Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 125962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
“You’re fucking dead!” he growled, waving the gun. “No one talks to the Don like that.”
I raised my brow at him. “Maybe not. But you’re not the Don. Cristian is. What do you think is going to happen to you if you kill his fiancée?” My voice was clear and even. Cristian was my only protection. His reputation. His ruthlessness. I had to hope he was bulletproof.
The man paled and his lip started to quiver. Yeah, I got the asshole’s attention. He did not care about my wellbeing, that much was clear, but he was too much of a narcissist to discount his own personal safety.
“You do this, you will have nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. He will find you. And your death will be painful. Slow,” I promised. I sounded a lot more confident than I actually was.
Who knew how valuable I was to Cristian. I was probably extremely replaceable. He could already know of my involvement with Greg Harris and be planning my execution for all I knew. But he thought I belonged to him. As much as I hated that fact, it was really fucking important right now. Big mob bosses did not tolerate anyone fucking with something or someone that belonged to them.
The asshole held the gun up for another few seconds, maybe because he didn’t want to immediately give up his manhood or bravado or whatever the fuck it was that made him do things like assault a woman and brandish a gun. But then he lowered it.
My breathing did not slow, and my body did not relax. I kept my grip on the knife, trying to stop myself from rounding the counter and stabbing him. The need to cover myself in his blood was almost unbearable. My anger, the fury I’d been feeling this past week, was burning at my throat.
I didn’t recognize the feeling in my body. The rage. I practically felt the knife penetrating through the layers, feeling his blood on my hands. On my face.
I refrained from that.
Barely.
It was only when the red film dissipated from my vision that I saw a dark shadow in the doorway.
Felix.
Standing there.
Watching.
Fucking watching.
I glared at him, wondering how long he’d been there. Surely, he hadn’t been there while this man had been about to fucking rape me. When he punched me in the face.
“Lorenzo,” Felix uttered, still looking at me, focused on the hot, throbbing area of my cheek.
The man, I guessed by the name of Lorenzo, had not noticed Felix in the doorway. A poor survival instinct for someone who was apparently meant to be the head of this family. I had been in his presence for about five minutes, and I was certain that this little cretin would not be able to lead a Boy Scout troop, let alone an entire criminal enterprise.
“Cristian would like to see you,” Felix continued, voice sharp and cold.
I couldn’t tear myself away from Felix’s gaze, but I saw Lorenzo move out of the corner of my eye. He had enough self-preservation to not challenge Felix. If the man in question had made the same request of me, I would’ve moved too, even though I was utterly furious and disgusted with the man right now.
“I’ll take your weapon,” Felix said as Lorenzo moved toward him.
Again, there was no fight from Lorenzo, handing the gun to the stoic man without argument. Though he wasn’t facing me, I saw the pallor of Lorenzo’s skin turn almost gray with fear, the reality of what had just happened hitting him.
I watched him disappear down the hallway.
A dead man walking.
Cristian
I could barely breathe. Barely see.
Throughout the years, I’d perfected my self-control. It wasn’t particularly hard. Losing control only happened when you let yourself feel. When you let yourself care about something.
Someone.
Since I walked into this house and smelled blood twenty-five years ago, I hadn’t cared about anything but vengeance. When it became clear I wasn’t going to get that, I switched off. Completely.
I was barely human. Which made me a good Don. A great Don. No matter what happened with the business, with rival families, with my men, I had everything together. Never in my life had I felt like I needed to tear a room apart with my bare hands, not since I switched off the humanity inside of me.
My eyes were on the man sitting in front of me.
Except he was not a man.
Not since Isabella had I wanted to tear another person apart with my bare hands. Violence was a part of the job. It was not something I relished. But knowing what he did, knowing what he could’ve done, I wanted to kill Lorenzo with my bare hands. I wanted to paint the walls with his fucking blood.
It wasn’t about the disrespect he showed me as the head of this family. It was about Sienna.