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“I’d respect you less if you didn’t, though that’s not really possible. Are you another one who named his son a junior?”
“No,” leaked out of the man.
Antonio followed Franco’s gaze to the cage in the corner. “You were working on it, were you? Fucking asshole. I should offer her the knife.”
The woman let loose a string of words in a language Antonio didn’t recognize. Then she turned her back on the room, her body shuddering under her wrapped arms.
“Looks like that’s a ‘no.’ Too bad.” Antonio sliced his knife through Franco Rossi’s neck.
The man’s ending gurgle was less than satisfying after hearing so many.
Antonio wiped the knife clean before climbing off the body. Blood soaked his dress shirt, and the white cast was streaked with it. He sighed, accepting that he’d have to head home before making his next move. “Find a key, would you, Luka?”
It didn’t take the assassin long to locate it, not with the imprisoned woman’s eyes doing all they could to point to it. Luka passed it off to Antonio instead of approaching the cage.
Antonio sighed, his gaze hard on the woman. “Do you have anywhere to go to lay low?”
She tightened her grip on herself as her shoulders hunched.
He took that as another ‘no’ and cursed under his breath. “Fine. After I unlock this, get dressed, and you can come with us.” He pointed a finger at her. “Don’t attack me. I don’t rape women, but I won’t hesitate to knock you out if you cause me trouble,” he lied.
She stared at him, and he doubted she’d understood a fucking word.
“What kind of consent could you have given with a language barrier?” Antonio muttered as he finished unlocking the cage.
To his relief, she slunk out and then darted toward the dresser. That she ended up wearing one of Franco Rossi’s undershirts was confusing, but it covered her well enough.
“Clean up here?” he asked Luka, who nodded. Antonio hesitated, sighed, and added, “Then do you think you could keep an eye on Vespa?”
Luka smiled at him for the first time Antonio could remember. Like the man’s laconic manner of speaking, it was no more than a brief lift of his lips, but it was significant all the same.
The adrenaline from the torture was already fading from Antonio’s body as he motioned for the woman to follow him, using the same path Luka had shown him when they’d slipped inside.
He added another warning after putting the woman into the passenger seat of his car and sliding in beside her. “If you attack me while we’re driving, I’ll likely swerve and kill us both.”
She didn’t even glance his way, and he sighed. In dawn’s early light, he couldn’t quite pinpoint which country she was from.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered. Giovanni had been keeping the peace, but once Barone was taken out, it would be easy to convince him it was time to cut off the flesh trade. Neither they nor the Coronellas were interested in continuing that leg of the business in their territory. “Maybe Enzo will know what to do with you,” Antonio murmured and started to speed away from the alley he’d left the car parked in.
The sudden impact and scream of metal had his mind scrambling before everything went dark.
Chapter 27
Vespa woke alone with her head on the mattress, where Antonio’s chest had been. He’d slipped out from under her without waking her up. She was getting way too comfortable around him.
She’d slept right through the typical meeting time with the capos. A shower made her feel less scummy, and she slicked salve onto her cut again, remembering how much gentler Antonio had been when doing the same.
Antonio Di Salvo loved her. Vespa had no idea what to do with that.
When she exited her room, two Coronella soldiers straightened along the wall, mumbling greetings.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” she asked, but her chest felt all warm and gooey even before they admitted to guarding her. “No need,” she snapped before clomping for the main stairs.
They slunk behind her, far enough away not to intrude.
The conference room was already deserted, and she was too wired for breakfast. Her hand went to her stomach, remembering the way it had flipped with the car. She headed out to the separate house to confirm the soldiers she’d tasked with cleanup had done a decent job.
Remembering the way the man she had tortured threw Cesare’s name at her made her nerves skitter. No one should have known that name. She’d found Cesare attractive and had developed a crush on him, but he’d been a nobody in the business, still earning his way among the Coronellas at the time.
