Dio, il mio bellissimo bambino
. You sound like a man, like an … American now.
Dio mio.
”

Mickey said nothing … not a word. Simply because he couldn’t.

“It’s Mama.
Io sono la tua mamma, bambino.
I-I’m back.” The sound of a passing car filled the phone before the hysterical woman spoke again. “The doctor let me leave the hospital now,” she continued, speaking a bit louder over the traffic behind her. “I’m not sick anymore, and I miss you. Do you miss me? I … I need you,
bambino
. I need your help. I want to come see you … It’s just like I promised, baby. Do you remember? I told you I’d come back for you. That I’d make up …” she wept softly, “That I would make up for all the bad things I’ve done. I’m ready now. Ready to see you.”

Silence.

She sniffled softly. “Please … talk to me, Kyle.”

Still, Mickey remained silent.

“Kyle … please,
bambino
,” the woman cried. “Please. I’m in trouble. I need help. They’re going to hurt me … before I even get a chance to see you. They want to kill me, your father.
Mi aiuti per favore, Kyle.
Mama needs you to protect her now, just like she protected you from them.” Her sobs became more desperate. “Kyle, please, speak to me. You know I …” He heard the phone slam against the receiver before she brought it to her ear again. “You know I hate it when you ignore me, baby. It h-hurts Mama when you treat her like this … I’m sorry. Is that what you want. For Mama to apologize to you?”

No, that wasn’t what Kyle wanted. Mickey knew that for a fact.

“I’m sorry, bambino. I never meant … I wanted to be a good mommy to you, but they made me hurt you. Your papa, Anastacia, they made me hurt you like that, they told me to—”

That was enough. Mickey hung up the phone, feeling thoroughly shaken.

“What the fuck?” he whispered, just as the haze that had surrounded him during that call began to fade. He was in shock. That had to be it because he still couldn’t move, still couldn’t speak even as his brothers continuously called his name.

“Mickey!”

It was Nathan’s call that effectively pulled him out of his daze.

“Mikilo,” he called again.

This time, Mickey answered by turning his head and meeting Nathan’s gaze.

“What is wrong with you?” he asked, furrowing his brow in deep confusion. “Did you not hear us?”

No
, Mickey thought,
I didn’t
.

“Who the hell was it, Mick?” Lucca asked, his confusion just as evident. “Who was on the phone?”

Still shocked and disturbed out of his fucking mind, Mickey looked over to his brother, and pointed in the direction of the phone. “I think …” He shook his head. “I think I just spoke to Kyle’s mother.”

‘Pack a bag, colomba. We’re going away for the weekend.’

Words that had packed so much freaking power, they made Reanna want to jump for joy and run for the hills all at the same time.

‘Pack light, dress warm; don’t forget a pair of boots, baby … it’s supposed to snow.’

Where?
Reanna had thought as she’d done every single thing Kyle had told her to do. She’d looked at the forecast for New York, and though temperatures were dropping, there was not any chance of snow … except in the mountains.

That was when Reanna had guessed where they were going. And she’d been right.

It looked cold outside as they drove farther and farther up north, like the temperature was dropping lower and lower with each mile they drove, but in the car, the heat was blasting something fierce. And despite her warm wear of a large purple sweater, a simple pair of light blue jeans, and a pair of very cute white snow boots that she loved to pieces, Reanna was comfortable in the warm temperature, cuddled up to her seriously sexy—apparent—boyfriend. Kyle also had on a sweater, a blue one of course. He’d paired it with the sexiest pair of black dress pants, and extremely expensive looking Italian leather shoes. Seriously, they were like night and day, she and him, like male model and … well, photographer. And everyone who laid eyes on them seemed to notice just how different they were from one another.