Drop Dead Beautiful (5 page)

One day he brought his friend Gino Santangelo with him. Gino was shorter than Enzio, but he was full of charisma, with his thick, black curly hair and intense dark eyes.

Francesca began flirting with Gino to make Enzio jealous. The more she flirted, the more Enzio appeared with different girls. It was a game they both played. Teenage girl and older man. When was he going to ask her out?

Eventually he did, and she started seeing him secretly, not daring to tell her parents.

Enzio was very demanding; a kiss on the cheek did not do it for him. Every time he tried to go further, Francesca demurred, telling him she was a virgin and had no intention of changing that status until she was a married woman.

On her seventeenth birthday she told her parents she’d met a boy who wanted to take her out. She wondered what they would do if they discovered that she was really seeing the notorious Enzio Bonnatti, a man who had quite a reputation in the neighborhood. It would not sit well with her hardworking parents, so to appease them she bribed one of the boys she worked with to pretend to be her date. The boy picked her up at her house, then delivered her to Enzio’s apartment. When she arrived, Enzio said, “You gotta look older ’cause we’re goin’ to a nightclub. I got you a dress, go put it on.”

“What kind of dress?” she asked.

“You could call it a fancy dress,” he joked. “It fell off the back of a truck.”

Enzio wasn’t shy about what he did, he never tried to hide it from her, and even though she knew his activities were not exactly legal, she couldn’t help enjoying the sense of excitement he brought into her mundane life.

The dress was red and tight. It clung to her teenage curves, emphasizing her breasts and butt, making her appear older than her years. It obviously had a positive effect on Enzio, for later that night he proposed.

She told him she’d think about it. Although she liked
Enzio, she’d grown to like his friend, Gino, even more. But Gino never gave her the time of day, which infuriated her. She couldn’t understand it. Most men paid her plenty of attention.

One day she asked Gino why he chose to ignore her.

“You’re my best friend’s girlfriend,” he answered. “That’s why.”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” she objected. “Enzio’s always running around with other women.”

“You’re the one he’s gonna marry,” Gino replied. “You can be sure of that.”

“My father won’t allow me to marry him.”

“Wanna bet?” Gino said. “You’ll see.”

It frustrated her that Gino never responded to her beauty. She tried on many occasions to get him to change his mind but he was steadfast. His friendship with Enzio came first. Loyalty meant everything to Gino Santangelo.

Without her knowledge, Enzio went to her father and obtained his permission for them to get married. She suspected he either bribed or threatened her father to agree.

They were married two days before her eighteenth birthday. Gino was Enzio’s best man.

Now, all these years later, she still thought about Gino and what might have been.

Gino Santangelo was the one she should’ve married. He was the one who got away.

Now all she could think about was that Gino Santangelo was alive and Enzio was dead—murdered by Gino’s bitch daughter.

Retribution was a necessity for the Bonnatti family name, and Anthony had to resolve the situation. The Bonnatti honor was at stake.

For quite a while now Francesca had been muttering about the six-billion-dollar hotel complex in Vegas Lucky Santangelo was building. “You cannot let this happen,” she’d informed her grandson over and over. “Gino and Lucky Santangelo tried to take everything from us. Now we take our revenge.”

Anthony had many connections in Vegas. If he kept the Keys from opening, it would shut his grandmother up once and for all. After all, if it wasn’t for Francesca, he would’ve had nothing. And since she never stopped insisting that it was time the Santangelo family paid for their sins against the Bonnatti family, it would satisfy her. Anthony had a plan. A deadly plan. Costly and explosive. If it worked out, then Grandma would be one very happy woman indeed.

It was the least he could do.

Chapter 6

Max Santangelo Golden had a secret. A big one. She’d met this boy—well, man really—on the Internet, and every night for the past six weeks they’d exchanged all kinds of information online. His name was Grant and he was twenty-two. From his e-mails he sounded smart and interesting. He lived in San Diego, drove a Jeep, and didn’t have a girlfriend. Best of all, he’d posted his picture and he was a hottie—kind of like a younger Brad Pitt. The point was he did not fall into the category of sex-obsessed, lame teenage boy, and that was a major plus, because she was
so
over stupid boys. She wanted a real man, and Grant sounded like he might be the one.

So Max had lied, told him she was eighteen, that she worked for a fashion designer and had recently broken up with her boyfriend—which sounded way cooler than saying she was sixteen and still in high school. Actually, she
had
just broken up with her boyfriend, so that wasn’t exactly a lie. She’d broken up with Donny because she’d caught him making out with some bleached-blond skank at Houston’s in Century City of all places. He’d said he had to go somewhere with his parents and she’d said she was staying home. But later she’d changed her mind, called up her posse, Harry and Cookie, and the three of them had gone to Houston’s for the mind-blowing ribs. And there he was, Donny Leventon— seventeen and a hunk—slobbering all over said skank, who could’ve been his
mother
she was so old. At least
thirty
. It was
so
utterly gross!

Cookie had spotted him first. “Whoa! Major disaster about to happen!” she’d gasped, nudging Max. “We gotta split like
now!”

Whereupon Max had taken in the scene and being her mother’s daughter, acted accordingly. Without a moment’s hesitation she’d marched over to Donny’s table, picked up a glass filled with Coca-Cola and ice, and tossed the contents into his lying scumbag face. Before he could react, she was out of there, Cookie and Harry right behind her.

After what she termed “the Houston Incident,” she’d refused to ever speak to him again. The real truth was that Donny had broken her heart—just a tiny bit. He was her first real love, and he’d let her down.

Rejection was not something Max had ever had to deal with before, and it was hard, but eventually, when Donny came begging for her to take him back, she’d given him all the rejection she could muster. Let him see how
he
liked it.

Anyway, the point was Internet Dude had asked her if she wanted to get together and impulsively she’d said yes.

Two days later he’d announced that he’d hired a cabin up in Big Bear for the following weekend, and she’d promised to meet him there.

This was her move to make Donny sorry he’d ever cheated on her. Not that they’d been having sex, but they
had
been pretty intimate without going all the way. Now she would go all the way with Internet Dude, and
then
she would make sure Donny found out.
That
was the ass-wipe’s big punishment.

Donny should’ve waited
, she thought sadly.
I would’ve given it up—eventually
.

Her plans were all in place, but unfortunately her crappy mom was putting up roadblocks, which pissed her off, because why
shouldn’t
she do exactly as she pleased? Her mom
always
had—everyone knew about Lucky Santangelo and
her
notorious past—so why was
she
expected to be such a little lamb?

She had
no
intention of
not
going to Big Bear and missing out on an exciting experience, but how to pull it off
without getting grounded for weeks on end,
that
was the problem.

She wasn’t exactly losing sleep over it, because if there was one thing she excelled at, it was solving problems. And with the help of her two best friends—Cookie, a pretty black girl, and Harry, an in-the-closet gay teenager—she’d somehow work it out.

Cookie and Harry were the best, always up to support an adventure, and meeting some hot guy in Big Bear was a
major
adventure. Not that they were going to get to meet him, but they’d back her up all the way. That’s what true friends were for.

Later that afternoon, Cookie and Harry came over to lie out by the pool and mull over the situation.

“
I
wanna
meet
your Internet perv,” Cookie insisted, swigging from a can of Red Bull. She was a curvaceous girl in a young Janet Jackson kind of way. Chocolate-brown dreadlocks framed her heart-shaped face, and her lips were full and pink. Her father was Gerald M., the forty-nine-year-old smooth-soul-singing icon. Cookie had chosen to live with him in Beverly Hills because her mom was a prescription-drug whore who’d moved over the hill to the Valley with a twenty-five-year-old sometime musician, and Cookie couldn’t stand either of them. Her mom and boyfriend cohabited in stoned bliss, while Cookie enjoyed the good life with her famous father.

“Yeah, an’
I
wouldn’t mind giving him a blow job,” Harry leered, huddling under a huge sun umbrella, hiding from the sun. Harry was skinny and alarmingly pale, with dyed black hair worn spiked, as if he’d recently stuck his finger in a power socket.
His
mogul-type dad worked late hours at the TV network he ran, while his mom, a born-again, spent most evenings at her church or meeting with her pastor, a man Harry was convinced she was sleeping with.

“Bet you both
wish
you were coming with me,” Max said, tossing back her long mane of dark curls. “But hey,
I’m
the one that’s gonna be screwing him,
that
privilege is
all
mine, so try not to turn into jealous wrecks.”

“
If
your mom lets you go,” Cookie pointed out, adjusting the top of her bikini.

“I’m workin’ on it,” Max said confidently, knowing that she was taking off to Big Bear whether Lucky agreed or not.

“I
so
hope this dude’s like
not
a perv,” Cookie offered, wriggling around on her sun lounger, her brief pink bikini showing off every curve.

“And
I
hope he is,” Harry said excitably, his skinny body fully covered in a faded black T-shirt and baggy black pants worn half-mast. “ ’Cause then you can give us all the sicko details when you get back.”

“
If
she gets back,” Cookie interrupted, rolling her eyes for emphasis. “ ’Cause he could cut her up into itty-bitty pieces an’ bury her under the mountain.”

“Thanks for the thought,” Max said, biting down on her lower lip. “But hey, I know how to kick ass, so any cutting goin’ on will be coming from
me. Get it?”

“Bad shit happens,” Cookie said, nodding wisely. “I read where this woman met this dude on the Internet and he like
strangled
her, ’cause that’s what she told him she was into. How psycho is
that?”

“Grant’s cool,” Max said airily. “I can tell.”

“How?” Cookie demanded.

“I got good instincts.”

“You’d better answer your cell at all times ’cause we’ll be on red alert,” Harry said sternly.

“Should I pick up my cell even when we’re doin’ it?” Max teased.

“What?” Harry said, his face reddening.

“Don’t go getting all prudish on me,” Max said, giggling as she reached for a tube of suntan cream. “I gotta do it
sometime
, and Grant’s the perfect victim.”

“He is?” Cookie asked. “How’s that?”

“Well,” Max said, “he’s like an out-of-towner who can’t go around blabbing about me. Oh yeah, an’ he’s older, so he’ll be like an
expert
at it.”

“You
go
for it, girl,” Cookie said, making a victory sign. “Only try not to get slashed along the way.”

“Oh, so now he’s a
slasher
,” Max drawled, reaching for a bobby pin and piling her hair on top of her head. “Anyone ever mention that your imagination
sucks?”

“Could be he’s straight out of a Wes Craven horrorfest,” Harry said, making a spooky face. “Girl alone with strange dude equals she’ll like
definitely
get her throat slit.”

“It’s so
encouraging
to have friends like you two losers,” Max said, jumping up and making a running dive into the pool.

She didn’t care what anyone said—she was going to Big Bear. No doubt about it.

Chapter 7

For some time Irma Bonar had been thinking about taking a lover. At thirty-two, she’d finally decided to do something about her empty life stuck outside Mexico City in an enormous villa surrounded by servants and bodyguards. This was the place her husband, Anthony, had decided she should live, while
he
traveled anywhere he wanted doing God knew what.

Anthony Bonar was a difficult man. Difficult, arrogant, and most of all controlling.

The fact that he no longer wished to have sex with her did not please Irma at all. Over the years she’d gotten used to her husband’s ferocious style of lovemaking, and now she could not understand why their once-active sex life had ground to a sudden halt.

Whenever she mentioned it to him, Anthony always managed to come up with a variety of reasons. Reason number one: he had a lesion on his penis and he wasn’t sure what it was.

Irma had carefully inspected his limp manhood and found nothing.

“It’s there,” Anthony had insisted, “an’ if you don’t wanna catch nothin’, you’d better listen t’me for once.”

This frightened her off for a while, until one night he’d shoved his supposedly damaged cock into her mouth for a late-night blow job because he’d had a fight with one of his mistresses and the
puttana
had sent him home horny.

After that incident the lesion excuse didn’t work anymore, so he’d announced that his doctor had warned him that his testosterone level was dangerously low, and that he had to lay off sex for a while.