Chapter 47: FORTY SEVEN

CELESTIA

Raffaele’s gaze settled over me like a lethal calm. The moment he attempted to move towards me, I stopped him with a raised palm. “No,” I gritted through clenched teeth. “Leave me alone.”

Despite the warning, he still came closer. “Celestia…”

“I said, leave me alone!” I screamed, cutting him off. Tears burned my eyes, and I could no longer hold them back. Hot streams of shame rolled down my cheeks, making me look weak and vulnerable. I hated myself more than I hated the man right before my eyes. “Please…leave me alone,” I choked.

“At least tell me what happened?”

“What is the point anyways? Haven’t you ruined me enough already?” I took a step back, needing to put a distance between us, but Raffaele only stepped forward.

“What? What are you talking about?” he asked as if he was absolutely clueless.

Anger percolated deeper at his pretensions.

Swiping a hand across my cheeks, I boldly stepped forward and jabbed a finger into his chest. “You! I am saying that you were a mistake.” Stepping back, I shook my head and laughed at my naivety. “I was a bloody fool to trust you all this while…I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have.” I was breathless and trembling but did not care anymore.

But he seemed to be utterly blind to my anger.

“I don’t know what lies that woman told you…”

“And that woman is my mother!” I lashed out. “And whatever she is, I am her blood at the end of the day. What I am to you, Raffaele? What do I even mean to you?”

The question raged out before I could prevent it. It sounded every bit desperate, and that’s the last thing I wanted to sound like.

A splintered silence pricked our skin as Raffaele faltered. “I…” There was an apology in his eyes, and it told me everything I wished was untrue.

Truth is a bitter pill, Celestia, I reminded myself. Be careful what you wish for.

I licked my lips, tasting the salt of my tears. I know what I am to you,” I whispered and managed to look into his eyes. “An insurance. A living breathing pawn, you can twist and turn for your amusement.”

This time, he laughed. Only it was dark and bitter. “Kyla,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Fuck. I should have known.”

“Yes, she told me.” I paused for silence. “Now, I am done with you and your bloody games.”

There was fogginess of hurt shrouding his features as he tore his gaze away from me. Good, he deserved some pain after the way he tricked me into trusting him.

All of a sudden, the pain was brutally veered away, and the quintessential anger reared its head. “I did not drag you into anything or force you into something you didn’t want to,” he snarled, pointing his guns and went for the old fashioned blame game. “Whatever happened, it was consensual. So do not ever pin the blame on me. You were willing, and you loved every bit of it.”

It wasn’t the words, but the way he said them. I felt filthy and cheap.

White temper blinded me in a flash.

“You bastard!” I seethed, stomping over, and slapped him hard.

The air stilled between us for a second. I watched as rage blossomed in his features, making him look more like an animal than a man. The grey of his eyes was full of churning storms and blurred violence as I took a step back.

Raffaele narrowed his eyes, his nostrils flaring. “This once, only this once I am going to let it slide, Celestia,” he hissed out. His voice saturated with threadbare control. “You will never raise your hand on me again.”

“Or what? How much worse could it be than it already is, Raffaele?” I could not keep the quake out of my voice, but I had to ask. I had to know the limit of this madness—his and mine.

I had to see how far I was willing to break for him.

A harrowing silence licked and lashed in the air. Raffaele may have been the man with only a handful of expressions, but his volatile temper was apparent.

He looked like a caged animal, not holding back by the steel of his determination. “You haven’t seen my worst,” he told me a voice calmer than the silence before a storm. “And I hope to God that you never do. But if you ever cross that line, Celestia, I will not be responsible for what happens next.”

“I hate you.” Treacherous tears betrayed and sailed down.

“I can live with that.”

My insides folded in on themselves, my heart into my stomach, and my stomach into my core. Acid and pain and betrayal all mingled in a painful concoction.

Raffaele grabbed my arm, angry fingers biting into the skin, and hauled me outside the room. His right-hand man, Cesar, was already in attendance, but the slight flinch of his eyes told me that he was quite wary of his master’s behavior.

“Take her to her room upstairs.” He jerked me away as I stumbled to find balance. “And Cesar, make sure that she doesn’t take a step outside. She no longer has the right to roam around.”

RAFFAELE

Amadeo and I strode to the office building and not a word passed between us. For all I know, he had already heard about it from Cesar. As for me, I was done behaving like a goddamn idiot.

I was battling stupid thoughts and losing against my rules, and I was done being a fucking moron. Irrationality would cost me dearly, I knew that for sure, and therefore, I had done what I should have done from day one – I should have stayed far, far away from her.

Being in the same room, it was maddening. One moment I was hurting, and in the next, I was livid. The pendulum of my being was driving me near crazy.

The door slammed shut as I walked over to grab the whiskey decanter and a glass from the shelf and slumped down on the chair. Only when the warm liquid burned down my throat did I breathed a sigh.

“Rafe...” Amadeo’s careful voice sliced through my turbulent brain as I closed my eyes and grunted.

I wasn’t really in a mood for a conversation. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

“You are not okay.”

Tell me about it.

But my brother was not a man to give up, thanks to our shared DNA traits. So, he tried again. “Listen—”

Slamming down the glass angrily on the table, I cut him off. “The hell I am not okay! I knew this would happen if I let that wretched woman meet Celestia. Fuck, I shouldn’t have listened to you, Amadeo!” I snarled through my painfully clenched jaw.

Amadeo simply held my grace without a trace of emotion on his handsome face. “Take it out some more,” he told me calmly. “Hell, fight it out with me if it helps, but when you are finally ready, then ask yourself: is fifteen million worth losing your sleep over it?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and breathed deep. “This isn’t about fucking money. Kyla has dragged it too far, and backing out would only make me look weak.”

“I know that,” Amadeo agreed with a slow nod. Times like these, I admired my brother more. He had the patience of a saint. “Now, let’s move to the most important question I wanted to ask before Kyla showed up and ruined my plans – and yours. Are you going to deny how you feel about Celestia?”

My heart accelerated, and a ball of emotions sat clogged at the base of my throat. “Feel about what?” I muttered, pouring myself another glass and downed it in one go.

Amadeo let out a deep sigh. “Rafe, do you not see that the ship has sailed already? You are not acting out on what Kyla did; you are acting out because she turned Celestia against you. You never gave a damn to your reputation to the world, but it matters what Celestia thinks of you. Damn it, if it isn’t love, I don’t know what it is.” He threw up his hand in exasperation as I outright frowned at him.

“Have you gone crazy? I would agree that I like her company and that she is…she is different.”

His brows rose up to the forehead as he laughed at me mockingly. “Different? That is the word you pick?” He threw back his head and shook. “Christ! You are impossible.”

It pissed me the fuck off to be at everyone’s judgemental end. For mercy’s sake, I was waging a battle in my head. So why can’t they cut me a slack? First Amadeo, then Celestia.

I downed two more glasses until I felt drunk enough to have carried on the conversation. Resting my elbows on the table, I leaned forward. “You know, you are the culprit.”

“What?”

“You are the idiot who brought Celestia that last night. I would have never known about her connection with Kyla until you kidnapped her and put her before my face.”

I must have sounded like a dim-wit, but who the fuck cared? The list of my fuck-ups was on a roll.

Amadeo gaped at me for a long beat. “Un-fucking-believable! I didn’t obsess over her footage at the club or when she accidentally crossed your path at the shopping mall. Although, I highly doubt if you have actually seen her or hallucinated about her.”

I scowled at him. “Fuck you.”

“What is the plan now?” he asked, ignoring my previous statement. “How are you going to make things right with Celestia?”

“I am not going to do anything,” I declared stubbornly. “She is going to stay in the room for two weeks until her bitchy mother shows up with the money and takes her home. And I will finally get rid of her.”

Why the hell it made my chest twitch in pain now?

“If you would ask me, I’d say that you have two choices – either you sent her back now and make an ass out of yourself, or you can go back to Celestia, talk to her calmly and make her see reason.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And why should I do that?”

“Because she’s hurting, Rafe,” Amadeo said softly, and it felt like someone has just gutted me. A sharp and steel knife twisting into my insides, making me bleed and ache. “She’s hurting because she likes you too.”

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