Chapter 40ANGELO

Chapter 40

ANGELO

Once we're on the helicopter, the pilot offers me and Candi a headset so we can talk and hear each other.

Usually, I wouldn't wear someone else's equipment. There's no way to know what the cleaning protocols are, but I want to be able to hear anything mia amate wants to say.

I take the headsets and clean one with a disinfectant wipe before handing it to Candi and doing the same for my own.

"Is it really that loud?" she asks, her voice coming through clearly on the earphones.

"It can be." We could probably hold a conversation because the cabin is insulated for sound, but we'd still have to raise our voices to be heard.

The noise inside the cabin increases as we lift off.

Candi grimaces. "Oh, that is loud."

"Like being at the club." Where you have to be within a couple of feet to hear another person speak.

"What was that loud music I heard on the phone when Queen Bitch called you?"

"I had Miceli send his music to the cabin sound system before I answered so the sounds of helicopter flight wouldn't be obvious."

"It worked. I thought you were at the club for a second and then I realized you were probably already on your way to me."

"I was." Her faith in me reminds me that she does not only see me as the monster, Death. "But you still decided to run."

"I told you why."

I don't mention how illogical her conclusion was because it was born of concern for me. "I don't want you taking risks like that."

"I don't like that you take risks either. I guess we'll both have to be careful."

"You didn't even have a weapon." I try not to allow the frustration I feel at that fact bleed into my voice.

"I had a stick, but I dropped it so I could run faster when I realized they had followed me into the forest." She plucks at the dark sweater she's wearing. "At least I had this. They didn't bring my coat when they kidnapped me."

"Inconsiderate."

"At least Derian and Mario kept me in my hoodie," she jokes.

But I'm not ready to laugh. "Tell me how you got away."

I can't stop looking at the smears of blood on her borrowed sweater. Blood from my kills tainting her.

"All I had to do was fake a little nausea to get them to leave one of the windows in my room open for me." She describes her escape like a big adventure.

Of course Candi would try to run. She doesn't take anything lying down. When she talks about untying the makeshift rope and carrying it along a beam two stories off the ground, so she can climb down unnoticed, I about lose my shit.

I pull my knife out and start flipping it over my knuckles. Flip. Flip. Flip.

"Uh, are you okay, Angelo?" She looks at me with concern.

Forgetting my desire to keep Candi from getting any more blood on her, I slide the knife back into its sheath and pull her close. "I'm proud of you."

"This feels more like worry than pride." Her voice is muffled by my chest.

I kiss the top of her head because I can. "I'll have to brush your hair out again tonight."

"I like when you do that," she says softly.

"I do too."

She snuggles into me, molding her body as close as she can get with the safety belt on.

"I want you to know I never doubted my ultimate safety, Angelo. I didn't just know you would come for me. I knew you would succeed."

"There will never be a time I don't come for you. Even after death I will come back to protect you."

"That's not morbid at all." She tries to sound snarky, but even I can distinguish the underlying emotion in her voice.

"What's morbid about spending eternity together?"

She huffs out a sigh. "When you put it that way, nothing. But I thought you weren't religious."

"How can I not believe in the afterlife when I know I will spend it with you?"

"The things you say." She moves restlessly against me. "It's not that cold in here, right? I mean I don't need the sweater anymore."

"You want to get the blood off." I'm not surprised.

Candi is not meant to be marked by Death.

"It stinks." She sits up, her nose wrinkled in distaste. "Haven't you noticed? It's like fake lavender or something. I mean lavender isn't my favorite fragrance to begin with, but add a chemical component in and it's nauseating."

She pulls the sweater off and tosses it onto the floor before taking a big breath. "That's better but I can still smell it."

I grab the sweater, open the door and toss it into the rushing wind before shutting it again.

"You can't do that! It's littering."

"Birds will find it and pick it apart to make nests." I don't know if that's true, but I wasn't keeping the offending garment in the cabin when it bothered her.

"Only if they can get past that awful smell." She sighs. "Why did you think it was the blood?"

I shrug.

She shakes her head at me, the smooth ponytail she left the house in earlier today long gone. "Don't hide yourself from me. I love all of you, Angelo."

"How can you love me as I am?"

"It's easy, just like it was for your nonno and nonna. Severu and Miceli will probably never say the words, but it's clear they love you like family. Your men who trust you and follow you wherever you go, they love you."

"You see my world through rose colored glasses." As much as I enjoy her interpretation, it's not fair to let her keep believing that. "My men are loyal because I pay them well and they know they can trust my leadership to keep them alive."

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. Derian told me how many men in your Special Forces unit joined the mafia so they could work for you. Not because they were looking for a big payday."

"Derian has a tendency to romanticize."

She cocks her head to one side like she's considering my words and then shakes it. "Nah. I don't see it. He said the mafia often uses the military to train their men, and sometimes recruits people who serve with them."

"True."

"But no other made man has ever brought as many men he served with into the Cosa Nostra as you."

"I knew I could trust them." They'd proven they had my back and knew I had theirs.

"Angelo, you might lack empathy. You don't always get social or emotional cues and I'll have to remember that. But your loyalty is absolute. You will kill and die for those you care for. You may not call that love, but I do."

"Now who's being morbid?" I ask because other words fail me.

She sees me like that?

"I love you, Angelo, with my whole heart. And I know you love me. Your mother is so wrong about that. You are capable of love and if she'd been a decent parent who treated you with care, she would have known what that feels like too."

"Probably not. I don't even like Perla."

"Neither do I, but the issue isn't with you. It's a her problem."

"What if what I call love isn't enough for you? I'll never be normal , Candi." My obsession with her didn't suddenly give me a new set of emotions toward the world.

Only her. And her mom and sister.

"And you're not as different as you think. You love my mom and you love my sister, and I believe you love the De Lucas and the men on your crew. It just doesn't look like love to everyone else. But it is enough for me because your brand of love is exactly what I need," she says fiercely.

I'll never get used to the look in Candi's beautiful eyes that says I'm the hero in the story.

Death is never the hero. People look at me with caution. But not mia amate or her sister. Mira is still cautious, but that I understand.

"I didn't realize how much I would like having a little sister," I say. "She looks at me like a hero just like you do."

I will never damage that. Every child deserves to believe that the important adults in their life are their ultimate protectors, that they care about them.

"She'll never know the neglect and insecurity we did," Candi says with deep conviction.

"No, she won't."

"That's one of the things I love about you, Death. My beloved. You are everything I want."

Fuck.

She does understand that me and Death are one in the same and she loves me anyway. "And you are everything I need, mia amate ."

I lean down and she meets me halfway.

The kiss we share is not incendiary. There are no biting lips or thrusting tongues. It's a benediction of the love we share. It goes from her lips straight to my beating heart.

She is this dark angel's salvation.

Candi withdraws her mouth just far enough to whisper against my lips. "I'm your soul. And you're my safety."

"I am your future, and you are mine," I agree reverently.

"My sexy stalker. Don't ever stop watching me. I think it would break my heart."

"That is one thing I will never do."

We kiss for long moments before she ends up cuddling against my chest again.

Thinking about what Salvatore said at the lunch table, I admit, "I have cameras all over the house and I watch you when you're not with me."

"Even in my mom and sister's rooms?" she asks worriedly.

"No. Not in the staff quarters either. But in all of the public rooms, and the conservatory, especially because…" Is this something she's ready to hear?

She pats my chest. "Don't be a scaredy cat. Tell me."

"No one has ever called me that before."

Shrugging, she nuzzles my neck, sending sensation straight to my cock.

"I recorded us in there." Will this be the obsession one step too far?

"With anyone else that would scare me." Her hand drops into my lap, lightly massaging my dick. "I would worry about revenge porn or something, but not with you. You will always protect me, even from yourself."

"I will."

"I want to watch it." She gives my cock a firm squeeze. "I spent most of that time in the hot tub facing away from you. I want to see what you looked like."

Not what we looked like together, but what I looked like, because my Candi is almost as obsessed with me as I am with her.

She unzips my fly and slides her hand inside, molding my steadily growing erection with her fingers. Humming, she rubs her hand up and down. "I want to taste you."

"Not here!"

Her laugh is sultry. "Don't make so much noise. You don't want the pilot turning around to find out what's wrong."

"Won't happen." And I make sure of it by ordering them in Italian to keep their eyes forward unless they want me to gouge them from their heads.

Their com units are already on a different channel because I didn't want them listening to my conversation with Candi.

Candi slips her hand under my boxers, her hot skin against my cock so fucking arousing, I groan.

She speeds up her movements telling me how sexy I am, how much she loves touching me, but when she says those three little words, "I love you," I come so hard my vision goes white for a second.

Rubbing my cum up and down my shaft, she kisses the underside of my jaw. "I like doing that."

Then before I can get my brain to mouth signals working enough to tell her I fucking adore it, she pulls her hand away and lifts it to her lips. Our gazes locked, she licks at the spend coating her hand.

"It tastes better than I expected."

"Does it?"

"Lots of the dancers say it's awful, but I like it. Maybe that's just because it's yours."

Watching her clean her hand with her pretty pink tongue, I'm rendered speechless.