Page 47 of Marcello
“That’s good. I miss not having you around when I wake up.”
“I apologize, my love. I will be there for you in the mornings from now on.”
“You should come and see Tulio. He’s so adorable.”
I grinned.“I’ll do that when I get back. Then I think some time in the gardens before we retire to the room for the day.”Abel loved the gardens, and I couldn’t wait for his fox to run through them.
“I can’t wait,”Abel told me.
“Soon,”I said in response and then muted our bond again. He didn’t want to know this side of things, and I understood that. I dried my hands, and when I opened the door, I found Vincent leaning against the wall.
“The others will dispose of the body,” he said. “He bled out on the floor.”
I shrugged. “Not the most painful way, but a fair one, in my opinion, for what he did.”
“Are you ready?”
I nodded. I went up the steep stairs first, finding Nicolo looking bored while sitting on one of the plush bench seats. He had his hands folded on his stomach and his legs crossed at the ankle.
“I don’t know where Abel got his feistiness, but it certainly didn’t come from his father, and it seemed to not be passed on to his older brother either.”
Vincent and I both chuckled. I noticed that Nicolo looked pristinely clean and would have to ask him about that later.
“We’re ready,” Vincent said.
“Good. I want to get back to the villa and find something to eat.”
I shook my head, and Vincent sighed. We both knew he wasn’t talking about actual food. I couldn’t say anything because most likely my fangs would end up in Abel at some point today, and we would both enjoy it immensely. I waved to Luciano and Elio as we made our way to the ladder to return to the boat below. I needed to get back to the villa and hold Abel. With him in my arms, everything seemed more settled.
Chapter 16
Abel
Tulio was the absolute chunkiest baby I had ever been around. He was so sweet, and I just couldn’t stop snuggling him. Mazzi knew right away that something was up when I knocked on the door to their suite. I had messaged him before just dropping in—he did have a One and a new baby, after all, but he’d insisted that company would be quite welcome, and I’d headed that way. It wasn’t as if it were a far walk. Their room was about thirty seconds away from ours.
“All right,” Mazzi said as I rubbed my cheek against Tulio’s fuzzy hair. “American pancakes, bacon, strawberry compote, vanilla yogurt, and orange juice. You have a very filling breakfast. Spill the tea. Has Marcello been an asshole again?”
I couldn’t help it; I started laughing. Naldo came and gently took Tulio to the other side of the table and sat with him. It was time for a bottle, apparently. I sat there and watched Naldo for a moment and had to wonder if Marcello would be as attentive with our children as Naldo was with Tulio.
“I know he’s cute, and the vampire is sexy, but hello,” Mazzi said as a small burst of light exploded in front of me. I flinched and looked over at my friend.
“The baby is very cute, and I have my own sexy vampire. Who, no, he’s not been an ass again. At least not as far as I know.” I sighed. “He went to kill my father today.”
That grabbed both Naldo and Mazzi’s attention. Naldo immediately stood and left the room with the baby while Mazzi stared at me with wide eyes.
“All right. I need more than just that because why would you be so okay with your beloved killing your father?”
I shrugged. “He wasn’t a nice man. He used to abuse me growing up. My mom never hit me, but she didn’t stop him either. He was so disappointed that I was born an omega and broke his perfect record of producing only alphas.” I rolled my eyes. I spread the yogurt on top of the pancakes and looked up at Mazzi when he made a noise. “It’s really good,” I told him.
“I’ll take your word for it. To me, it seems incredibly heavy.”
I shrugged. “I’m a shifter. I might be one of the smaller ones, but I still burn a lot of energy to shift.”
“All right, so Marcello is going to go kill your dad. But there has to be more of a reason other than you being abused. I’m not discounting what you went through.”
I looked at Mazzi with wide eyes. “You don’t know that it was my dad that sold me to sex traffickers?” I didn’t know that someone’s eyes could get that big. But apparently, Mazzi’s could. “Yeah. I was there, obviously. He took me outside, shoved me into the trunk of his car, drove somewhere, and pulled me out of the trunk. When we got wherever, there were several other alphas waiting. They started grabbing at me, and then it was lights-out. I woke up in a cage.”
“No,” Mazzi said quietly.
