Savage Mafia King (Vicious Heirs #3)

Chapter Eight—Isabella

Fear wakes me the next morning, and I jolt up in bed with a start.

Where the fuck am I?

I look around, trying to remember everything that brought me to this moment. I can remember waking up the night before, panicked. I can remember calling Marcus and telling him that I needed his help. And I can remember him coming to get me, and then...

Oh. Oh, right.

And then, he went down on me and made me come harder than anyone ever has in my life before. Afterward, he ordered some food for me and left me to rest up in his bed. Sprawling in his bedsheets with some Thai takeout, I felt right at home, though I wished he could have been there next to me.

But he was keeping his distance, at least then. I didn't blame him. He was likely trying to figure out what was going on with the people who broke into my penthouse. He seemed genuinely pissed when he turned up at my place, ready to take on anyone who might have caused me harm. And while I appreciate his dedication, I don't know if it's a good idea to get him involved in all of this. Maybe I should have kept it all to myself instead of spilling the truth to him, but at the same time...

At the same time, who the hell else am I going to turn to with all of this? I can't just expect it to go away on its own. The first note, maybe that would have been enough to ignore, but the ransacking, the destruction? That came from a place of clear anger, and I'm up against a force I don't fully understand yet.

I have no idea who would have done something like this to me. Of course, it's not like I'm stupid enough to think nobody has a problem with my family or me—but this? It's another level. It's someone who is outright trying to threaten me, but I can't figure out why they would have gone so far.

I glance over to the other side of the bed, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see Marcus sprawled there beside me. He's so handsome, so muscular now that I see him undressed. I know he used to be involved in some of the boxing that he oversees in his clubs, but I didn't expect him to look this damn good under all of his clothes.

I reach out and trace a finger down his spine, between his strong shoulder blades, and he shifts slightly in his sleep, his hair rustling against the pillow.

I kind of want to wake him up so the two of us can pick up where we left off, but I know I should be getting to campus. It's not far from here, so I can call a cab to pick me up and take me in. It wouldn't surprise me if some gossip has spread about Marcus and me by now, and if I can steer the direction it takes, I might be able to get a little more information on who broke into my penthouse and caused all that chaos.

I slip into a shower and change back into the dress I was wearing the day before. I feel a little heat rise to my cheeks when I slip it on, remembering the way his fingers slipped up beneath the fabric so he could taste me. He knows just what he's doing when it comes to physical intimacy, and I can't deny how much I want more. Shit, maybe the person who's been coming after me used to be with him and this is their way of trying to make me pay for distracting him.

I smirk. Yeah, I know it's not that, but he really is that good in bed. I can't wait to take things to the next level and see what other tricks he has up his sleeve. Something tells me that there's a whole lot more to him than I've given him credit for, and I'm looking forward to finding out just how far that goes.

I climb into the cab and head off to campus a half hour or so later, not bothering to get breakfast at his place. Even though I'm sure he'd tell me I need to eat, I don't like the thought of hanging around while he's not awake, eating his food, drinking his coffee. I'll be coming back here tonight, of course, and I'm already looking forward to seeing him again, but that doesn't mean I'm in any great rush. I want to see what's happening on campus and to find out what people are saying about the two of us.

Sure enough, as soon as I arrive at my lecture hall, I hear voices muttering my name. People are staring at me, peering at me as though trying to see what's going on inside my head. I ignore them and head to my seat, making like this is the most natural thing in the world to me.

I take notes during the lecture, and as soon as it finishes up, I text Martha to ask her to meet with me at the campus coffee shop. It's just off the quad, and I make my way down there, glancing around at everyone who's looking in my direction to see who's paying attention. I notice a couple of girls who were rushing the sorority the semester before lurking nearby, hands over their mouths as they whisper back and forth to one another, and I cock my head at them and smile.

"Is everything okay?" I ask sweetly.

Both of them nod quickly. One of them, the younger of the two, it looks like, manages to pluck up the courage to ask me something.

"Is it true you and Marcus Silva are together?" she blurts out.

I take a deep breath, then nod. My gut reaction is still to deny that with everything I have in me, but it's the truth, and I need to remember that.

"Yes, we are," I reply. "Why?"

"Oh, I just— we heard some people talking about it, that's all," the other one replies, digging her elbow into her friend's ribs.

"Who have you heard talking about it?"

"Nico Castellano." She blurts out the name and then instantly looks as though she wishes she could take it back.

Her friend winces, and I narrow my eyes at them.

"Castellano? That's his name?"

She nods, and the two of them scurry off before they can come out with anything else incriminating. The name bounces around my head, something about it pinging a note of recognition, though I'm not sure why.

When I reach the coffee shop, Martha is already there, and she waves me over. She's already ordered me my usual, a vanilla latte with a pump of hazelnut syrup on top, and she practically drags me to my seat.

"Is it true you were staying with Marcus last night?"

"How the hell do you know about that?"

"So it's true?" she exclaims, loud enough that she attracts glances from a couple of people around us. I shoot a look this way and that, and then raise my eyebrows at her.

"Yes, it's true," I admit. "But I don't want to talk about it here..."

"Are the two of you... I mean, are you really together?"

I know what she's asking. She's asking if I took her up on the suggestion to actually do something a little reckless, a little dangerous—if I've actually gotten myself involved with him beyond the point of no return.

I jerk my head in a quick nod, and she clasps her hands over her mouth in shock.

"Holy shit!" she hisses. "I didn't... you really..."

"Yeah, I really did," I reply, gesturing for her to keep her voice down. "But how did you know about that? I mean, me staying with him last night?"

"I heard some girls talking about it this morning," she explains as she stirs a packet of sweetener into her coffee.

"Which girls?"

"Oh, some of the freshman I'm tutoring," she replies. "Before I came to work with them, they were gossiping about the two of you."

I frown. How the hell would anyone know what has been going on between us? Unless they were staking out his house, that is...

I lean in closer and lower my voice even more. "Have you heard of someone called Castellano? Nico Castellano?"

She furrows her brow, pondering the question. "It rings a bell," she mutters. "I think... I think I might have been in a class with a Castellano a few semesters ago, but not a Nico. Why?"

"Because apparently that's who's been spreading what's going on between Marcus and me around campus."

"That's a good thing though, right? I mean... you want people to believe that the two of you are really together..."

"Yeah, sure, but I don't want them knowing about every little thing that's happening between us," I point out. "I need my privacy. And so does he. The last thing we want is for everyone to know our business, it's just not right."

"Hmph. I guess so. You want me to have a look through my old class lists, see if I can find anything?"

"That would be amazing, thank you."

"I got you, Isabella. You know that."

I smile at her. "I know you do, babe. I really appreciate it."

She returns my grin. And then, she wiggles her eyebrows at me pointedly. "So?"

"So what?"

"So you going to tell me what it was like to hook up with Marcus Silva?" she asks.

I laugh, but I can feel the flush spreading to my cheeks already. "It's not like we... hooked up, exactly."

"But something happened?"

"Something happened, yeah."

"Then I want the details!" she exclaims. "Come on, I've been in a total dry spell recently, it's the least you can do."

I laugh but decide I can at least give her a little of what happened. But as we talk, at the back of my mind, all I can think about is this Castellano thing. It rings a bell, and I'm sure there's something else going on here. I just need to work out where I've seen the name before.

As Martha gives me a quick hug and heads off to her class, I shoot a text to my brother. After what happened at the restaurant with the cops the other day, I can't help but wonder if that might be where I know the name from. I usually leave it to my brother to handle all of that, but right now, I can't take my foot off the pedal that easily. I ask for a list of his current employees, and a few minutes later, he sends me back a screenshot of a recent pay sheet.

I tilt my phone screen to make sure nobody can see it as I take a seat on one of the stone benches in the center of the quad and peer through the list of names in front of me.

Come on, come on, there has to be something...

And then, it clicks. Castellano—it's one of the names on the long list of staff. My heart flips in my chest. Is he the one who's been working against us? Is he the one who's been exposing the truth about what's going on between Marcus and me? It's way too much of a coincidence that his name should come up in connection with this campus gossip about us and it would turn up on this list of employees at the restaurant. Something's going on here, I'm sure of it.

I call a cab and hurry back to Marcus's place, intent on sharing everything I've just found out. It's almost a little ironic to me, how quickly I'm willing to trust him, how easy it is for me to believe that he's on my side despite everything that has happened between our families over the years. He might have been the last person I wanted to put my faith in just a couple of months ago, but things change, right?

When I reach his apartment, I hesitate outside the door. I still don't know if I can entirely trust this man. I want to believe I can, of course. I want to put my faith in him because if I don't put my faith in someone, everything is going to fall apart. Things have been so crazy with my brother, with the raid on the restaurant, with the O'Tooles, all of it. But Marcus has been there in the middle of it. He might not always have trusted me, but I don't care right now. God knows he's had reason to doubt me.

I gather up my courage and press the button to alert Marcus to my presence. He buzzes me up a moment later, and I take the stairs two at a time, my heart thudding in my chest as I try to make sense of the information I've just come across. I don't know if it really means anything or if I'm just being paranoid about the way this is all unfolding, but Marcus will be able to help me make sense of it.

And the moment I reach the door, I find that he's already standing there, waiting for me. His jaw is set tight, and there are dark rings around his eyes that speak to how hard he's been working to get to the bottom of this.

I take a deep breath, and finally, I speak. "Do you know who Nico Castellano is?"

And as soon as I say that name, his eyes widen with recognition. Shit. This might be even more complicated than I thought.