King of Stars (The Next Generation #2)

53. Stella

Chapter 53

Stella

A gainst my husband’s dark tux, my gown twinkled like a star in the night sky. It was strapless, form fitting, landing just above my ankles, and the heels I wore were champagne embellished with crystal stars.

It wasn’t the dress or the shoes that made me shine, though.

It was my reflection in my husband’s dark eyes.

It had been six months since our Luca was born, and he was a plump ball of Fausti handsomeness, with all his dark features and hair, but my stormy eyes. Henri had given me something beautiful to pass on to my son. But if I thought my husband looked at me with the intensity of a star gazer looking at the sky before Luca was born, after, he became…double somehow.

Double the man he was.

Double the husband.

And double the father. It was like he couldn’t wait to get home to us, and he rushed to get there—this from a man who never increased the tempo of his steps for anyone.

“You ready, baby?” he breathed in my ear, his hot palms burning me through the sparkling fabric. His hands were almost bigger than my waist.

But I wasn’t ready. Not for what we were about to do tonight: attend the premier of Bella Stella, the movie I’d done with Noemi.

The buzz around it was intense. Some critics claimed I was a natural and could give a David di Donatello-worthy performance. (David di Donatello was the equivalent of an Oscar in America.) Others claimed I got the role, and such high praise, because of my last name.

It didn’t matter to me. Like my husband said to me before the movie was even done, “Fuck the critics. You’re a Fausti. You have my skin around you. Nothing touches you, not even opinions.”

I lived by his words.

And my life was much better for it.

I wasn’t acting for the money or the fame. I was acting because something about slipping into another role in life was therapeutic to me. I did it when I became a star on that stage for that awful woman, and it had helped me through the time I served with her. Then it became something I could do to escape, and then I found it brought me joy.

But the reason I wasn’t ready wasn’t because I was nervous. I wasn’t ready because the look in my husband’s eyes was making me have heart palpitations and keeping my feet planted to the floor.

He ran his hand over my hair, being so careful not to mess it up. It was parted on the side and done in long waves. I had thought about doing it in a style that would have given a nod to Matteo’s great grandmother, the film legend, Grazia Angeli, but I didn’t want my husband to compare and think our footsteps were too in line.

My husband’s hand ventured further down, to my neck, and a shiver stole over me. His hand seemed to produce a warmth that was like magic against my skin.

A trembling breath left my mouth, and his hand snaked around my throat, turning me around. He kept his hold there. Not to stop my breath, but to bring our mouths together, like he was directing our air. I wasn’t sure if I was breathing mine or his. Our tongues touched, swirled, and then went even deeper, until I had practically melted in his hands.

“I smell you already,” he breathed out. “So sweet and so fucking ready for me.”

I couldn’t even answer.

Somehow, he’d turned me around, and I hadn’t even realized it. All I could do was feel—feel the way the dress rubbed against my aching nipples, the way his palm ran up my legs, lifting the dress, the warmth of his hand and the cool bite in the air making me shiver, and the tug of a strand of hair when the man behind me wanted me to meet his eyes in the mirror. My thighs were already trembling, and when he slid his finger between my folds, I moaned. He stuck a different finger in my mouth, and when he entered me, I bit down, then started to suck.

Our eyes were lowered but focused on each other through the mirror.

“Fuck,” he ground out, stilling his hips, the tip of his cock pressed against something inside of me that was ultra-sensitive and reacted to the pressure, his eyes almost closing. “Fuck.”

As he increased his tempo, I took his finger deeper into my mouth, sucking hard and fast. I was drenched, and he easily thrust in and out of me, stretching me, touching every sensitive nerve with his hard cock. And when I came around him, he exploded inside of me.

I finally closed my eyes, letting my head hang, trying to catch my breath. I burned all over. When he slid out slowly, I trembled, so sensitive, I orgasmed again. The aftershock of the first one was still thrumming through me, and this one made me quietly cry out—like my body couldn’t even manage a louder scream because it felt so good. I was lucky I didn’t purr like a tired kitten.

My husband kissed me on the shoulder, then turning me around, cleaned me up. He fixed my hair, and then fixed himself. He grabbed the lipstick from the counter and held it up to my mouth. I wrapped my hand around his wrist and glanced at myself in the mirror. My lipstick had smeared.

We stared at each other.

Did I trust him to do this for me on such an important night?

I did. Completely and always.

He was a Fausti and good at everything, it seemed. I wasn’t even sure if the cameras would truly be on me tonight, but the elusive and reclusive Fausti male escorting me like a dark knight in a twisted fairytale.

My husband grinned at me, like he’d read my mind. “No one is going to notice me tonight, baby. It’ll be the star on my arm that’s going to steal their attention. I live in the darkness so you can shine, Estella Fausti.”

“We’ll see about that,” I breathed.

Then I let him have at my lips, which he touched up perfectly, and then he removed the smear from my face, and I fixed his hair.

We left after, arm in arm.

Ready to face the world.

The premiere was held in Rome, and it was a success. Noemi and I received standing ovations, and the man next to me, my husband, wiped tears from his face—he was moved by my performance. I told him a lot of the inspiration behind Valentina’s character came from what I was feeling during that uncertain time in our lives. The core of the movie was rooted in hard times and overcoming them, waiting for the rainbow after the storms of life.

It was such a beautiful Roman night, surrounded by our family, all except for Brando and Scarlett. They’d both had enough of the spotlight, and even though they both were immensely proud of me, they offered to keep Luca until we got home. We were all staying in the same house in Rome for the night, so it wouldn’t be a big deal to grab him from their room when we got home, or in the morning. I wasn’t ready to send him off to his grandparents’ place just yet for an entire night, even if we were in the same house.

Mama and Magpie loved the spotlight, and they were both beaming at me throughout the entire night, going on and on about how proud they were of me. Nonno had kissed my cheek and told me I’d made him proud. His mamma would have been proud. To him, I was bringing back something that had disappeared from his mamma’s time, and it was something that should be immortalized in poetry, music, film, and books.

Romance.

Nonno wasn’t a man to hand out compliments willy-nilly. So, I took that as a win, and by the time our night out was coming to an end, I was extremely proud of the work Noemi and I had done. I was on cloud nine.

I was ready to go home, though. I missed Luca, and I wanted to be alone with my husband. He had been my biggest fan all night, doing exactly what he said he would do: keep in the shadows, watching me, letting me shine. But it was our darkness and our light, and I wanted to change out of this dress, get naked, and spend the rest of the night, skin on skin, in bed with him.

He sighed as he kept one hand on my lower back, the other in my hand, as he helped me down the Spanish Steps. “You read my fucking mind, la mia stella . There’s a party in our bedroom that’s way past late to attend—it’s been on my mind and on my calendar for centuries. I get to bury myself in?—”

I thought he might say star, but he touched his heart with our hands, and said instead, “— my woman. My wife. My life. Entwining our souls together— per sempre .” He made a face. “My old man is right, though. The words sound better in Italian. At least in my head.”

“Romance sounds better in any language. Period. And that long, ah ? Centuries?” I quirked an eyebrow up, and he grinned at my use of ah . I had been living with Italians for a while, and they were inspiring me in so many ways.

I loved their passion. Their warm sense of welcome and humor. I loved how loud they could be at the dinner table, or when they were discussing something that took heart, but how quiet and peaceful they were at church. I loved how they cooked with fresh ingredients, and how good it made me feel on the inside and on the outside. I loved how the women I’d learned to cook from listened to Italian music while they sprinkled love into every one of their dishes. I loved how family-oriented they were. How loyal. How romantic.

I loved how they loved—so boldly and so completely.

“Even longer,” he said.

I stopped on the step, and so did he.

“Did I really say that to you when I opened my eyes—I mean, that night. The night you saved me. Did I really say, ‘What took you so long?’”

“Yeah, and it was the perfect thing to fucking say. I was feeling it myself.”

I touched his face gently, and he kissed my palm. “We better hurry then. We don’t want to be late for our bedroom date.”

He exploded with laughter, and I could have sworn the press and whoever was still lingering around, if they had a sigh in them, gave it. It seemed like the air carried a collective one on the tepid breeze.

The Fausti soldiers who came for personal security—we never left home without them—were not part of the tender breeze. If anything, the puffs of air broke around them, because they were rigid, on guard. I noticed that the men closest to Matteo were not lax when it came to protection, but they were a little more comfortable around him then the soldiers who rotated and could belong to any faction. But when Matteo meant business, even the men closest to him lost all familiarity and became cold and hard, exactly what was expected of them.

Even though Matteo had told Nonno of his plans to give up his birthright, Nonno only listened and nodded, then instructed him to really think about what he was doing without anything hanging over his head. There was the issue of Matteo and I only having one son, but the family didn’t know about that yet. And there was no specific rule about it, though it wasn’t the norm. But no one knew about Matteo’s decision to give up his right to lead.

So, in the family’s eyes, he was still the man who was going to lead them someday. And they all respected him for it. And if he decided to lead, and not give up his position, he would owe his grandfather blood. In Nonno’s eyes, he had spoken the thought out loud, and that meant he had gone back on his word. He’d probably slice him with a sword.

The thought made me shiver, and Matteo squeezed my hand. “Ready for that date, ah?” He brought my hand up to his mouth, breathed me in, then kissed each of my knuckles.

“Yes. No. I mean. I wasn’t thinking about that right then, even though it’s always on mind. It’s like the thought is constantly on repeat, even though things are going on around me. But I was thinking about you not leading your family, Teo.”

It bothered me that he was still on the fence about it. Things had changed after Luca was born and my surgery was done, but that article had stuck its poisonous claws in deep. Which was the reason why I wasn’t saying anything about not wanting to do any more movies until Luca was older. I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could. This was time I’d never get back. And acting was nice, but it didn’t compare to the joy that being a mom brought me. But my footsteps were aligning with Grazia’s. After she started having children, she decided to retire for a while, but she never returned to it because cancer had taken her. But even mom and Scarlett had agreed. I was not Grazia Angeli, and Matteo wasn’t his great grandfather. I was Estella Fausti, and he was Matteo Fausti.

“Not now. Not here. Sometimes people are planted around us to read our lips.”

“Right,” I said, making a zipping motion against my lips. His brother, Maestro, was an excellent lip reader.

Matteo laughed, all raspy and low, and kissed me.

“The best motivator to keep quiet,” I whispered as he led me down the rest of the steps.

I could see Matteo’s car waiting for us in the distance. Or my car. He had bought it as a gift to me for the premiere, along with stunning jewelry. The car, some type of Cadillac that was rare and had to be preordered, was the height of style and class, but was fast as hell. The doors lifted open on the sides, and the inside reminded me of a spaceship, almost. The headlights were like nothing I’d ever seen before. They almost reminded me of an animal, maybe a big cat, about to go on the hunt. That was what the motor sounded like when it came time to life. A low growl.

And my husband driving it through the streets of Rome?

Foreplay.

Before we even got home, I’d be all over that man.

Damn he was fine.

I sighed to myself, thinking how lucky I was.

Matteo chuckled and walked with my hand in his like he owned the ground beneath his feet.

Just like he owned the heart in my chest.

A few people were in a circle, chatting, below the steps. Nonno, Magpie, Romeo and Juliette, Dario and Carmen, Mom, Niccolo, Matteo’s brothers, his sister and Saverio, and Aunt Lola and Uncle Tito. A car was coming to pick up Aunt Lola and Uncle Tito and take them to the house. I kissed them both again, thanking them for coming. They didn’t get out much by choice. It was late, and I could tell they were both tired.

Aunt Lola pinched my cheeks until the blood rushed to the surface. “We would like to see our Luca. Bring him by tomorrow, ah?”

We kissed again, but as the car pulled up, some of the soldiers rushed away from the group and started pushing someone back. An old, fragile man by the looks of him.

The men were on instant alert, postures rigid, eyes narrowed. Matteo snapped something to the soldiers who were keeping the old man back. One of the soldiers who must have been leading the group came to speak to Matteo. Matteo listened intently and then touched my back.

He leaned down and whispered in my ear, “Stay close to my family.” Then he bit my earlobe and made me shiver.

A promise of later.

I was so down for it.

I couldn’t wait to leave.

My entire body felt like it might rocket into the sky if he touched me one more time.

I watched as Nonno and Matteo moved closer to where the man was making a scene. He was so old, though, I couldn’t imagine what the issue could be. Unless we were somehow blocking him? Maybe he needed to be somewhere?

Me, too, mister, me too, I thought. I needed to be either in the car getting my foreplay on, or already tousling in the sheets with my fine-ass husband.

I leaned closer to Aunt Lola, whose eyes were narrowed on the man. “What’s he going on about?”

“He wants to speak to the leader of the Fausti family. He’s demanding it. Says he has something to say to him. Now he’s asking Luca how he belongs. Who is his father? Does he have sons? Grandsons?” It sounded like she cursed underneath her breath. “Old eyes are the worst! He looks so familiar…”

Her prolonged ellipsis was punctuated by a single shot that seemed to send me backwards by the sheer force of the noise alone, but it wasn’t me…

Oh my God!

“Matteo!” I screamed. “Matteo!” I went to run to him, because he was no longer standing, but I was stopped by a solider who stood in front of me.

Armando.

“It is not safe, Stella.”

“Move out of my way, now , or I’ll have your head!”

He stood taller, a wall between me and my heart.

In a split second, the scene came back to me in haunting detail. The gun had been aimed at Nonno, but Matteo had taken the bullet for him.

Nonno snapped orders left and right. And whatever he said, Armando moved a little, but it wasn’t for my benefit, even though I took the opening. I took off, dodging rock-hard bodies, until my feet stopped short at the sight of my husband lying on the ground in a pool of blood. I fell to my knees, moving one of the men next to him, and watched as Saverio snapped orders and tried to plug the wound.

I probably could have made out what Saverio was saying, but I was in…shock. My husband was pale and losing blood at an alarming rate.

“Unc-unc-uncle T-t-t-tito!” I screamed, and I knew it was bloodcurdling. “Please! Please! HELP! ”

A second later, explosions went off around us. We were being attacked from all sides. Still, Uncle Tito moved quicker than I thought possible, even with all the chaos raging around us. He started snapping off orders to Saverio, who followed everything he seemed to be saying.

But then.

More gunfire.

It was exploding from different areas.

I smelled gunpowder and the scent of blood—it was so thick in the air, I felt like I was choking on it.

Or maybe it was that I was choking on air because it seemed like my husband was running out of his.

Oh God. Oh God. Matteo. My husband. My life.

I didn’t realize until someone was pulling me back that I was screaming at him to wake up. “Just wake up!” Please. Please. Please.

It took a second to realize I was lifted off my feet, and I could see the old man who had held the gun on the ground. His head had been blown off, and then I realized a man was carting me away from the chaotic scene.

Away from my husband!

I tried to jab him in the ribs with my elbows, but he held tighter. “Let me go!” I ordered. “Now! Or I’ll kill you myself!”

A breathy, familiar laugh was in my ear. “You have become a bossy bitch since the Italians stole you from us, Star.”

I wasn’t sure if it was because my husband’s blood was draining out of him, but I felt every ounce of mine rush to my feet.

Boris.

I almost passed out, but I kept blinking my eyes and clawing at his hands. I knew I was drawing blood, but the sadistic motherfucker liked it. He kept breathing in my ear, and it was sending fucking chills through me. But. My husband! I had to get back to him. I’d fight. Claw this motherfucker’s eyes out to get back to him! It would be like clawing my way through hell, but damned if I’d stop until one of us was dead.

Boris had me pinned in front of him, in case anyone decided to shoot at him. Whoever would have to shoot me first. Which was the case. A few men followed us, keeping their distance, their guns trained on Boris and his trained on me.

Right then would have been the perfect time for Wolf’s wolf to show up. Tear Boris to shreds from behind. I’d cook Boris however the wolf liked, if he preferred his kill to be skinned and fried in a skillet, but I was pretty sure I overheard Saverio say Wolf was back in Paris. Boris killing the girl wolf didn’t go over well with Wolf, especially since Wolf knew Boris was sending a message to Wolf about Evelina.

“These men think they can take me.” He spat on the ground. “I have what the pathetic bastards will die over. You!” He lifted his gun and pulled the trigger. One of our men went down and he laughed. “See? These men are soft hearted. Will die over a whore! Pew. Pew. Pew.” He lifted the gun again and made the noise.

“How perfect to send the old man up to slaughter. Apparently, your new family has quite the history. Did you know your new family got the old man’s daughter killed, and he has been harboring murderous resentment for years? He told me even if he died—which he did; I do not believe it is possible to live without a head—he will rest in peace knowing he sent one of them to hell. He took a lot of pleasure in thinking the ones who love him will suffer, just like he did! Have you heard his daughter’s name before? Santina.”

I refused to answer him, and he bit the bottom of my earlobe. A sharp burning pain rushed up my ear, like it had suddenly caught fire, and I knew he’d bitten it off. I heard him chewing. And then felt the droplets of warm blood running down my neck.

“Talk to me, Star, or I will go for the other one.” He snapped his teeth in my ear.

“No,” I barely got out.

“See? You thought you had it so bad with us.” He made a cha sound. “We were much better. We care about the ones we take. This is why I came back for you. We care more about you.”

“Care about what you can get from me.”

He laughed. “That business? Dead and gone with the woman who held you hostage. No. This is purely on principle now. You owe me your life for the money we have been losing, and we will take the ultimate revenge on the Faustis. You will be sold. And where you are going, let me just say that it will make your life with Régine seem like a fairytale.”

Boris might have thought he was holding the old me, but the new me was not the same. This woman had overcome her past, for the most part, and become a stronger woman because of it. I was a wife and a mother, and just those two thoughts alone had me planning. And besides, the Faustis were starting to surround us, even if they couldn’t take a clear shot.

Matteo. His name appeared in my head as a whimper from the furthest point in my soul.

I wasn’t going to allow Boris to take me anywhere, even if it meant he’d come close to beating me to death like he’d done before, or, if he took me to our waiting car, Matteo kept loaded guns tucked away in prime spots. While Boris went to drive away, I’d snatch one and blow his brains out.

He brought me to a van that seemed to be used for delivering baked bread, and his men started to converge. I was suddenly surrounded.

Maybe Boris thought our men wouldn’t start shooting, not with me being so close, but they did. And then Boris’s men started shooting back. And all hell started to break loose. Boris went to shove me in the van, but a man with wild hair and eyes, his suit stained with blood, along with his face and hands, was walking a straight line to us, shooting men as he did.

Nonno.

And the only way I could describe the look in his eyes then was possessed by something stronger than bullets.

Boris was momentarily thrown off by Nonno’s crazed eyes and steady hand with the gun. It was like he was taking a purposeful walk on a sunny day in Lucca, but with the eyes of an animal on the hunt.

I recognized his grandson in him right away.

“Teo,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Oh God. My Teo.”

Boris shook his head, like he was shaking out of a stupor, and tried to push me into the van again. I started fighting, and somehow, I ended up on the ground. He’d pushed me too hard at one point. His recklessness turned into my opportunity. A gun had been lost in the fight, and I snatched it up, but before I could fire a shot into Boris’s head, he grabbed one of his men and set him in front of him. He was using his own men as shields as he rushed out of the battle he’d started.

“Coward!” I screamed toward him, as loud as I could, as I took the gun and started firing in his direction.

Nonno was suddenly there, and he lowered my gun, ordering something at me in Italian. Probably not to shoot him but shoot if I needed to. He directed me into our waiting car and closed the door. The car was armored and bulletproof, though pings kept going off in the night like fireworks. Again, Nonno ran a hand through his hair, like this was just another day at work, and then got into the driver’s side of the car. He took my hand, used my finger to press the starter button, and then we zoomed away in the night.

“Wait!” I barely got out. I could barely breathe. The night was catching up to me. Blood was all over me. Mine and whoever else’s. “Matteo. Oh God. Matteo. I have to go back—please!”

His eyes were hard on the road, and even though he’d fixed his hair, it was still unruly. I’d never seen him like that before. Like his hair was the only indication, besides the blood all over him, that anything was wrong. He said something in soft Italian, the total opposite of his body posture—rigid.

“He’s going to the hospital?” I translated. “He’s on his way?”

“ Sì. ” And the car seemed to pick up even more speed once we were able to avoid some traffic.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

I gazed out the window for a second until vibrations coming from the seat made me take notice. It wasn’t the fucking seat. It was me. I was trembling so bad, I thought the seat was.

One breath.

Two.

Three.

Okay.

A little slower…a little deeper…

“How bad is it?” I rushed out.

Nonno’s eyes were still on the road, his hands strangling the wheel. Veins in his arms and hand stood out in the light of the car, swollen underneath his skin, just like Matteo’s. His jaw tightened, and he said nothing, and that scared me the most.

And for the first time I truly understood.

I truly understood Scarlett and Brando.

I refused to let sickness take me from my family. But if Boris, or that old man, took my husband from me?

There would not be enough air in the world to keep me breathing.