Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77066 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Alessio freezes, his face working through a series of emotions in a matter of seconds.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hollis growls as if irritated this entire situation has been interrupted at all.
Elio ignores the blood soaking into his jeans from Seth’s body, and despite the terror filling my blood, I could almost smile at his death. The man was demonic, probably worse than Alessio and Marcello put together. I seriously think that Seth fed the Severino boys’ evil sides from the time they were kids. He played a huge role in turning them into the men they became.
“You’re supposed to be in Boston,” Alessio snaps, ignoring Hollis’s question.
“And miss the slaying of my family?” she asks, a wicked smile of her own filling her pretty face.
I’ve only met the woman once or twice before. She helps see to her father’s businesses in New England and rarely darkens the door here in Chicago.
“Did this motherfucker kill our father too?” Alessio asks, taking a step closer to Nash.
Both the man in question and Hollis look over at Elio.
“Him?” Alessio snarls.
“It doesn’t matter,” Alessia snaps as she walks around Elio and inches toward Nash and Hollis. Rocco, the guard pointing guns at the two of them, doesn’t twitch, making anyone who doesn’t know better think he’s just fine right now, but his face tells a different story. He’s scared. If this woman is willing to kill the family’s longest, most vicious employee, then what does that mean for him?
“This one here killed your brother,” Alessia says to Rocco, pointing at Hollis.
I can’t help the whimper that erupts from my throat when Rocco readjusts his grip on the gun pointing at the man.
“I know how it feels. He killed my little brother, too.”
“Alessia,” I beg, knowing the woman owes me absolutely nothing.
“Oh, sweet little plaything,” she says, her eyes meeting mine. “You seem to be attached to him.”
Her eyes leave me and focus on her brother.
“Is it his ability to protect you that you like? Because he doesn’t seem very capable.”
Alessio smiles.
“Is it his cock that you’re going to miss?” Alessia keeps her eyes on her brother, her taunting meant more for him than for me. “He looks like he’d have the perfect one.”
She circles around again, now standing behind Rocco and the two kneeling men.
“I bet his is leagues better than Alessio could ever offer you.”
Nash chuckles, making Alessio draw in an irritated breath. “Alessia.”
It’s a warning, a low rumbled growl, but Alessia doesn’t seem bothered by it.
“My brother would never put himself at risk for you, sweet Madi.”
I hate the way my name sounds on her lips. It’s possible this woman is just as psycho as her brothers.
“He wants all the family glory but doesn’t want to do any of the real work.”
Alessio grows more and more irritated as his sister speaks.
All the rest of us can do is listen and wait to see how things will pan out.
Another gunshot rings out, and I flinch, my hands coming up to cover my face as if they’d be effective in stopping a bullet.
“Jesus fuck,” someone mutters, and I think it’s Nash.
I open my eyes just in time to see Rocco fall to the ground.
“He could’ve pulled the goddamned trigger,” Nash growls at her, and confusion really starts to settle inside of me.
“Would’ve saved me one,” Alessia says, pointing her gun at him and making it clear whatever connection I imagined they might have was a very wrong assumption.
“What are you playing at, Alessia?” Alessio growls.
I dart my eyes to Hollis who is looking down at the gun in Rocco’s dead hand as if he’s trying to determine his chances of being able to get to it and use it before being shot himself.
“You never were really smart,” Alessia says as she angles her gun at her brother.
Alessio’s jaw ticks, but he seems more irritated than afraid his twin will shoot him. The man looks toward Elio. “You didn’t kill my father did you?”
Elio gives his head the slightest of shakes.
“Motherfucker,” Nash says, a little awe in his voice as he turns his head to grin at Alessia.
I can’t keep track of what’s going on. Alessia killed Lucian?
“Alessia,” her brother says, chastisement in his tone. “I don’t—”
Just like what happened with Marcello, blood sprays my body, coating my skin in a warm red mist.
I swallow, the room silent except for the echo of the gunshot. My arms are covered, the skin exposed on my shoulders sticky with it.
When I look up, I see Elio standing behind Alessia, arm around her throat and a gun pressed tightly to her forehead.
Years of pain cloud my brother’s eyes. He seems feral, a wild animal that only knows vengeance and heartache.
Alessia wasn’t around when Maya died. She didn’t help Alessio, Seth, and Rocco hurt her.
My chin quivers, my own sorrow bubbling back to the surface with what I learned tonight about my brother and the girl I considered my closest friend. She was pregnant with his child. They had something going on in secret. She was the reason he was different. She was the reason he felt us knowing he’d died was better than watching the man he was after she was gone.