Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

Oliver

Two days passed in a fog. I left the penthouse’s bedroom to get food from the kitchen occasionally, but I didn’t remember eating anything. I spent my time either sleeping or reading one of the generic action novels stocked on the shelves. Anything to keep myself from thinking too much about my situation.

Not that I could ever really stop thinking about it.

A mafia boss.

My life had now officially entered “what the hell” territory. I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to think about the whole thing. The thought was too big. It wouldn’t fit inside my head. Every time I tried, I found myself staring blankly at the wall for several hours.

Before I knew it, two days had passed, and the only thing I had accomplished was avoiding the bodyguard woman that D’Angelo had left behind. There was nothing wrong with her, but she practically radiated with an intense aura and watched my every move like an Olympic judge.

At least my family and Ashes were all right. I’d managed to talk to them through the cell phone D’Angelo left behind. The woman, Eva, had watched me extra closely during that conversation, making it clear that I wasn’t meant to tell them anything about what was happening, but she didn’t stop me. It turned out that my family and Ashes didn’t even know there was anything wrong and that they were under protection. Apparently, D’Angelo’s security detail were experts at doing their jobs secretly.

A knot inside me had loosened when I heard that. I’d been worried about causing stress for the people I cared about, but they thought D’Angelo had merely whisked me off for a spontaneous vacation. Ashes had even laughed while scolding me for moving so fast with my new beau.

Rowan had also been equally enthusiastic, though my Mother and Grandmother were oddly subdued. I couldn’t really blame them. Leaving so suddenly, without warning, wasn’t like me. They were probably worried about D’Angelo having too much influence on me and changing me into someone else.

I’d never dated anyone before, so they had no basis for comparison, plus the age gap added another concern to worry about.

If only that was my biggest problem,

My stomach growled. I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and the sun had almost set.

Pulling on a clean T-shirt—I didn’t even want to ask how D’Angelo had clothing in my size—I slipped out the bedroom door and headed for the kitchen.

The first odd thing I noticed was that Eva seemed to be missing. She was probably somewhere else in the penthouse, it had several bedrooms after all, but over the last two days every time I set foot outside the master bedroom, she was always there, lurking in my peripheral.

Unnerved by the silence in the penthouse, I decided to just make some toast. Even the hum of the air-conditioner seemed too loud, and the sound of my own chewing was nearly unbearable. I hurried through the meal as quickly as I could and headed back to the master bedroom.

“Oliver Grant.”

The unexpected sound of Eva’s voice made me jump. With my heart beating out of my chest and my hand still on the bedroom doorknob, I turned around to face her.

“Yes. That’s my name.”

She was standing only a few feet away, somehow having approached without making a sound in the silent penthouse.

Her scowl deepened. “Are you sure?”

I gaped at her, searching her words for a hidden meaning I must have missed. “Am I sure... about my own name? Yeah, I think I am.”

She took a step forward and I scurried away. Avoiding the confined space of the bedroom, I tried to move into the more open area of the front room.

“You say that so confidently,” she said while she continued to approach. “But you’re lying. Your name is Oliver Radcliffe.”

I froze, though I couldn’t help mouthing the name I hadn’t heard in so many years. The syllables felt like I was running my tongue over barbed wire.

“How do you know that name?”

“Of course we looked into you. The name Radcliffe didn’t come up at first, until we dug a little deeper. It was surprisingly well hidden. You almost got away with this little act.”

“What act?” My back hit the wall on the far side of the front room. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She didn’t even seem to hear me as she pulled the gun from her hip and pointed it at me. “Congratulations. In the twenty years I’ve been protecting D’Angelo, you came the closest to tricking me, but I won’t let you hurt him.”

I wish I could say I dodged the bullet intentionally, but when I saw the gun pointed at me, my fight or flight instincts both activated at the same time. One foot tried to run toward her for a confrontation, while the other tried to run away, and I just ended up tripping over my own legs. I hit the floor at the same moment the bullet hit the wall behind me.

Eva’s gun immediately moved to point at me again, preparing for a second shot. I didn’t even have time to try getting away.

A sudden bang made me curl up into a ball. For a moment, I was certain she had shot me, yet I felt no pain.

The noise continued, accompanied by shouting. With panic still burning like acid on my tongue, I dared to look up.

D’Angelo had appeared from seemingly nowhere, fighting with both of his bodyguards. At first, the sight of him filled me with cold fear, certain that he was trying to kill me as well, but then, I realized he was actually trying to stop them.

He was fighting to protect me.

Whatever had caused his bodyguard to attack me, it hadn’t been on his order. In fact, if his shouting was anything to go by, the bodyguard had betrayed him.

D’Angelo and the two bodyguards eventually came to a stalemate, with him pinning Eva to the ground while the male bodyguard aimed a gun at D’Angelo.

A tense few seconds passed while nobody moved, until Eva slowly pointed at me.

“He isn’t who he says he is. His name is actually...”

I shot to my feet. “Don’t you dare. I threw that name away fifteen years ago. You have no right to bring it up again.”

As I seethed, D’Angelo was busy staring between me and the two bodyguards, trying to come to a decision. Breathing deeply to resettle himself, he removed the knife from Eva’s neck, but didn’t put it back in its sheath.

“Oliver, stay there. You two, stand over there. Everyone’s going to calm down and explain to me what the hell is going on.”

The two bodyguards and I were put on opposite sides of the room, with D’Angelo standing in the middle. I couldn’t tell who was protecting who at this point, but I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to hear that name again, but I had no way to stop them.

“We did a deeper background check on Oliver Grant, as you requested,” Gavriil explained while Eva just nodded while rubbing her neck. “And some unexpected information came up.”

An odd squawking sound escaped my mouth. I would have been embarrassed over the noise, but I was too distracted by my anger. “You ordered them to do a background check on me?”

D’Angelo wasn’t nearly as ashamed by that fact as I thought he should be, meaning he wasn’t ashamed at all. He just waved away that admission as if it were trivial. “I have background checks done on everyone I get involved with. It’s necessary. More than one assassin has tried to kill me by worming their way into my bed.”

“Right.” I let the word drip off my lips, not sure what to do with it or what I should say next. “Fine. I understand... I guess. But that still doesn’t explain why she tried to kill me.”

Eva didn’t answer me. In fact, she seemed to be pretending that I wasn’t there. Instead, she spoke directly to D’Angelo.

“Boss, he’s been lying to you. His name isn’t Oliver Grant. It’s Oliver Radcliffe. His father was Arturo Radcliffe.”

As soon as that name left her mouth, hatred boiled up out of my stomach and spread through my veins like poison. My hand moved of its own accord, grabbing a book off a nearby shelf and throwing it across the room at her.

“Don’t say that name. That bastard has nothing to do with me. He walked out on us right after the fire and I never heard from him again, so I never want to hear his name again, either. My Mom went back to her maiden name, and we got on much better pretending he didn’t exist.”

The book hadn’t come close to hitting her. She didn’t even have to move to avoid it, so nothing blocked her gaze when she finally looked at me. “That doesn’t explain why your birth certificate was changed. Your father is listed as unknown.”

“I don’t know.” I took a step across the room, as if to confront her, but then thought better of it and returned back to my safe place against the wall. “Like I said, we pretended like he didn’t exist. My Mom probably had it changed so we could all forget about him.”

“Hold on.” D’Angelo stepped between us, blocking my line of sight to the pair of bodyguards so all I saw was his face in profile. He was obviously very confused. “Why are we arguing about this? I’ve never heard the name Arturo Radcliffe before. Why is it important?”

Very cautiously, like he was stepping onto thin ice, Gavriil approached D’Angelo and held out his phone. “You would never have dealt with him directly before, but he was a low-level enforcer for the Vidales family.”

“What?” D’Angelo snatched the phone from Gavriil’s hands.

In contrast to D’Angelo’s sudden burst of movement, I remained frozen.

“Who’re the Vidales family?”

As D’Angelo scrolled through the information on the phone, he gave me a brief summary. The Italian mafia was not just one family, but several families arranged in a hierarchy. The Mariano family sat at the top, controlling everyone else, while the Bianchi family and the Vidales family held equal positions of power just below the top. Although part of the same organization, D’Angelo’s family and the Vidales family were, in a way, rivals.

And apparently my father was a member of this hierarchy.

“No.” I shook my head wildly side to side. “No. My father worked at the harbor. He was a dock worker. He wasn’t... He wasn’t this.” I gestured uselessly at D’Angelo, as if that would explain everything.

D’Angelo regarded me for a moment, then he held out the phone with a carefully neutral expression. “See for yourself.”

With trembling hands, I took the phone. There, right on the screen, sat a picture of my father. He looked exactly as I remembered, and yet somehow completely different. His eyes were the same color as mine, and our noses were the same shape. His ears even stuck out a little like mine did. Yet, in the picture, he looked rough in a way I’d never seen before. A black eye along with several other cuts and bruises made him look like he’d just gotten out of a fight, and he glared directly at the camera. I was so shocked at first that I didn’t immediately notice that the picture was a mugshot.

Listed below the picture was a horrifyingly impressive arrest record.

Drug dealing.

Larceny.

Multiple counts of every type of assault charge possible.

Attempted homicide.

Kidnapping?

Manslaughter?

I stopped reading after that.

“No, this isn’t...” I sank to my knees and the phone tumbled from my hands, bouncing off the carpet. “This can’t be.”

A pair of perfectly polished shoes stepped into my vision before D’Angelo knelt down to look me in the eye. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but the information is true. I’d have no reason to lie to you about this, and neither do they. If anything, I wish it wasn’t true.” He picked up the phone, turning the black rectangle over in his hands. “This isn’t the kind of thing anyone should just have sprung on them... Wait a minute…”

He stood so abruptly that a breeze brushed over my skin in the wake of his movement. Turning to face the bodyguard pair, his hands gripped the phone tight enough to turn white.

“Fifteen years ago? Isn’t that...”

Although he didn’t finish the question, the pair seemed to understand what he was asking and nodded.

“Yes, Arturo Radcliffe was the primary suspect,” Gavriil said. “He disappeared immediately after the shipment went missing. It’s suspected that the fire was set deliberately to cover his tracks. He was hunted down, of course, but it took years to find him, and by then, it turned out he was already dead. Cancer got him before any of our people could. If he did steal the shipment, it was long gone by the time we found him, so it was never recovered.”

The explanation made no sense, and I felt like I was missing some vital information, but one word stuck out to me like a bomb going off in the middle of a symphony.

“Fire? What are you talking about? What do you mean ‘set deliberately’? Stop speaking like I’m not here and explain it to me.”

No one spoke immediately. Eva and Gavriil looked to D’Angelo, who was scrolling through the information on the phone again. His expression grew darker and darker, until eventually, he closed his eyes and just hung his head. A few uncertain moments passed before he jerked back into a proper, upright posture with a new glint of determination in his blue eyes. Yet, when he sat before me on the floor, his voice was warmer than I’d ever heard it.

“Oliver. I’m going to summarize everything for you, and I need you to listen and not interrupt until I’m done. Can you do that?”

Still huddled pathetically on the floor, I sat up a little straighter, wiped the frustrated tears from my eyes, and nodded.

He smiled. “Good boy.”

Despite everything, the sound of that midnight velvet voice praising me still made me shiver.

He explained the truth as clearly and simply as possible, but nothing could soothe the horror that swelled in me as I listened.

My father, Arturo Radcliffe, was a member of the Italian mafia. Specifically working for the Vidales family. Fifteen years ago, the Italian mafia and the Russian mafia had been in the middle of establishing a trade deal that used the Baltimore harbor, but it had fallen through when one of the shipments had been stolen.

My father was suspected of being the thief because he disappeared right after the theft happened. The fire that burned down my childhood home destroyed all traces and records of him, making him much more difficult to track down, which meant he had likely set the fire intentionally. That was how he’d gotten away with it.

Now, the Russian and Italian mafia were trying to reestablish the same trade deal that fell through fifteen years ago, but just like back then, another shipment had gone missing. It was why D’Angelo was here in Baltimore in the first place, to figure out how to solve the mess and stop the Italians and the Russians from declaring war on each other.

“Do you understand?” D’Angelo said after he’d finished summarizing everything.

Sometime during his explanation, unnoticed by me, he’d grabbed both my hands and held them tightly.

“Because of this, it’s even more important than I realized that you stay here where I can protect you. If the Russians figure out that your father was probably the thief fifteen years ago, now that the situation seems to be repeating, you’re going to be the number one suspect now. You wouldn’t survive their interrogation. My own people I can handle. They won’t touch you without my permission, but I don’t have any control over the Russians. If they get their hands on you, I may not be able to save you in time.”

I heard his words. They flowed between the crevices of my brain like water, delivering their meaning directly into my thoughts. Yet, I couldn’t put in the effort to remember what he said.

Instead, I just squeezed his hands so hard that both of our fingers were going numb.

“They knew.”

“Oliver?” D’Angelo started to say, but I cut him off.

“They fucking knew. My Mom and my Grandma. They must have known about my father, and they never told me.”

My hands were shaking so bad I couldn’t hold onto him anymore. I stood up and started pacing. In the back of my mind, I noticed D’Angelo signal Eva and Gavriil to leave, but I didn’t stop to think about it.

“The fire. He set the fire intentionally. Did he know we were in there? Did Mom and Nana know? They said it was an accident.”

Memories flashed in my mind.

The despair I’d felt when I first woke up in the hospital to find half my face covered in bandages. The nurses, my Mother, and my Grandmother all comforted me, telling me it was just an accident. That these things happen, and we need to rise above them. Every time I got upset about it after, they always responded the same way.

“It was just an accident. There’s no reason to get so upset. These things just happen.”

But it wasn’t an accident, and they knew. Maybe they didn’t know that Rowan and I were still in the house when the fire was started, but they must have realized afterward that my father had set it intentionally.

Yet they kept repeating those useless platitudes that did nothing except make me feel guilty for getting upset.

“Oliver.”

D’Angelo’s sharp voice broke me out of my memories. He yanked my hands away from my body, holding tight to my wrists, and I realized I’d been scratching at my left arm. It was the one with the burn scars on it. I used to scratch at the scars when I was younger, but I’d eventually been scolded out of the habit. Now, it seemed old habits were coming back.

“They stole my face.” Tears were dripping down my cheeks, hot against my flushed skin. “They burned it right off me, and they did it intentionally. They didn’t even have the decency to tell me.”

“Hey, nothing was stolen.” D’Angelo let go of my wrists to try and soothe me, wiping the tears off both my cheeks. “Your face is right here, and it’s beautiful because it’s you. I’m sure your father didn’t know you were in the house when he set the fire, and the rest of your family didn’t tell you because they didn’t want you to worry.”

What he said made sense, but I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear anything.

It was just like the nights when I didn’t want to work at the club, but I had to get out on stage anyway. Or the mornings when I was exhausted from working late, but I still had to get up for an early shift.

Shut my brain off. Focus on something else. Let my body go on autopilot.

There was no decision. One moment, I was standing there staring up at D’Angelo as he dried the tears from my cheeks, and the next I’d grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him down into a kiss.

It felt great. The press of lips against my own chased away all other thoughts, like leaves caught in a cool autumn wind. Soothing, yet also warm and stimulating. I could have stayed there for the rest of my life.

Yet, only a moment later, D’Angelo was pulling me away.

“Oliver, this isn’t...”

“Yes, it is,” I cut him off before he could finish, not wanting to hear him speaking logic right now. “It’s fine. I want to. I just... I need to think about something else. Feel something else. Something other than numb, or angry. Please.” I tried to reach for him again. “I need this.”

“You don’t...” He trailed off, looking around himself as if just now realizing we were in the front room of the penthouse. Eva and Gavriil had disappeared somewhere, but the open area still lacked privacy.

Grabbing my wrist he pulled me into the master bedroom, then closed and locked the door.

Perfect. That was just where I wanted to be.

I twisted my fists in his shirt again and tried to pull him back to me, but he pushed me away before our lips even touched.

“Wait, Oliver. Stop. I just wanted to get us some privacy. You’re upset. This... isn’t a good idea.”

Growling low under my breath, I lashed out and shoved at his chest. He must have been shocked because I actually managed to make him stumble backward.

“I’m so sick of being good. I’ve been good all my life. Don’t be upset. Get a job as soon as you can. Get two jobs. Work under the table. Work nights. Help the family. Take care of your brother. Handle the bills. Don’t complain. I’m so fucking sick of it!”

The strength suddenly left my legs and I collapsed onto the foot of the bed. “I’m so tired, but I didn’t mind. I thought my family was just unlucky. We were all victims of fate, and we were all making sacrifices. How could I complain when my brother’s health was worse than my scars, and my mother was just as tired as I was?”

My tears returned, and this time I started hiccupping. “It’s not fair. I’ve been trying so hard to be good , and all this time they were lying to me. What’s the point of being good ? What does it get me? I haven’t even told my family about half the things I do to make money because I thought they’d be ashamed. All so I could stay good in their eyes. But it’s all pointless.”

I’d started scratching at my scars again, this time focusing on the scar covering my face. My nails dug into the uneven skin until a sharp prick told me I was about to draw blood.

D’Angelo knelt in front of me and yanked my hands away from my face.

“Stop that. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“So what?” I argued. He still held my wrists and I struggled to free myself, not sure if I wanted to hit him or pull him closer.

When that didn’t work, I leaned forward until our foreheads touched. “Please. Please just give me something else to think about. I can still see it. The fire. I can still smell it. The smoke and heat are trapped in my skin. Please, just...”

When I looked at him, his image was blurry, and I realized I’d started crying again.

“Please just help me not think for a while.”

This time, he didn’t immediately push me away. He let go of one of my wrists to wipe my tears away, but the moment he did, my free hand started scratching at my scars again. This time focusing on the ones on my chest.

That seemed to decide it for him.

In one impressive move, he wrapped his arms around me and picked me all the way up. I was weightless for a moment, suspended only in his arms, then he deposited me at the head of the bed. I bounced on the mattress but was immediately pinned down by his weight as he straddled my hips.

With one hand, he kept control of my wrists, and with the other he started undoing his belt.

I squirmed in anticipation. Although I’d never actually gone this far with sex, I’d been eager for it practically since the moment I met him, and now it seemed I was finally getting what I wanted.

All it took was a complete emotional breakdown.

However, once his belt was off, he kept the rest of his clothes on. Instead, he used the belt to lash both my wrists above my head to the bed’s headboard.

“There,” he sighed as he sat back to admire his work. “No more hurting yourself.” I started to protest, but he pressed a finger against my lips to silence me. “Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of you. But we’re doing this my way. You’re too self-destructive right now to make good judgments.”

He climbed off the bed and I whined in the back of my throat. The belt bit into my wrists, which was some physical sensation at least, but it wasn’t what I’d been hoping for.

D’Angelo didn’t go far. He searched through the closet for a moment before coming back with a medium-sized, nondescript box, which he placed on the bedside table. Studying me for a moment, he then opened the box and pulled out several lengths of soft nylon rope.

“That belt’s going to cut off your circulation. Here. This’ll work better.”

He untied my hands, but I wasn’t free for long. Using the rope, he tied one of my hands to one bedpost, and my other hand to the opposite bed post so my arms were splayed in a ‘Y’ shape. He was right, the ropes were soft and a lot more comfortable than the belt had been. I was actually able to relax and enjoy the sensation.

Especially, when he climbed back over top of me and started kissing down my neck. My shirt was in the way, so he ripped the fabric right off me, exposing my upper body. He’d never seen the scars on my chest before, but I wasn’t surprised when he barely seemed to notice them.

His kisses trailed over my skin, covering scars and smooth skin equally. I squirmed the lower he went, until he’d kissed a path all the way down my stomach to the top of my pants.

Dark blue eyes looked up at me. “Tell me to stop and I will. This is about making you feel good.”

I desperately shook my head. My whole body was already trembling. “No. Keep going.”

My pants were removed a lot easier than my shirt, and for the first time, I was completely bare in front of him. In fact, it was the first time I’d been completely naked in front of anyone since my burns first turned to scars. Half the time I couldn’t even bear to look at myself in the mirror, yet D’Angelo didn’t hesitate.

Grabbing both my legs, he kissed a path up one thigh from knee all the way to my hip, then repeated the process with the other leg.

Then getting comfortable on the bed, he took my already hard cock in hand and started kissing there as well. The light kisses sent sparks of pleasure dancing across my eyes, but it wasn’t enough. He was just teasing me. I squirmed and tried to wrap my legs around him to pull me closer, but he braced one hand on my hip to hold me in place.

“Patience. Just relax and enjoy it.”

Relax.

Right.

How was I supposed to relax when he started dragging his tongue up and down my shaft?

With my arms tied to the bedposts, I couldn’t even cover my face to hide my embarrassment. All I could do was lie there and let him do whatever he wanted with me.

“Please,” I begged. “Please, more.”

He stopped, and I cried out from the sudden loss of sensation.

“Don’t worry.” His voice was low and soothing, like he was talking to a spooked animal. “I’m not leaving you alone. I just need to get something.”

From the box by the bed, he pulled out a bottle of lube. Coating two of his fingers in the clear gel, he returned to his previous position and opened my legs a little wider.

“Just relax and stay soft for me. I promise this’ll feel good.”

His fingers probed between my legs, starting at the base of my cock and sliding downward until they slipped inside the cleft of my ass. I whined and nearly bit my tongue as he smeared the lube around the rim of my hole. The cool liquid along with the feel of his skin provided an odd contrast of sensations.

“How much have you had inside you before?”

He had to repeat the question several times before I heard him.

“Two... two fingers.” I writhed, and my legs seemed to have a mind of their own as they tried to kick out. “I could never get a third one in.”

“Well, then, this shouldn’t be too hard. Deep breath.”

I tried, I really did, but my lungs felt like a snake was constricting my chest and all I could do was pant as one of his fingers slid inside me. At the same time, his mouth descended on my cock, and he swallowed me whole.

I screamed.

The two sensations at once were too much. I felt electrocuted, but it didn’t hurt. I unintentionally pulled at the ropes around my wrists as my whole body seemed to come alive at once.

His head bobbed between my legs, pulling off my cock then swallowing me again, over and over. At the same time, his finger thrust in and out of me, probing at my inner muscles until he hit a spot that made stars dance in my vision. Every muscle in my body locked up in pleasure so I couldn’t even make a sound.

I lost track of time. My whole body felt like one big nerve ending, and I barely noticed when a second finger slipped inside me. The extra stretch just added a new sensation to the already overwhelming chaos.

He kept it up, thrusting his fingers into me harder and deeper while he continued to lave attention on my weeping cock. The pleasure built up inside me, tighter and tighter, until all at once my entire nervous system seemed to explode.

Even once it was over, I took a while to come down. He stayed between my legs pressing little kisses over my hips and stomach as he waited for me to catch my breath.

When my brain no longer felt like it was running out of my ears and I could finally string two thoughts together, I looked over to the side of the bed with a curios expression.

“What else is in the box?”