King of Stars (The Next Generation #2)

44. Stella

Chapter 44

Stella

I didn’t even bother to look out the window as we took the roads back to my mom. I had a feeling she had been…killed (my fists clenched against Matteo’s suit jacket when I thought the word) in the same place she’d lived when I’d been with her. Matteo hadn’t given me details, and I still didn’t want them; not yet. It was enough to know that the evil bitch had taken me away from my mom, and my mom away from me.

How fucking unfair life was.

The car stopped, and at first, I thought we were there. My stomach rolled up, and I had to fling the door open before I spilled the contents of my stomach all over my husband and the car. I didn’t think he’d mind, but I refused to have another thing to feel sorry for. It was nothing but tea from that morning and a tiny piece of toast, but it made me feel emptier than I had before.

Matteo held me by the shoulders so that I didn’t fall out of the armored SUV, and when I was done, he pulled me back in like a rag doll. I just didn’t have the energy to do it myself. He studied my face like I might disappear on him, then ran a warm hand over my head.

He snapped at Placido, who was in the front seat, and a second later, Placido handed him a mini bottle of mouthwash that had been stashed in the glove compartment. Matteo set it to my lips and told me to swish. I did, and then he opened the door so I could spit it out. It made me feel better, and relief swept over me like a cool wind when I realized we were at a flower shop.

When Armando walked out with a beautiful bouquet of forget-me-nots, tears ran down my face. I had no control over them lately. I squeezed my husband’s hand as hard as I could, though, to let him know how much I appreciated his thoughtfulness.

A few minutes later, the caravan that was the Fausti security was rolling to a stop in front of a small house I recognized from my childhood. All the reminders were making me sick, but on the other hand, they were comforting me at the same time.

My mom was gone, but all these places had connections to her.

I almost wanted to turn to her and say, “I’m back! Can you believe it?” But when I turned, the seat next to me was empty. Matteo had gone to the door himself to speak to Big Joe, mom’s boss at the strip club . Armando kept watch from the driver’s seat, and Placido was next to him in the shotgun seat. The door to the house opened, and Matteo shook Big Joe’s hand. The man was a much older version of who he used to be, though his meatiness was still the same. So was the big medallion of some saint and gold chain he wore around his neck. A towel was wrapped around his neck to absorb sweat. His curious eyes took in the scene down his residential neighborhood street, and when they landed on the car I was in, it seemed like he was trying to pierce through the tinted window with his stare.

Matteo said something to him, shaking his head. Big Joe ran a gnarled hand down his face and shook his head. The two men spoke for another few minutes before Matteo nodded and turned toward the car. I wasn’t sure what it was, but the look in my husband’s eyes had changed. It was a subtle shift, but after spending so much time alone with him lately, it was like I knew him even better. And something told me whatever Big Joe had told him had him in thinking mode.

After Matteo returned to the car and slid in next to me, I turned to him.

He shrugged. “Interesting man.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but the car started to move, and Matteo gave Armando directions in Italian. It only took a few minutes to get there, but we took the long drive past the silent city, all of us just as silent. It was such a peaceful place. Oaks lined the drive, and the moss hanging from them drifted in the subtle breeze. The cemetery was boxed in by numerous trees. The lawn was green. And…magnolias were everywhere.

Armando came to the softest stop, but the car might as well have flipped over. The emotions in me were violent enough to make me shake.

“Baby,” Matteo whispered, taking my hand, bringing it to his mouth. When I didn’t answer, he gave Armando an order in sharp Italian, but I lifted a trembling hand.

“No,” I barely got out. “I have to do this. It’s the right thing to do. Then…I want to go home. Will you take me home?”

His eyes stilled on my face, but I had a feeling that, beneath the surface, the waters inside of him were storming. He couldn’t take this from me, and he couldn’t control it. My emotional state was outside of his boundaries, no matter how hard he tried to get in. This was something I had to feel. This was something I had to do to honor my mom.

“I’d get on my knees and crawl if I couldn’t find a faster way to bring you home.”

“Don’t lose me, Matteo,” I whispered, squeezing his hand, setting my other on the door handle.

“You are me,” he said, setting me on his lap, kissing me softly on the neck, and then opening the door, bringing us both out into the glaring light of the day.

A tepid breeze brought the smell of magnolias, moss, and death. I took a shuddering breath but asked Matteo to set me on my feet. He put me down gently, and hand in hand, we walked toward the marker together. He held the bouquet of forget-me-nots.

Some of the graves were tombs, and very fancy, but the one we were getting closer and closer to was so plain and down in the earth. No protection from storms to stop my mom from being disturbed and brought back up.

The thought made my head spin, and Matteo held onto me even tighter, like he felt my blood draining away from me and was going to stop it by pressing his body against mine. When we were finally in front of it, I stared down at it for a second before I let all my energy set me free. Matteo caught me before I fell to the ground, and I cried in his arms, wailing at how unfair this was.

“Come, baby,” Matteo whispered against my temple. “We will go home.”

“No,” I barely got out through sobs. “I want to stay for a while.”

He nodded but held me closer, bringing us both down to the ground. I heard him whisper, “Wherever you command me to go, I will go.”

After a few minutes, another cool wind barely touching my overheated face, I took the flowers from him and set them in front of the stone that held my mom’s name, date of birth and death, and underneath…loving mother.

The honk of a horn made Matteo turn and look, but I kept rubbing the inscription, loving mother . But after a minute, I turned to look too, because something was going on. An ancient car, paint gone from numerous spots, had pulled down the drive and stopped in the middle of it. An older woman with a scarf tied around her head was talking to the men. Her arms were gesticulating toward where we were.

I felt Matteo nod, and then I turned back to the grave. I didn’t hear anything until the sound of summer grass underfoot became loud. I whirled in Matteo’s arms at the sound, ready to tell whoever it was to go back to where they’d come from.

It was that woman from the car.

Matteo stood, bringing me with him, and then set me next to him, his arm wrapped around me protectively.

It was clear to see the old woman was sick. Underneath the scarf, she had no hair. And I wasn’t sure if life was playing an evil trick on me or what. After reading my mom’s diaries and finding out what had caused her to leave me, this woman had the same kind of sickness.

I wiped my eyes, but the tears were too big and too thick, and everything was too distorted to really take in the features of her face. I didn’t care. I wasn’t even sure why she was here.

“Big Joe told me you’d be here,” she said. “Stella, right?”

“Who are you?” I barely croaked out.

She extended her trembling hand, and I just looked at it. A second later, she took it back.

“I used to work with your mom.”

“Oh.” I took a breath. “Did I…know you?”

“Yeah, you did.”

I nodded, and the tears just fell to the ground like rain.

“Are you Stella?” she asked again.

“I am. I’m Nola’s daughter.”

A second seemed to stretch between us, and then her voice came out as harsh and biting as a slap across the face.

“You lying, evil bitch!”

She went to go after me, but she got Matteo instead. I tripped and fell right in front of my mom’s grave, too stunned to get up. The woman had turned into a feral cat. She was trying to claw at Matteo’s face while using her other arm to reach for me. To hurt me. Men ran from the cars and surrounded us, but Matteo gave them a sharp command in Italian—he didn’t want them to come close.

Why?

Why was he letting this crazed woman do what she was doing?

I got to my feet and yelled at her, “I am Stella! Why wouldn’t I be? It’s really me. Nola is—was—my mom!”

“You bitch!” She cursed me with such venom, I thought she was putting a curse on me. “My daughter is dead. Oh God.” She stopped fighting and almost melted in Matteo’s arms. She didn’t seem to have much strength. “My bestie boo is dead!”

A sharp wind passed, and the only reason I noticed it was because of the scent it carried with it. It was so familiar, so comforting, and I would have recognized it anywhere, even if the woman didn’t look a thing like my mom.

“Oh God,” I barely got out. “Who—” I had to clear my throat to get the words out. “Who told you that?”

“Henri!” she wailed. “Henri!”

“Henri is dead,” I said.

“Before,” she cried out. “Before. I went back to Paris looking for her, and he caught me before I got to the apartment w-w-where I’d dropped her off. He t-t-t-told me my baby was d-d-dead. And it was all my fault for bringing her there with such evil p-p-people.”

Oh my God.

I stood dazed, like the tender breezes passing were hypnotizing me, and when they picked up, I felt them move me, like I’d been caught in a zephyr. Matteo snapped something at one of the men, and in seconds, the man had the woman, and Matteo had me.

My eyes went straight to the woman, still wailing but not fighting, and said one word I thought I’d never say again to this broken woman. “Mom.”

It took a second, but she met my eyes.

And it was then.

In that minute.

In that second.

In that breath.

We both seemed to realize.

“Bestie boo?” she whispered.

“It’s me, mom.” I touched my heart, leaving my fingers curled up there. “Your bestest bestie boo.”

“Oh God.” She flung herself out of the man’s hold and I went to her, and we crashed together, going down, but both of us above ground and holding on to one another.

My mom kept crying, kissing my face, holding it in her hands, looking at me and kissing me again. I held tight to her like I did when I was a little girl and I thought the world could never hurt me as long as she was close. I kept squeezing her arms, making sure this moment was real, she was real, and I wasn’t dreaming her up out of immense grief.

But I knew.

It was her.

I’d recognize her scent anywhere.

And I was back in her arms, being held close.

“What?” she barely got out. “How…?”

I shook my head. “I was so close to it,” I barely got out.

“Me too,” she barely got out. “Me too. And still am…you being taken from me made me so…sick.”

“It’s going to be okay, mama,” I cried. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay now.”

She didn’t say anything, but she held me so tight, I could barely breathe. But the little air I was taking in, I was breathing her in. Being so greedy about it.

Then another horn honked, and it seemed to rip through the moment. All the men stiffened, and this time, I could sense there was a real problem.

Matteo hauled mom and me up together, keeping us behind him, his eyes on the new car. It was one of those driverless cars, but someone was in the back seat. I squinted against the glare. With a big dog?

“Big Joe?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t him but hoping anyway.

“No, he didn’t tell me he was coming.”

“No,” Matteo said, gauging the area from where we were to the car. He made eye contact with Placido, and Placido started snapping orders to the men. A few of them surrounded the new car, and one of them jumped back at whatever he saw inside of it. Then he bent over and puked.

The men were not saying anything, but I could feel their energy from where we were. It was like a swarm of wasps were suddenly on us.

“What’s going on?” Mom asked. “And who are these people? Who is this man to you?” It was like she was eyeing Matteo for the first time through crystal clear eyes.

“My husband.” I smiled at her.

“Oh.” Her face fell a little, and I wasn’t sure why. “Is something wrong?” she asked Matteo.

He barely nodded at her, his eyes still on the scene with the new car.

I touched his arm, and a second later, his eyes came to mine. Hard at first, but for a second, they were so soft, I thought I’d melt. He was acknowledging what had just happened but keeping his head in what was going on. One of the men who had surrounded the car came running over to us. He was sweating and talking in a rush to Placido, who turned to Matteo, ready to move at whatever command he gave.

Matteo was stiller than the breeze. It kept breaking around him, not able to move even a strand of his hair.

I took his hand, keeping mom’s in my other hand. “What’s going on, Teo?”

He looked at me. “The car doesn’t have a driver, but the back seat has two passengers. A wolf and Régine Nemours.”

“That bitch!” Mom screamed and went to charge toward the car. Since our hands were locked, she pulled me toward the car, but Matteo stopped both of us by refusing to let my hand go.

“She’s dead,” Matteo said.

I choked on air, like it was caught in my windpipe. “Oh my God.” The vision of Boris’s wolf chewing Ivan’s heart flashed in my memories, and I gagged.

“Not her heart,” Matteo said, knowing what I was thinking about.

“What then?” I whispered.

He hesitated, not wanting to tell me, but when I said, tell me in a firm and sane voice, he said, “Her face.”

“What the hell is going on?” Mom demanded to know.

“It’s a really long story, but Régine Nemours is…dead.”

“You’re safe then, bestie boo?”

I shook my head. “Régine has never worked alone. Her family is tied in with dangerous Russians.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Mom looked Matteo up and down, and her voice was expectant. I stared at my mom for a second, wondering why she was talking to Matteo like that, but I chalked it up to the entire situation.

“I’m going to get my wife and you home,” he said.

“Good.” She nodded, holding close to me. “Let’s go.”

Matteo glanced at her, then started talking to his men in Italian.

“What are they saying?” she asked me.

“I don’t understand all of it, but…it seems like they’re making a plan to get us out of here.”

“Speak English,” she snapped at Matteo.

“Mom,” I said gently. “Some of his men don’t speak English. Italian is all they know.”

It dawned on me then that I trusted these men with my life, but she’d just met them. She didn’t trust easily, not even when I was a kid.

Matteo was focused on the situation, but that didn’t mean he missed a word we said to each other. He pulled out his phone and made a call. He was talking to who I thought was Lev about the wolf. Sparse Russian was interspersed with English. A second or two later, he hung up.

“That’s Boris’s wolf,” I said. “In the car with…her.”

“Yeah, but it belonged to Wolf first, and Boris stole her from him,” Matteo said. He stared in the distance for a second. “Boris and Wolf have bad blood. A long time’s worth. But the air seems to be running in the car. The wolf will be fine until Lev and Wolf get here.”

“How far are they?” I asked, not even wanting to think about the wolf eating the rest of Régine. She, the wolf, poor thing, was going to get indigestion. That was so cruel and mean, but…the thought came into my head, and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking it.

He shrugged. “Could be in the woods around us or back in Russia. But someone will be here.”

“That woman?” I rushed out. “The ice queen?”

He looked down at me and touched my chin. “Maybe. Whoever it is will deal with the wolf, but I’m concerned about what the car could be laced with.”

“You mean a bomb?”

“Yeah, explosives.”

Placido had walked off, and when he came back, he nodded to Matteo. It seemed like Matteo had him order the men to keep their distance from the car and the wolf.

“Stay behind me,” Matteo ordered. “Straight from here to the car.”

Matteo kept my hand in his, my other hand in mom’s too, and we made a beeline for the car, but before we could get there, an explosion made me fall and my eardrums ring. It felt like a boulder had fallen onto my chest when I opened my eyes and tried to get my bearings.

Matteo was the human boulder.

He was mostly on top of me, but he tried to cover mom too. She was slapping at him, telling him to get off. At first, I panicked. I started slapping at him too, because he hadn’t moved, but when he rolled some and let her out, he took my hand and kissed it.

“I am okay,” he said in Italian, and I understood him.

“ Bene ,” I breathed, but it was hard to do when a man who was the equivalent of a big cat was on top of you. “ Bene . What happened?”

He sat up, his eyes reflecting plumes of black and white smoke and red embers drifting from the sky. “Boris was sending a message. The French might still be in on this, but the Russians are ruling the war now. Boris killed Wolf’s…one of Wolf’s wolves. The female mate to his male.”

“Like…Evelina is to Wolf.”

Matteo’s face was hard as he nodded.

The men were all huddled around our cars, when a few seconds later, another explosion rocked the ground beneath our feet.

“My car!” Mom cried, reaching for it like she could save it.

It was gone, turned to smoke and ashes right before our eyes.