Page 75 of The Beast Who Begged Me

I don’t know what the fuck a loupe is, but he seems pretty sure about it. So for now, he puts it back on his finger and climbs into bed with me. We surface for food, but otherwise spend most of Christmas there. Every time I start thinking I ought to get up, Caligula pulls me back. Eventually I stop trying.

Ain’t like I’m complaining, after all.

It’s late in the evening when he lets me go shower. I get dressed while he cleans up in the bathroom, and head downstairs to check on everyone. Vito’s in the kitchen with Rosa. Sammy and Ricky are upstairs.

Rosa offers to make me a late-night snack, and I accept.

Then my phone starts buzzing.

It’s Strike Ferraro, so I know it won’t be good news. And when I answer, there’s gunfire in the background, popping rapidly.

“Body shop’s hit,” he wheezes into the phone. “We’re pinned down⁠—”

“On my way.” I’m already moving. Guns back in their holsters, telling Vito to get me a shotgun as well, and then stay in the house and guard it. He hurries back from the armory to hand it over. “Keep a weapon with you, too,” I warn him. “We’re just as likely to get hit here. Keep watch, and protect Rosa. I’ll take the bike.”

He gives a firm nod. But I pause before I turn and run for the garage.

Because I’m doing it again. Taking matters into my own hands.

Shit.

I charge upstairs, taking them two at a time, and burst into the bedroom, making Caligula stare at me. He’s fresh out of the shower, towel low on his slim hips, water still beading on his collarbone. “What is it?”

“The body shop. Ferraro called—they’re under attack.”

He looks at the shotgun in my hand. Then his eyes meet mine again. “Go. Do whatever you need to do, and then come back alive. That’s an order from your Don.”

I grab him and kiss him hard. “Stay inside. That’s an order from me.”

The body shop is in an industrial zone sitting opposite a cemetery, so at this time of night the only neighbors around to hear anything are the dead. I see muzzle flashes lighting up the body shop a block out. I stop short of the entrance, leave the bike, and run the last few yards half-crouched, shotgun up.

The roll-up door is half raised and already peppered with holes. The first guy I see is Mike Junior, crouched behind a card table that might as well be cardboard for all the protection it offers him.

His father is behind one of the legs of a hydraulic lift, and each time his son tries to run over there with him, a volley of shots from the enemy stops him.

Ferraro is there, and a handful of others. There’s a body lying on the other side of the concrete floor—not one of ours.

And then a face comes up over a fender on one of the cars opposite.

It’s Frank Russo, a Giuliano Capo. The first guy to side with Big Gee when the Bratva partnership was announced. And now he’s here shooting up Caligula’s birthright.

I’ll kill him. With pleasure. But first I want to take the temperature of the Gees. “If any of you fuckers ever sided with Seb Conti, now’s the time to come over!” I shout.

“Conti’s long dead,” Russo hollers back. “You’ll join him tonight, Orsini. Then we’ll head over and take care of that Clemenza pet you been keeping.”

“Orsini?” A different voice comes from behind the blue sedan. “That you?”

“Yeah. You want me, come fucking get me.”

But nobody takes me up on it. Whoever spoke has gone quiet again.

I can’t get an angle on any of them; they have better protection over the other side of the shop floor. And we’re working with almost nothing.

The first thing to go is that card table. A burst of automatic gunfire chews through it and the whole thing splinters into two. Mike Junior is still behind the lower wreck of it, and still alive, because I hear him cursing through his teeth as he clutches his arm.

Big Mike scrambles to his feet, eyes on his son. “Giordano, stay put!” I bark. “He’s talking, he’s fine. You get killed, he bleeds out alone.”

That gets through to him. Barely.