Corrupted Queen - Nicole Fox Page 0,1
welcoming the brief moment of peace.
Which is, of course, exactly when my cell phone decides to ring.
My phone blares to life on the bedside table and I leap for it, smothering the ringing with my hand and darting into the bathroom before the noise wakes Harry. I wonder if it is Debbie returning my calls, though it’s doubtful. I have left her what feels like a million voice mails with no response.
I should hate my boss for putting me in this situation, but after witnessing Andrew Walsh’s brand of cruelty first-hand, I don’t blame her for ceding to his demands. Now that he’s dead, she’s free, and I feel a sort of kinship toward her because of our mob connection. She’s the one person I could talk to about all this.
Plus, I’m going absolutely stir-crazy. I’m hoping she will have some work for me.
I check the screen and my heart skips.
“Clara,” I answer quietly. “I’ve been so worried about you. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine, babe.” Her voice is milkshake-thick. “Jus’ been on vacation.”
My forehead wrinkles with worry. Clara Fitzgerald is my best friend. She’s a bright-eyed yoga instructor with a cheeky smile and a penchant for mischief. She’s also a recovering alcoholic, and the fact that she’s broadcast nothing but radio silence for weeks, and now her voice is slurred, worries me.
“Where did you go?” I ask.
“I miss you,” Clara says, dodging the question. “Hey, you should come over. I got your texts and I wann’ help.”
I lean against the wall and survey the muggy, gray bathroom. I think of Clara’s place, with its jungle of potted plants and eternally burning incense, and I’m tempted.
Only problem? It wouldn’t be hard for Gabriel to find me there.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say.
“It would be great. Thinka all the things we could do together. So much fun.”
“Clara, have you been drinking?” I ask, frowning.
She pauses, clearing her throat. “I’ve been going through a rough time,” she admits, but quickly changes the subject. “What’ve you been up to?”
I expected Clara to have a million questions for me when we finally reconnected, but “What have you been up to?” didn’t make the list.
Clara doesn’t know that Harry’s father is a mob boss, or that Gabriel detained me in his home just prior to being kidnapped by Andrew Walsh. I only told her in the texts that I had left Gabriel’s, and that I was worried he would come after Harry and me. Surely, that would make her a little curious?
She’s not in her right mind, I reason.
“I’ve just been keeping a low profile,” I say.
“Right. ’Cause Gabriel’s looking for you.” She snorts. “I told you that guy was bad news.”
Clara had misgivings about Gabriel from the second he sent someone to my place to conduct a paternity test, then showed up and swept me off to his mansion for safekeeping. At the time I just thought he was a reclusive and evidently paranoid billionaire. I didn’t realize Harry had a target on his little back.
“It wasn’t all bad,” I manage to say, voice thin.
In fact, it wasn’t even mostly bad. For a hot second, I thought that I loved Gabriel. He was an attentive, affectionate father. Toward me, he was sometimes cold, sometimes distant, but he often surprised me with his capacity for tenderness.
Not to mention the fact that he rocked my world in the bedroom. He was a charming, intelligent enigma.
But my search to fill in all his blanks led to discovering that he was keeping a secret from me—the secret of my father’s murder.
Gabriel saw my fact-finding mission as a disrespectful and blatant betrayal. He locked me away and warned that if I didn’t start toeing the company line, then he was going to take Harry from me for good. I guess he was worried about me discovering that it was actually he who murdered my father—a respected state prosecutor who presumably committed the grave crime of getting in Gabriel’s way.
“Not all that bad? You’ve been on the run from him for the past month,” Clara mutters.
“Yes, well. Life is complicated sometimes.”
She probably thinks I’m insane for defending him, but the last time I saw Gabriel, he turned himself over to Andrew Walsh in exchange for mine and Harry’s freedom. This earned him three gunshot wounds. Hence my conflicted feelings.
Gabriel Belluci is a criminal. He killed my father, held me captive, and will probably take my son away from me if he ever finds me.
He also saved my life