Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

“Where is she?” she demanded, her Brooklyn accent was unmistakeable.

“Who the fuck is this Romeo?” I asked, irritated that I had to ask twice.

“Gabby’s roommate, Bella. She was asking questions. A lot of questions - back at Otto’s.”

“Why’d you bring her here?” I asked.

“Where the fuck is Gabby? Gabby!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, her high-pitched scream piercing my ears.

“Shut the fuck up!” Romeo barked.

“We got a situation,” I said, gesturing towards the cabin. “Inside.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Gonna need your help with that.”

“Gaaaaabbbbby!” Bella yelled even louder this time. Romeo grabbed her arm, and pulled her close, whispering in her ear.

“I said, shut the fuck up!”

“Just fucking take me to Gabby. That’s what you said you’d do!” she seethed, straining to get out of his grip.

“Dante, man, I didn’t know she was such a fuckin’ firecracker. You want me to take her back? I thought maybe she could help us, but I guess I was wrong.”

“Help you do what, you asshole? Kidnap my friend?” she cried.

“We didn’t kidnap your friend!” Romeo said. “She’s fucking fine!”

“I don’t fucking believe you!” she spat. “Gaabbbbbbbbbbriellllllaaaa!!” she screamed, much louder this time.

“What do you want me to do Dante?” Romeo asked.

“Bring her inside,” I said, shaking my head. “But you!” I pointed at her. “Be quiet! We aren’t the fucking bad guys.”

We turned to walk into the cabin and Gabby was standing at the door, her mouth open in shock, her eyes wide with disbelief!

“Bella!” she cried, running into the girl’s arms.

Bella

A short drive later, Romeo and I pulled up to an old cabin in the middle of nowhere.

I’d had a few moments to come to my senses after having my brains fucked out, and my nervousness was back. I didn’t know this guy. We were still in the middle of nowhere. And just because he fucked like a God, didn’t mean he wouldn’t still kill me.

My heart began pounding in my chest. If Gabby was here, I was going to find her and get the fuck out of this place. As far as I knew, the guy who came out of the cabin could have already killed Gabby. Maybe I was next, and Romeo just wanted a piece of me first. Maybe they were both crazy killers hidden behind dead sexy faces.

I guess I didn’t really give them a chance to prove otherwise.

I just started yelling for Gabby. It was impulsive, but that’s how I roll.

When she finally walked out of that cabin, pure joy filled my heart when I saw she was okay. Hugging her had never felt better. I pulled away, looking her over. She looked good. In fact, she was glowing. Her hair had that unmistakable just-fucked look and her eyes were sparkling with satisfaction.

“You look…” I paused, “happy.”

“Happy?” she asked, her voice full of surprise, as if she didn’t even know what the word meant. She glanced over at Dante quickly, and a slow blush crawled up her cheeks. So that was it. This guy was obviously the source of her glow. What a hussy, I thought, before a slow chuckle escaped my chest. I guess I was a hussy, too.

“God, I fucking love you!” I grabbed her, hugging her hard again. “Okay, so you’re fine. You know half the fucking state is looking for you, right? Your Dad came to our apartment in person. He’s really worried about you.”

The glimmer in her eyes dimmed, and she nodded.

“I know he is,” she whispered.

“So why don’t you call him?”

“Um…” she looked away, glancing over at Dante again. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?” I asked bluntly. “This guy keeping you prisoner, Gabby? Because I can call for someone to pick us up and get us out of here.”

“She’s not a fucking prisoner,” Dante growled. “I’m keeping her here to keep her safe.”

“Yeah?” I asked, my voice full of skepticism. “Safe from what?”

He looked at me quietly, shook his head, then closed the distance between us. He grabbed my arm and led me towards the front door the cabin.

“Hey —,” I began, before he shoved me through the door, bringing me face to face with a very fat, very tied-up, very angry biker.

“—from this!” Dante said, his voice seething.

Gabby

I’d never been so happy to see someone as I was to see Bella. And yet I knew our situation just got ten times more complicated. Bella could be a grade-A bitch. Stubborn, pretentious, and confrontational were her usual moods and she moved through them like a revolving door. I loved her, but once she got pissed off, I knew to get out of her way.

She reminded me a lot of my father in that way.

So, my dad had come out of his self-imposed isolation, huh? He did that often, locking himself away somewhere until whatever storm was brewing ‘took care of itself’. We all knew what that meant, but we never asked questions. If a body turned up floating in the East River, we still didn’t ask questions. Those lucky breaks were chalked up to answered prayers and coincidence and then never mentioned again.

Our house was full of unspoken rules. Asking why Dad hadn’t left the house in six weeks was one of those rules.

Which meant he must be really upset if he was out searching for me. I was a hundred percent sure my Ma made him do it. She was the only person who made him do anything, and most of the time he hated it, even though he went along with whatever she wanted. Which also meant he was going to be majorly pissed off at me. Both of those things made me happy that I was here, but if Gino had found us, then surely my angry father wasn’t far behind.

And once my father found me, he would do what he always did. Lock me in a room at his house, with his men standing guard to make sure I didn’t leave. He always did want me to be more

like him. Isolated from real people. He called it protected. Or cautious. Trusting people to be good to you was naive and weak. If you didn’t expect anything from anyone, you would never be disappointed, he would say.

I called it imprisonment.

We disagreed strongly on this subject and I’d spent years wrestling myself out of his protective grip. It took an act of God just to get him to agree to let me live with Bella. It would take years to get him to that point again, once he saw the mess I’d gotten myself into now.

But what am I thinking? I killed someone. I’m going to go to prison for the rest of my life. There will be no more freedom, no more Bella, no more apartment…no more Dante.

I looked over at Dante, his soft hair framing his determined face, and even with the angry set of his jaw, he was breathtakingly beautiful. A vision of him hovering over me in the dark, his massive hardness smoothly transporting me to heaven last night flashed in my head. It had been magical.

But was that really all it was meant to be?

How could that be possible? How could fate be that cruel?

Was I doomed to spend the rest of my life behind bars, remembering such a brief moment in time, torturously yearning for a man that I could never touch again?

I just couldn’t accept it. This kind of thing couldn’t happen to me. I was a fucking Loprinzi, for fuck’s sake, and no matter how entitled it made me sound, this kind of thing didn’t happen to our family.

I always got my way, dammit!

“I really need to talk to my father,” I said to Dante again. “I know you don’t think it’s a good idea. But if Gino found us, then my father will find us, too.”

“How is he going to help?” Dante asked again. I’d never really answered him the first time. We’d ended up in bed, because talking about it was too hard, too painful, too confusing.

“He knows people. Cops. DA’s. Prosecutors. Judges.”

“What about the Feds that are looking for him?”