Chapter 157

Layla

While we were headed back to the house, I felt this nervous pit grow within my stomach. I had no real way of knowing if Agent Carter was going to listen to me and return to New York.

I reached over for my bag to pull out my phone. My breath became caught in my lungs.

“Oh my God,” I gasped.

I had over six missed calls from Aldo. My mind immediately began racing, trying to figure out what could have happened that would have warranted several missed calls. Had there been some kind of an attack?

Things had been rather quiet since the day we recovered Eli. Still, since before I left, we hadn’t been able to pick up any word on Vanessa or the remaining Rossetti family members. I was truly hoping that the young woman would have heeded my warning and faded into the background.

Not unless there was a new threat I’m aware of...

Good God. I had to stop jumping to any more conclusions, otherwise I was going to drive myself insane. I swiftly pulled up his number and called him back.

The longer the phone rang, the more my anxiety was rising. Soon, Aldo’s voice came through the speaker and my heart slammed against my rib cage.

“Jesus Christ, Layla! Are you alright?! I’ve been trying to call you for the last hour—”

“I know that Aldo, what the hell is going on?” I asked briskly. “What’s happened?”

“Honestly, I was really debating about telling you this before you got back from your trip. You know that I don’t mean to interrupt your time. I know you’re there to focus on yourself—”

“Aldo! Will you please just tell me what is going on?!”

“I sent Carlo to Agent Carter’s apartment. Layla, Carter has a shit ton of pictures of you tucked away in some messed up folder,” he said.

I let out a long breath and sagged back against the seat. “Is that all?”

A long pause passed. “W-What do you mean? ‘Is that all’? Layla, the guy is a fucking psychopath.”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Yeah, I believed the term Eva used was ‘sociopath’,” I told him.

His voice lost all emotion. “You knew about this already,” he said. “Well then, I take it that the twins actually were the ones that broke into Carter’s place first?”

“Yes,” I confirmed. “But I hadn’t known about the pictures until literally twenty minutes ago.”

“So they told you?”

“Eva showed me some of the screenshots she took of Carter’s terrifying stash of photos.”

I debated telling Aldo about the fact that Agent Carter had driven all the way out here to confront me. Of course, I was going to tell him once I returned home. I just didn’t want him to freak out and demand that I cut the trip short. It was bad enough that today had been ruined because of the damn creep.

“Aldo, Agent Carter was here.”

I heard him take a sharp inhale of breath before he spoke. His tone was cold and direct.

“Are you telling me that you saw him?”

“I’m saying that he followed me all the way out here in Maine. He stalked me the entire day and finally confronted me at the border of Quebec,” I explained. “He seriously believed that I was going to give our conversation another attempt because I wasn’t currently under the weighted pressure of the Marcellos.”

“That son of a bitch!” he shouted. “Are you fucking kidding me?! Well, for Christ’s sake, are you okay?”

“I’m fine...Well, no.” My voice broke out in a weak cry. “Actually, I’m not okay. I’m really freaked out and upset by the fact that a fucking federal agent has been stalking me for the last decade of my life!”

“I could have shot him but you told me ‘no’,” Stasia muttered from the front seat.

I let out a weak laugh.

“Wait, what?” Aldo asked. “Did one of the twins just say that she could have shot him?”

“Yeah, things got a little heated at one point. Shockingly enough, Carter didn’t know who Eva or Stasia were. He really thought that I was just on some normal girl’s trip away. You should have seen the look on his face when Stasia pulled a handgun on him.”

“Serves him right, the freaking bastard,” Aldo chuckled.

“We had a feeling that Agent Carter would try to pull something like that, Aldo,” Eva said.

“Eva practically dissected the man on the spot,” I added. “I told Agent Carter to go back to New York.”

“You think he’s going to listen?” he questioned.

“If he was smart, he would.”

His tone softened with sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”

My brows furrowed in confusion. “For what? It’s not as though you told him where I was going.”

“I feel terrible that you’re going through this. After everything that’s happened, this is the absolute last thing you need to be dealing with. You needed this trip to help you sort through a lot of things. It was supposed to be a chance for you to relax and focus on yourself.”

My heart swelled with warmth, reminding me exactly why I had fallen in love with him in the first place. Aldo had always been that person who would support me even during the most difficult time.

“I’ll be back the day after tomorrow,” I told him. “Please give my love to Eli and tell him I’ll be home soon.”

“Of course,” he promised. “I’ll let you know once our good friend Agent Carter is officially back in the city.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, before I go. Could you pass a message on to Staisa? I think Ethan is looking to talk to someone who remembers him as Matteo.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Seriously? Okay, yeah. I’ll let her know.”

I was nothing short of stunned that Ethan was really considering opening that door to his past. I figured he, of all people, would refuse to even think about asking. After all, I, myself, realized that ignorance can, indeed, be bliss.

I ended the call and turned to glance at Stasia through the rearview mirror.

“Did you hear what Aldo just said?”

“Something about Ethan?” she questioned.

I nodded. “He said that Ethan is looking to talk to you about who he used to be.”

“He wants to know about who Matteo Marcello was?”

“Apparently so.”

Stasia remained noticeably quiet through the rest of the car ride. By the time we reached the house, it was well into the evening and I began prepping dinner for us. Eva chose to hang around in the kitchen to help while Stasia retired to her room.

While I began cooking the pasta, I glanced over at Eva.

“I don’t mean to pry but I’m a bit curious,” I told her. “What was the exact nature of her and Matteo’s relationship back then?”

Eva let out a sigh and opened a bottle of wine we’d picked up earlier. “To tell you the truth, I was never a hundred percent sure. All I knew was that years ago, Matteo saved Stasia from a horrible arranged marriage.”

My mouth fell open. “ An arranged marriage?”