Zariah: Sacrificed (Angels Halo MC Next Gen), page 2
That alone told me how far gone I was for the all-star pitcher who was already slated to be a first-round draft pick come July. But then again, he’d known what team would sign him from the time he was in little league. Some scout had noticed the prodigal pitcher at the televised National Little League when Nolan was barely ten years old.
With his being guaranteed to be picked up in the draft by Boston, that more or less made him the enemy—at least in my brothers’ eyes. My family were die-hard Yankees fans. We had the same entire row of seats behind home plate every season. When Zayne, Vito, and Bennie found out I was in love with a future Red Sox, I was going to become enemy number one in their eyes.
Not that I cared. They could suck it up. This was baseball, for fuck’s sake, not a rival crime family that wanted us all dead simply for having the last name Donati. If my brothers wanted to make a big deal out of it, they would have to answer to me, and all three of them knew that was never a fun experience. I could flay them open with nothing more than the sharpness of my tongue, but if they wanted a fight, I was just as deadly with a gun or a knife as any one of them was. Tetka had made sure that my sister and I were able to handle ourselves just in case we ever got into a sticky situation.
Thankfully, Wills and Estates was my last exam of the day, and I made my way across campus to where I’d parked my car. This wasn’t like in college, when my security detail would follow me around at a distance. I’d begged and pleaded to be given a little more privacy. My dad had been reluctant, until I’d made the argument that he was being a misogynistic asshole.
While Zayne, who was only two minutes older than me, was at college, he didn’t have to be followed around by a security detail. He’d even gotten to stay on campus and actually joined a frat for the two years he’d been enrolled. When I’d graduated, he’d decided he was bored with the whole college scene and went to work for the family full time.
My mother had agreed with my argument and convinced Papa that I should be given a little freedom since I was in law school. I’d gotten my own car and an apartment just off campus. I wasn’t stupid enough to think I wasn’t completely unsupervised, though. Especially when I was an entire state away from the protection of my family.
I figured at least one of my neighbors was there to keep an eye on me, make sure I was safe. But if they had been told to keep my parents informed of who came and went from my place, then Mom and Papa were keeping that bit of information to themselves because neither of them had brought up the fact that Nolan was a regular visitor.
He had a key and could come and go as he pleased. Although, he’d used it rarely in the past six weeks.
As I drove home, I tried to remind myself that he was just busy with school and two practices a day. Then there were all the games he had to attend. Even if he didn’t pitch every time, he still had to go with the team. Plus, he had to spend Sundays with his parents if he was in town. Something his mother insisted on, and with how much Nolan adored his mom, I knew he would never disappoint her. With all that going on, he had little free time to spend with me.
There was absolutely no reason to assume that my boyfriend was hooking up with anyone else simply because he hadn’t been to my place in weeks. The fact that we hadn’t had sex in at least six weeks was nothing to worry about.
Everything was fine with us.
Really…
He was gone for a game, and we typically stayed in touch via text the entire time he was away. Yet there had been no “Good night, Red” before I’d fallen asleep, and when I’d looked at my phone throughout the day, I hadn’t gotten a “Good morning, babe” either.
As I stepped on to the elevator that would take me up to my apartment, I checked the time stamp on our last text conversation. Two days ago. Two fucking days.
Tears stung my eyes, but I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin, refusing to release the liquid that wanted to spill over my lashes.
Zariah Donati did not cry over a stupid guy.
Reminding myself of that fact didn’t ease the sick knot in my stomach. Or the pressure in my chest that reminded me I missed Nolan like an amputated limb.
Pausing in the corridor several yards from my apartment door, I started angrily typing.
Me: Hey, ballplayer. What the fuck is going on? Are you so high on your own talent that you can’t text me a simple “ILY”? Stop being an asshole.
I’d barely hit send when I heard someone loudly clear their throat. My head snapped up even as my eyes narrowed, already angry at being interrupted from bitching at my boyfriend—if he was still actually my boyfriend. I decided then and there, if Nolan didn’t text me back in the next five minutes, it was over.
But while the decision popped into my head, I was taking in the person who was standing in my hallway. Tall, with shoulders that had once been just as wide as his son’s currently were. His dark hair was streaked with gray, mixing in with the espresso and chocolate locks identical to Nolan’s. His eyes were just like my boyfriend’s too, that caramel center with the rich coffee color swirling around the outer rims. Only, where Nolan’s were clear, Joel’s were slightly bloodshot and full of a loathing his son had never looked at me with during the entire time I’d known him.
“Miss Donati, I presume?” His voice was rough, and I remembered Nolan telling me his dad was a two-pack-a-day smoker. From the size of his beer gut, I figured he went a little heavy on the booze too.
I didn’t like the way he practically spat my name. The fact that I wanted to marry this man’s son was no reason to show him respect if he wasn’t going to return it. Respect went a long way in my world, but it seemed this asshole hadn’t gotten that memo. “Mr. Krenshaw,” I bit out. “What are you doing here?”
Then a shot of fear flooded my veins, and I felt the blood drain from my face. “Oh my God! Is Nolan okay?” Was that why he hadn’t texted me? Had something happened to the man I loved?
“Nolan is currently pitching a no-hitter in Nashville,” Joel informed me.
Relief made me dizzy for a moment, and I had to suck in a deep breath to steady myself before reality hit me. Nolan was okay. He was in Nashville. Hadn’t texted me in days. And now, his father was standing in front of my apartment. Waiting on me.
Suddenly, I knew I had to steady myself for an entirely different reason than the one from only moments before. Glancing at the closed doors of my neighbors, I pulled my keys from my bag and forced all parts of my body not to noticeably tremble as I walked the rest of the distance to my apartment. Joel stepped back while I unlocked the door and then stepped inside, leaving the door open for him to follow me inside—or not.
The door shut behind him, and I turned to face the older version of the man I was in love with. This close, I could see the subtle differences between the two of them. The shapes of their faces weren’t the same, and the dimple in Joel’s chin was more prominent than his son’s—which was sexy as hell on Nolan. Joel’s ball-chin, not so much. The shapes of their eyes were different, and the younger Krenshaw had lashes that many would call beautiful, whereas Joel barely had any, but the crow's-feet around them were deep and aged him hard. Their noses weren’t the same either, and for that, I was oddly grateful.
When Nolan slept in my bed, I spent hours tracing my index finger down his sharp nose, something that, strangely, soothed us both.
Tossing my things on the side table near the couch, I crossed my arms over my chest and met Joel’s gaze. There was a gun taped to the underside of that table and others positioned throughout my apartment. Remembering that eased some of the discomfort I felt having this man in my personal space. “If Nolan is okay, then why are you here?”
He didn’t immediately answer, just ran his gaze over my living room. Clocking the expensive artwork my mother and aunts had decorated the apartment with. I’d let them have free rein over the place. They had done a beautiful job and made the place feel like me, while giving me a taste of being back in the mansion at the compound.
I doubted Joel knew exactly who I was. He’d spent the last decade living in Boston, where another don controlled the city. But Zio Cristiano was over the man just as he was every other don from the East Coast to Chicago to the West Coast. But the man standing in front of me most likely didn’t know that. Not when my family had spent the last twenty years trying to make the majority of their businesses legit.
But while he might not know he was standing in front of a mafioso princess, he did realize he was in the presence of someone who came from money. Everyone knew that the Donati and Vitucci families were billionaires. These days, we made covers of Forbes and other business magazines, rather than being listed as the crime family that was responsible for anyone mysteriously going missing. We’d just spent a lot of time burying the truth about how all those billions had been obtained.
Once he was done greedily mentally calculating how much everything cost, he pulled out a phone and turned the screen to face me. When I saw what he wanted to show me, I nearly threw up. The world began to spin, but I couldn’t faint. Not in front of this vulture.
“H-how did you get that?” I demanded, cursing myself for how my voice had cracked, telling him loud and clear just how upset the sight of those pictures made me.
“My son gave it to me before leaving Sunday night.” The world shifted, and I had to suck in a quick, deep breath before I passed out.
No, I couldn’t believe that. Nolan would never do that to me. Never!
“But I think your question should be, how much will it cost to keep these photos from showing up on the front page of every tabloid from here to New York City,” he countered, flipping his thumb over the screen without looking, showing me that he had not one, but all of the pictures I’d sent to my boyfriend.
Of me.
In just my bra and panties.
Topless.
Naked.
It was very obvious that it was me. Not only was my face showing, but so was the birthmark on my shoulder, just a simple misshapen square. Another on my hip, this one looking more like an upside-down heart, was on full display. Not many people knew about those birthmarks, but my parents did.
And if those pictures got out—if Ciro and Scarlett Donati saw them—there was no way of knowing what kind of mayhem would ensue. Losing my freedom, the apartment, the ability to come and go as I pleased without the security detail; those all would be a thing of the past. The fact that whoever had dared to sell and post those pictures would end up in the Hudson as fish food…that really didn’t enter my mind, not when I was so desperate to hold on to the freedom I’d so rarely gotten a taste of during my life.
A feeling of utter betrayal and heartbreak lingered, just under the surface, but I didn’t have time to focus on any of that. The only person who had those pictures was Nolan, but I couldn’t let that affect me yet. There would be time later to fall apart over what he’d done to me. First, I had to stop Joel Krenshaw from ruining everything I’d worked so damn hard for.
Stupid, I chastised myself. How could you be so stupid to send pictures like that to anyone?
That I’d loved Nolan, had thought he would never do anything to hurt me, never betray me, had given me a false sense of security. I’d put my heart and trust in someone it was now glaringly obvious I never should have.
Fighting the urge to vomit, I steeled my spine and negotiated the biggest deal of my life.
And two days later, as I handed over the five million dollars in cash to the bastard who wanted me out of his son’s life, I still hadn’t heard a word from Nolan.
Chapter 1
Nolan
I was in the middle of warming up for practice when I spotted the new guy. No one had mentioned his name, but we’d all heard we were getting a new center fielder pulled up from the minors.
Having been burned by someone I’d considered a friend once, I hadn’t made that same mistake in the years that had followed. Billy had ruined my life when he’d stolen my phone and given it to my father. Something I hadn’t known about until I got home from that weeklong road trip and walked into the mayhem they had caused in my absence.
But when none other than my old college roommate stepped onto the field, a swagger in his step as he stepped onto a major league diamond for the first time as a starting player, all the rage I’d kept buried from the moment I’d lost the future I’d been dreaming of rushed to the surface.
No way he didn’t know I was one of the starting pitchers. No way he didn’t know I was the top dog of the entire team. And there sure as fuck was no way he’d forgotten what he’d done to me all those years ago.
One minute I was throwing the ball to my catcher, stretching out my pitching arm to loosen up for the day. The next thing I knew, I had Billy on the ground, beating the hell out of him.
It took six guys to get me off him, and by then, Billy was out cold. If they hadn’t pulled me away from him, I would have killed him, no doubt about it. I spat on his feet as I was dragged back even farther. He was bleeding so badly, it was hard to tell where it was all coming from, and I vaguely heard someone say that the new outfielder had a broken arm.
All the coaches were cursing. One because I’d busted up my pitching hand and would need to get an X-ray to make sure nothing was broken or torn. Another because he was going to have to bring up another outfielder to take Billy’s place. The others were pissed because I’d just unleashed years of wrath, and they thought that made me unpredictable.
As far as they—and the rest of the world—were concerned, Nolan Krenshaw was an emotionless pitching machine. That was what they had called me from the first time I’d stood on the pitcher’s mound, throwing the first perfect game of the year only two games into my rookie season. Photos of me with dead eyes and a blank face had been plastered everywhere from Boston to Japan, and every sports broadcaster in the world had said I had a long, bright future ahead of me in baseball.
What they didn’t know, what they couldn’t see because I’d buried it so deep it would take an excavation team to uncover, was the hatred, the seething rage, and the bone-crushing pain that constantly lived inside me. Those monstrous, dark emotions scratched at the back of my brain, trapped in the cell I’d locked them away in when Zariah had stood before me and said she hated me…and then told me the reason why.
From that moment, when I’d realized that everything good in my life had been stolen right along with my phone, I’d turned off my emotions.
Until Billy had walked out onto the baseball field, laughing with a few of the other guys, looking like he owned the world. Like he’d had no part in destroying my own. There was no holding the darkness at bay any longer when I saw that motherfucker. There was no containing the monster that wanted vengeance for what had been taken from me.
I was dragged into the locker room, where the trainers and a medic were waiting to check over my hand and arm. The GM was already bitching and threatening to trade me, and I found myself fighting a grin. I wanted to be traded. Had been looking for a way to get down to New York from the day I’d been drafted—fuck, before that. But the agent I’d gotten stuck with after I’d lost Zariah hadn’t been trying hard enough to get me there. Not when the money was so good in Boston, and he was getting plenty from his cut of my deal.
The Mets, the Yankees—fuck, I didn’t care which team I was put on. I didn’t even care how much money they offered. I just wanted to be in New York.
And since my contract with my agent was up, that meant I could make a call. One I’d been desperate for a reason to make for so damn long. Day after day, I’d dialed that number over and over again, but never once hit send. Not when I knew she would only tell me to go to hell.
But maybe…
Maybe enough time had passed, and she would talk to me this time.
My assistant walked into the locker room, a combination of shock and horror on his face as he took in all the chaos going on because of me. I motioned Stewart over with my right hand since the medic was still poking and prodding my left. But before I could instruct him what to do, the team owner stormed into the room.
“You better get yourself a good lawyer, Krenshaw. I don’t care if you have been the MVP the last four seasons or that you got us to the World Series the past two years in a row. I don’t tolerate that kind of violence on my team.”
“I know a great lawyer, actually,” I told him with a careless half shrug. A particularly tender spot was pinched on my wrist, and I pushed the trainer off me. “That X-ray set up yet?”
“An MRI might be a good idea, too,” the trainer said, but he was speaking more to the owner than to me.
I flexed my left hand, causing pain to radiate up my entire arm, but it only made me grin. I wasn’t a violent man, but there were two people in the world who deserved for me to beat them to death. Billy was one of them, my father the other. Since dear old Pop had gone into hiding after fucking up my life, Billy had gotten the rage I’d been storing up for the both of them.
But maybe he’d done me a favor in the process.
Picking up my phone with my uninjured hand, I pulled up Zariah’s contact information and started typing one-handed.
Chapter 2
Zariah
I was sitting through the midmorning meeting with the rest of the legal department in the conference room. My attention was split between what the others were discussing and texting my sister, trying to lock her down on the double date I’d conned her into going on with me later that evening.
Not even I wanted to go. Patrick left a lot to be desired, and I’d barely stomached the first date we’d gone on. It wasn’t his fault that the couple behind us at the restaurant where we’d had dinner was watching the Boston game on his phone loud enough for me to hear. Every time Patrick said something that irritated me was usually about the same time that the broadcaster would mention Nolan Krenshaw. I couldn’t be completely sure if it was Patrick himself making me want to break my wineglass and stab him in the eye with it, or if it was because the man I hated the most in the world was having a killer game.
