Dangerous Beauty: Part Four: Beautifully Broken (42 page)

Rolling her eyes again, Reanna followed after him, actually a little excited about getting her hair done. “Maybe we can try something new?” she asked. “Something sexy?”

Ronaldo nodded. “Whatever you want, Ms. Bride-to-be.”

Reanna’s cheeks warmed at his new nickname for her. She was a bride-to-be now.
Holy shit
.

“This just goes to show, mama,” Ronaldo said, looking at her over his shoulder. “Don’t ever listen to me when I give you relationship advice. I was dead ass wrong about Kyle.”

Biting her lower lip, Reanna chuckled softly.

Yeah, Reanna remembered all too well how ‘dead ass wrong’ Ronaldo had been about Kyle, and she was still kind of disappointed in herself for believing it, but she was slowly getting over it. After all, had things not gone down the way they did, had she not put some distance between herself and Kyle, they probably wouldn’t be in the place in their relationship that they were now. They wouldn’t be engaged.

So it looked like things worked out for the best.

Smiling, Reanna followed Ronaldo through the door of her office. “What about Tamara?” she asked him. “Do you think she’ll be excited?”

Reanna couldn’t wait to tell her little sister—couldn’t wait to show her that she’d been right about Kyle’s feelings, and that she wished she would have listened to her in the beginning and just confessed her love to Kyle. Then maybe they would have already been married. They could have been on their first child by now …

“Come on, Rea,” Ronaldo said, re-capturing her attention. “Sit down, bubbles. Let’s get started.”

Reanna nodded, and was just about to do what he’d instructed before she noticed something … He hadn’t answered her question.

She frowned, pausing before she sat in the seat as her eyes lifted to his. “Ron,” she began softly, “why didn’t you answer my question?”

He frowned, as if confused by her words, but he never looked up at her. “What question, bubbles? I didn’t hear a question.”

Reanna shook her head. “Don’t lie.” She always knew when he was lying. His eyes gave him away every time. He couldn’t keep eye contact when he wasn’t telling the truth, same as Reanna. “You’re not even looking at me, Ron.”

He sighed, then lifted his eyes to hers. “I’m looking at you now, bitch. Come on,” he said sharply, “we’ve got a shoot to get to. We’re already a day behind.”

“No,” Reanna shot defiantly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Not until you answer my question.” What wasn’t he saying? Why wouldn’t he say what was on his mind? “I asked you if you think Mara will be excited that Kyle and I are engage. Why didn’t you answer me?”

He didn’t say a word back to her. He just stood there, continuing to gaze at her with a stupid frown, and with each passing second, Reanna was getting more and more irritated with him.

“Ronaldo!” she snapped, fed up with his silence.

“What, bubbles?” he yelled in response, as if fed up with her questioning.

Too bad she didn’t care.

“Answer my question. What the hell is going on here?”

“Nothing,” he insisted, rolling his eyes, and running his fingers through his hair. Something he often did when he was in distress. “Just get over here and get your hair ready, mama.”

Reanna glared in response. “No,” she ground out through clenched teeth. “Answer my question.”

And with that last insistence, Ronaldo did exactly as she asked. Soon after, she regretted making him answer it in the first place

“No,” he answered shortly. “You happy now? The answer is no, bubbles. Tamara will not be happy about your engagement to Kyle.”

Silence fell over the room right as Reanna’s eyes widened slightly in anger.

“Why the fuck not?”

Michele, Angel, Salvado, Matismo, Rafael, and too many more to count. All of them Nathan and Lucca’s cousins, all of them assholes, and all of them here from Italy.

“I just don’t understand why I couldn’t have been warned,” Kyle groused as he made his way through the office with both the Don and Donna walking at his sides—Nathan on his left and Carterina attached to his right side—and his other three brothers walking behind him. “All it had taken was a damn text ‘Hey Kyle, just so you know, the place is swarming with jackasses right now. Beware.’ You know, something along those lines.”

He felt Carter’s hold on his arm tighten as she laughed softly. Looking down at her, Kyle gave her a quick wink.

“I told Nathan to call you,” she chuckled, resting her head on his arm. “They got here on Sunday.”

“Sunday, huh?”

“Yes,” Nathan answered, just as they neared Kyle’s office.

He didn’t speak again until they all walked inside, and Lucca closed the door behind them.

“They are here to help, Kyle.”

“And to help me whip the soldiers here into shape,” Dante added.

“Even more than they are?” Kyle asked, walking over to his desk.

Carter released his arm as she went to stand against her husband, who’d found a seat nearby on the arm of a chair near the middle of the office.

Kyle actually found himself frowning as a small twinge of jealousy crept up on him by surprise. It was interesting because it was a grade of jealousy Kyle had never experienced before. He watched how Nathan pulled Carterina back against him, how a peaceful look flashed across his face as if all was right in the world, and at that moment he envied his brother.

This was not helping his chronic separation anxiety, being around another couple, especially one as close as Nathan and Carter. It was actually making him miss Reanna more. God he knew that feeling—the one a man felt when he had his arms wrapped tightly around the person he loved—and he longed for it right about now. He longed to see her, to hear her voice … He missed her so fucking much.

“Let’s not forget that we had soldiers retreat from an attack not but a few weeks ago, Kyle,” Nathan said, making him slightly flinch as his thoughts vanished and his attention returned to present time.

He blinked, attempting to process what the man had said before he nodded, suddenly remembering what they’d been discussing. The men. The attack.

“They were outnumbered, Nathan,” Kyle countered, slipping smoothly back into the argument.

Nathan frowned, a tense expression falling over his face. “Please, Kyle.” He gave an angry, dismissive wave of his hand. “Spare me your excuses for their cowardice. You talk to me as if I’ve never fought a battle on behalf of this family. As if the five of us have never been in a battle in which we were outnumbered and came out the victor.”

“I know, but …” Kyle sighed, keeping his voice steady as to not upset Nathan, but also refusing to let up on his argument. “They are not us, Nate. We were raised in this.”

“As were the majority of our men,” Lucca said, taking a seat on the couch across the office.

Kyle nodded. “And while that is true, Lucca, is it not … unfair of us to compare them to our level of skill? We were raised to be above average.”

“And run an above average organization,” Lucca countered.

Kyle agreed again. “The men protecting that particular area were young, a lot of them new.”

“We were young when we decimated a Russian Mafia boss,” Nathan said. “Hell, Mikilo had only been eighteen years old.”

“Nate—”

“The Salerno Organization is not an organization of
average
men, Kyle—”

“And women,” Carter spoke up, looking at her husband. “The Salerno organization is not an organization of average women either, bubby.”

It was as if just the sound of her voice snatched away the man’s obvious agitation with the argument, and tossed it aside as if it were nothing. A smile tugged at Nathan’s lips as he leaned down to kiss his wife. “And women,” he agreed, his tone losing its edge. “Of course,
moya prekrasnaya roza
. I apologize.”

The smile she gave him in return seemed to ease the tension in his posture, which in turn eased all of the tension in the room from the disagreement. And Kyle was grateful for it. It seemed that every time Nathan got worked up everyone else did, too.

“Maybe we can at least agree on one thing, guys,” Carterina said softly, never taking her eyes from her husband.

Kyle watched while the woman’s arms slowly encircled the Don’s waist as she worked her magic, and brought peace to a potentially escalating situation.

“We want the soldiers of the Salerno Organization to have every advantage that we can afford them. Good intel, top of the line weaponry, and the ability to fare well above average in combat if need be. And while we understand that a soldier’s first experience in combat has potential to be lacking, we don’t want to give the men excuses for running away scared. What we also don’t want to do is begin the cycle of punishment for fear, honey. We know the men of this organization and how fierce they are in battle, so if we come across a team which fails to meet the standards we set for our soldiers, their defeat is not their failure, it’s ours. We sent them in too soon, and we got too cocky. We were so sure that no one would ever have the courage to attack with us that we stopped watching; we didn’t know what was coming, and as a result the men protecting the territory were unable to defend our property with the skill that we know the men of this organization are
supposed
to possess. This was our fault … the leadership. We failed them. And to see it any other way would take away from the qualities which make our empires so powerful.” She smiled. “Learning from our mistakes, coming back stronger, and turning our failures into more power … This is what we do, Nathan. And we always succeed. So no more of this arguing.” She reached up and touched his face gently. “I hear you all going back and forth on this, and you are saying the same things. We want to win this. Period. This is why you put this agreement in the capable hands of our consigliere,” she then looked to Kyle, “and why your Don made the call to bring in training reinforcements for the men who need it. Now, are we all in agreement?”

“She’s right,” Dante said. “Again.”

“I have to agree,” Lucca added. “She’s right. I just want to win this shit, kill off some Bonaducci scum, and move the fuck on. I want us to make the motherfuckers pay.”

“As do I,” Kyle said, actually feeling better about the entire situation.

He felt a bit more confident in his ability to come out on top in this peace deal, too. Carter always had that effect on all of them. The woman could convince them that they had the ability to walk through fire unharmed if she wanted to. Her influence had become that potent.

“And I agree as well,” Nathan said lastly.

But he didn’t miss the look in his brother’s eyes, nor did he miss Carter quickly grabbing at his hand when the man gripped a handful of her ass.

Kyle fought not to roll his eyes. Okay, now they were being fucking ridiculous. Did they not possess an ounce of control? Come the fuck on; everyone got it. They were in love, they worked together, but was it too much to ask they just … tone the couple shit down a bit? Some people were suffering here. Some people like Kyle who was recently fucking engaged, and missing his woman with a fierce fucking passion.

Suddenly realizing how crazy his own thoughts sounded, Kyle frowned at himself. What the hell? Damn, he needed to call Reanna, talk to her or something. He was beginning to sound like a bitter little bitch—

The office door abruptly opening actually managed to make Kyle flinch, and Gabriel came walking into the office with a stack of folders in his hands.

“What the fuck?” he breathed, his chest rising and falling with deep breaths. It was as if he’d been running. “Was anyone going to let me know Kyle finally made it back from his
‘sub rosa’
romantic getaway, or did you all just forget that you threw me in a damn office to slave over your goddamn contracts all day?”

Yes, Gabriel was the ‘go to guy’ to make and dish out contracts, and bring to all meetings where negotiating would be commencing because he was now an attorney, and had been since he’d passed the bar a year and a half ago. Not only was the man a lawyer, he was a fucking good one, too. Not because he was basically a genius, but because the man never failed to go the extra mile. Plus, he wasn’t afraid to break the rules. And Gabriel was very good at breaking rules for the purposes of getting shit done.

Kyle smiled, opening his mouth to greet Gabriel right before he realized what the man had just said.
Time out
. “What the fuck does sub-rosa mean, and why are we calling my romantic getaway that?”

Gabriel shot him a scowl. “Let’s not be a dumb ass, Kyle.”

“You’re the fucking dumbass.”

“Sub-rosa means ‘done in secret’,
private
, because you neglected to tell your own fucking family that you were going off the grid during one of the most
important
weekends of all the fucking weekends you’ve
ever
skipped out on work.” Closing the rest of the distance between himself and Kyle’s desk, Gabriel walked forward and dropped the stack of shit on the wooden surface. “This is yours,” he said, circling his hand over the pile. “I haven’t slept in three days! All of this shit. Contracts for deals that
I
had to close for you, meetings
I
had to attend on my own while you were off somewhere lounging back, enjoying life, and fucking a beautiful woman all goddamn day and night.”