Relentless: A Bad Boy Romance (Bertoli Crime Family #1) by Lauren Landish Page B

course a song from Genesis — called “Am I Very Wrong.” The images were like before, shots of the lyrics crawling by karaoke style with stills of Drake's crimes in between, but this time, interspersed with the blood-soaked shots of Angela's murder, were photos of Adriana herself, taken within the past two weeks around campus. I knew that for sure, because I saw myself in three of them and knew exactly when they'd been taken.
    The last slide of the show wasn't a picture, but a single normal PowerPoint-type slide that read,
    “I do hope the new beefcake doesn't mean I'm not number one in your heart, my Adriana. I'd hate to have to hurt him.”
    The son of a bitch had been on campus. He must’ve been good to be coming around campus and have no one notice him. Closing the virtual box, I shut the computer down and took a deep breath. My job just became a lot harder, and I wasn't sure what I could do about it, not until Adam or one of the Don's men got me some information to work with. Until then, the only thing I could do would be to stay by Adriana's side and make sure that if Drake did go all the way over the edge and into direct attack, he'd never get within twenty feet of her.
    “Wait right here. I'm going to the edge of the room to make a phone call,” I told Adriana, who nodded without a word. I walked the ten feet away to give me enough privacy so that she couldn't overhear, and dialed Don Bertoli.
    “Hello, Daniel,” he said, his voice mellow and cultured like he'd been expecting my call. I could hear a bit of the background noise and knew he was at the office, dealing with the legal side of his empire. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
    “Yes, sir. Adriana received another email from Vincent Drake. If you have your men access the email, it's in a message supposedly from Peter Gabriel.”
    “Peter Gabriel?” Don Bertoli said, sounding surprised. In the past two weeks, we'd all become at least passably acquainted with the discography of the group, although the Don himself and Margaret had admitted that at one point, they’d liked them when they were younger. I doubted either of them would be buying tickets to a reunion tour any time soon, not that it was the actual group’s fault. “Anything of particular interest to report?”
    “Yes, sir,” I said, lowering my voice. “Sir, I suspect that Drake has been on campus. There were pictures of Adriana and myself on campus going to classes, taken within the past two weeks. While they’re telephoto, they are also clear enough that he was most likely within a couple of hundred yards.”
    The silence on the other end told me everything I needed to know. “Okay, Daniel. When you bring Adriana home tonight, make sure your car is clean, and I’ll have someone standing by to install some new security measures on it overnight. Anything else?”
    “No, sir. I need to get Adriana to her next class now.”
    “We’ll talk when you get home. Goodbye.”
    I hung up my phone and walked back over to Adriana, who was still staring at her book but hadn't turned a page yet. Kneeling down, I looked her in the eyes. “Are you okay?”
    She blinked, her eyes wide and frightened, and shook her head softly. “I just want this to end.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Let's go now. I don’t want to go to my next class.”

    * * *
    A fter dinner , which I ate by myself in the kitchen while Adriana ate with her family, I went out to meet with Adam, this time at the Starlight Club. The manager, cued in to my coming, met me at the door. “Sir, it is good to see you.”
    “Bullshit,” I said with a small chuckle and an apologetic shrug. “You're just worried that I'm going to do something stupid again.”
    I took off my coat and unbuttoned my shirt, showing him I wasn't carrying a pistol. I'd left it locked inside the borrowed Lexus that I was driving while Don Bertoli's expert worked on my car. They'd already gone over it in the few hours we'd been home and