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MATTEO
I knew Natasha was up there. I spotted her reflection in the window without even having to look her way. The apartment was designed by a very clever architect named Bryce Sutherland, who has, as it happens, a bit of a background himself. He understood my needs. Mirrors where nobody thought there were any. Echoes where none should be. Trapdoors when you’d least expect them.
He didn’t put a gutter for vomit by the railing though, and I should make a recommendation to him next time we meet.
Ignorant, reckless woman. By looking on where she should have turned a blind eye, she just twisted herself tighter in the spider’s web. At this rate, she isn’t getting out of it alive.
I look up to where she’s sitting on her knees, still convulsing, but dry heaving. And she got some of it on my T-shirt.
I knew she was going to be trouble but not like this. “Get her to clean up this mess,” I say to Burley, as I indicate to the other bodyguards to bag the corpse and take it into the garage. “And call the butcher. I need this guy processed and off the premises before I leave for Sicily.”
“Got it, boss,” Burley says and I turn my back on the scene, having no interest in what they do next. I squeeze Stephano’s shoulder and indicate that he and Luca should follow me.
I close my office door once we’re inside and go behind my desk to the cupboard where I have some bourbon. I pour three glasses.
“You okay?” I hand Stephano his drink. His fingers are still trembling, but it’s in rage. He sinks into a leather wingback with a shrug and tosses the bourbon back in one swig without a flinch.
Inwardly I sigh. The problem with this type of vendetta is that it doesn’t balance the scales. Stephano found Tatiana ten hours after the assault, bleeding away in a back alley where Martinez left her to die. She might have been a prostitute who went willingly with Martinez, but Tatiana is more to Stephano than he’ll ever give away. He’s been holding himself accountable ever since, hating the fact that he couldn’t protect her, that he wasn’t there to stop any of it happening. Worst of all, since Tatiana has been released from the hospital, she’s refused to see him.
Scalera boys don’t get to love—a lesson my brother is learning the hard way.
“He wasn’t worth the fucking bullet, Matteo,” Stephano hisses. “I wanted him to die like he left Tatiana for dead.”
“And you did. The bullet wasn’t for him, dickhead. Martinez was already dead.”
Luca tosses a hand in the air. “How the hell did you know that?”
“He stopped breathing by the time the dildo breached his stomach.” I take a sip of my drink, feeling no remorse. “The bullet was for Natasha Armstrong. To make her understand that we’re not fucking around.” Look and learn, kitten.
“The plan was to auction her off and then drop her off at home after the fact?” Stephano says, seeming more in control of himself. “She wasn’t supposed to see any of this.”
No, she wasn’t. A mistake on my part. One I’m going to have to navigate.
“Why wasn’t she locked up in the safe room?” Luca prods as I swirl the golden liquid, not ready to look my brothers in the eyes. “Don’t turn soft on the girl, Matteo.”
Alex, the way I remember him now after years of battling the image of him dying in my arms, flits into my mind’s eye. Alex smiling. Alex laughing. Alex, fifteen and full of crazy as he jumps off a cliff in Portofino. “Nobody’s going soft. Martinez just sucked at his timing.”
“It’s done now.” Luca puts his glass down. “We’re going to have to deal.”
“Yes. Next time I hand you a gun to shoot a fucker, do as I say, not as you think.” The Don is dying, and my brothers are going to have to step up. The last thing I need is for any of them to go soft on me, or on a job I expect them to do. “Now, if you can both fuck off, I can go deal with the situation.”
Natasha witnessing a murder is the part of the situation I don’t need to deal with now. For that I have time. I first need to pay attention to a T-shirt stained with vomit, and a perfect, beautiful, sexy body underneath.
A body I’ve been burning to get another viewing of, just to remind myself that it’s off limits.
13
TASHA
Burley beckons me downstairs, and my knees wobble all the way, but I heard Matteo’s command. Get her to clean up this mess. This feels like digging my own grave. Not only have I witnessed a mob murder, but I bet wiping blood and brains off the floor officially makes me an accomplice.
Burley keeps handing me paper towels to wipe the floor with, and now has an array of chemicals on hand to eliminate any traces on Matteo’s fine porcelain tile. Note: tile, singular. At least twelve by twelve feet. It must have cost a fortune. Given that the rest of the apartment has hardwood floors, I can’t help the nasty suspicion that this tiled part is intentional. The town square for executions.
Where I only had my vomit on my T-shirt before, I now have droplets of blood splattered where I was careless, caking onto my skin. Thank God I’ve been sick already. Going at this without gloves is creeping me out. I toss another triple fold of paper towel into the brown yard waste bag Burley pulled out of a kitchen drawer, spray with hydrogen peroxide, wipe, repeat. The whole clean-up proceeds with alarming smoothness, and the one thing that keeps running on repeat in my mind is that this is what will happen to Dad if I don’t deliver.
I don’t even know what I’m supposed to deliver. Matteo is going to Sicily. Beyond that…
All I know is I’m not going to stand by and watch my own death unfold. I’m not going to be a willing participant to their games. Regardless of what Dad had done, of what his hand was in any of this—if he even had a hand—I have a mind and will of my own. I will fight for my life in every way possible.
