by Lana Sky
Rage.
The next second, he’s across the room, his outstretched fingers aiming for my throat. I go rigid. The air in my lungs escapes in a single gasp, and all I can do is watch him.
And wait.
His anger is a wild, ravaging thing, almost musical in nature. The creeping crescendo of a haunting melody that comes from nowhere, as much as a surprise to the person performing the piece as it is to the listener. There is no rhyme or reason to it.
Just pure violent emotion.
“Your face…” His chest heaves as he flicks my chin with the pad of his thumb. I flinch, but he does it again, sloppily, scraping delicate flesh with his nail. And again, applying more and more pressure until I finally meet his gaze.
His eyes flicker as if he’s reading my thoughts word for word. I’m that vulnerable to him.
“Fuck…” He inhales through his teeth as a realization dawns over his face, transforming the frown into a gaping, formless shape. “I thought you might have done it out of hate. Implicated me on purpose. All for revenge. Revenge. Revenge!” His voice grows more bellicose with every word, bellowing throughout the room untamed. The look in his eyes is what sends ice through my veins, though. Wide, staring, angry, flashing irises, and dilated pupils. It’s like he’s demanding something from me. Pleading for it.
But I can’t give it. Even worse, my own eyes water in response, confusing me further. I don’t know what he wants.
“But it wasn’t that, was it?” The pad of his finger shakes, grazing over my mouth. He presses hard against my bottom lip, bringing his taste against my tongue. Blood, and violence, and accelerant. A cough rips up my throat, silenced as he slams his palm against my mouth entirely, sealing it shut.
“You don’t want revenge,” he croaks, seemingly alarmed by the fact. “No. No… You don’t even know what you want, do you? You’re just a child. You’re just a fucking child. Fuck!”
He lets me go, bracing himself against the nearest wall. His shoulders heave, his body shaking, a low sound ripping from his throat. At first…
I think it’s sobbing—until I catch that telltale wavering note that identifies it for what it really is. Laughing. Uncontrolled, hysterical laughing.
“You’re a little girl in a world of wolves,” he grates in between the unstable notes. “Fuck. You probably don’t even know why you came to me, do you? For a pat on the head? A goodnight kiss? I fucking sold you!”
He whirls around, brandishing a fist, his face so wet I assume he’s found more lighter fluid at first, dousing himself in it. But no…
The longer I stare, the more the harsh fluorescents reflect off the signature droplets. Tears. They mirror my own. Burning, hot, painful tears that rake down my cheeks unchecked like slashing claws.
“Fuck, what did you expect from me?” he demands, slamming a fist against the wall. His knuckles leave scarlet smears on the white paint, a vibrant illustration of what he’s capable of. “What? The truth? Fine.”
The look in his eye warns that it’s the last thing I want. An irrational sensation washes over me. Like I’d scream if I could. Slam my hands over my ears. Anything to make him stop.
I can’t hear this.
Regardless, he says it. “I sold you for ten thousand dollars. Did you know that?”
I didn’t, and I’m sure my expression reveals as much. He could have punched me, and I doubt my reaction would be any different. Lips parting, breathing heavy and broken. The amount stings, thrown in my face as though it were pennies. Change. A worthless sum that mattered little in the end.
Because it didn’t.
“I didn’t fucking care how much,” he adds to twist the knife. “I didn’t. I think I spent it on a horse race or some shit. That was your worth to me. It could have been ten dollars, and I still would have done it. You meant that little to me.”
And it’s the truth. His cold stare proves it even before he says the words, “I just wanted you gone. But you were lucky… Mischa,” he spits out the name. “He gave you the life I never could.” His red eyes sweep over me, and he sighs, swaying on his feet. “He kept you sheltered, Safiya. Sheltered and innocent with no fucking clue as to the way the world works. You thought you could see me again and what?”
He throws his arms out as if expecting the answer to fall from the sky.
“That everything would magically right itself? You’d get your revenge and ease the hole in your fucking heart? No. No…” He shakes his head with pity—but the worst realization creeps in as he sighs again. It’s genuine. Eyes downcast, he says, “No, Safiya. The world doesn’t work like that. You need to go home. Go back to your pretty little life and forget that you ever left that cage. You belong there.”
There, safe in Mischa’s beautiful family, where I only ever felt out of place. A misfit dove in a world of swans. I try to bat the thought away—the same way I have for seven damn years. But I can’t. The truth claws at my chest until I finally acknowledge it—I only ever felt safe with him. Only felt like I ever belonged at Havienna.
And he knows that.
He’s relishing in it, denying me the home I never really had.
Sending me away now isn’t mercy. It’s a pathetic way to assuage his guilt. Mischa’s manor is far enough away from him where I can safely be ignored. Thrown away a second time. Branded with a word that stings worse than tigre, or hellcat, or even a bitch he could hate.
Child.
Someone too pitiful to fit in his world.
An innocent too stupid for him to acknowledge.
A ghost.
“I’m sending you back. I’ll call Mischa. Take you there now.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I realize he means it. With no fanfare. No ransom. He’ll send me back with a slap on the wrist. The worst part? He thinks of it as a mercy. “You don’t belong here…”
His voice trails off, distorted as if someone turned the volume down. I see him heading for the door, and I don’t know what possesses me to move. I gain on him. Step, by step, by step…
Alarmed, he inclines his head toward me at the same time my hand lands against his exposed cheek with a sound so startling I flinch. Vicious, slapping noise. He grunts, and belatedly, I see the letter opener in my fist, glinting in the light. See a flash of crimson splatter the floor next.
And then I see Donatello, frozen mid-lunge. He blinks, struck dumb—only for a second. The next, my wrists are in his grasp, and he’s herding me back against the wall with a brutality that snaps everything into motion again.
Confusion on him is torment. He sways, another agonized grunt slipping loose—but it’s his eyes that disturb me the most. For once, they meet mine openly with none of the rage. No pity. Just sheer puzzlement that knocks years from his age.
He’s just a broken man unsure of what the screeching little girl tugging at his pantleg wants. I’m that much of a mystery to him.
“You hate that I could ignore you,” he says. “Are you that fucking childish? You are…” He scoffs at the idea of it. “What? You want me to grovel and beg for your mercy? I won’t.”
Anger rips through me so fiercely I’m shocked by the force of it. Because he’s right.
He should be begging.
My teeth clatter together as I fight his grasp, but he’s too strong, easily bending my arm behind my back.
“Do you think I won’t hurt you?” he demands, his breath hot on my neck. “Is that what you fucking want? To drill it home? You only ever were a goddamn pawn! Haven’t you realized that yet?”
I think I haven’t stopped asking myself the same question since our uncanny reunion. Could he uphold the twisted boast he made? Sell his precious Safiya a second time? Break her wings?
Doubt circles my skull like an itch I can’t scratch, growing all the more irritating by his nearness. Yes? No? Yes…
Yes,yesyesyesyes!
His eyes convey the true answer, glaring deep into my own. I can’t escape them. My only defense is to rear back while holding his cold, lifeless s
tare and inhale.
Then I breathe out, my cheeks hollowing as spit flies from my mouth to splatter against that stern jaw. Triumph rips through me, but it’s short-lived. Sparks that die in reality’s cold chill.
He reacts like a man stuck in slow motion. His fingers brush at the liquid as he swivels toward me. The next second, his hand is in my hair, latching onto my scalp. Wrenching. He uses the leverage to draw me against him so quickly he doesn’t even seem to realize he’s done it.
“You were always so damn stubborn—” Once more, he breaks off, stopping himself from committing what seems to be the ultimate sin.
Acknowledging my existence.
Admitting the truth.
Seeing me for who I am.
Because this pathetic, stubborn, childish part of me wants to hear him say it.
He hurt me. He hurt me. He hurt me.
And that matters.
The tattoo on his chest implies that it does. I saw it once, etched in red ink as sloppy as if he did it himself. Carved every letter. Every twist and curve.
Safiya Mangenello meant something to him. But only as a lie he could comfort himself with. The real girl? She means nothing.
I see that now; his fuzzy, hazy expression blurred by tears is the only evidence I need.
“I’m done with your mind games,” he says, dismissive once again. Releasing me, he starts to turn on his heel, but my hand flies out, snatching a fistful of his collar before he can.
It’s still damp, a shock that reinforces our present circumstances.
We both smell like lighter fluid. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair a tousled mess.
The evidence of who we really are is all around us—the dust from Havienna on our clothing. The haunting memories of the past. The fact that he can take one look at me and know my thoughts so easily.
“You thought I was bluffing, did you?” He shoves me back, using his bulk as a battering ram to pin me flat against the wall. Air escapes my chest in a rush, as his hands find my waist, so large his fingers almost meet across my stomach.
A million different adjectives flood my mind in a rush to describe how he feels—warm. Big. Too big. Heavy. Infallible.
Strong.
So strong…
Once, these hands used to hold me. Comfort me whenever I felt alone or afraid. Never would they creep over me with a boldness that takes my breath away. His thumbs rasp over my belly button as his gaze lowers, and I’m riveted to his every reaction.
Dilated pupils. Flared nostrils. Wrong. The way his tongue flits across his lower lip almost too quickly to track is wrong.
And I can’t stop it…
For the first time, I feel something itching through my skin I’ve never felt before. Ever. At least when it came to him. Still, I recognize it instinctively the way any woman would.
Fear.
The kind of fear you can only feel when a layer of fabric is the lone barrier shielding you from a man with nothing left to lose…
“Donatello?” The voice shatters the tense silence. Male? A face appears in the doorway, his gray eyes familiar. The man with the gun, only he’s unarmed now.
Donatello shoves me aside so suddenly I go down hard, tasting copper as my teeth catch my lower lip.
“What is it?” he demands, his breathing heavy. “Fuck! What is it?”
“You have a visitor,” the man replies, inclining his head. “I doubt you want to keep him waiting.”
9
Don
For seven years, Safiya Mangenello has haunted me, a specter dwelling inside my goddamn head. I let her live there. I fed into the lie that as long as I continued to do good, it might somehow make up for my crime against her. Hell, I think I even believed it.
There are no lies to hide behind now.
She’s dead, and nothing will ever change that. Whoever Mischa saved, she’s someone else. A little girl howling that I atone for the sins of the past as though we’re all living in some fucking fairy tale where wrongs can be righted with the wave of a wand.
But this is no fairy tale.
And I’m done fucking atoning.
“Don?” The voice hooks into my thoughts, tugging me back to the present.
“W-What?” I croak, turning to face Luciano. He’s gaping at me, mouth wide open, like I’m insane—not that I can blame him. Fuck, I feel like it, shaking my head as though I’m resurfacing from minutes spent submerged underwater. I’m breathing just as heavily as if I were drowning.
Or, in this case, lost in a pair of dark fucking eyes ten times deeper than any ocean. With every glance, they suck me in, demanding something I don’t know how to fucking give. An answer? But there isn’t one good enough to satisfy that curiosity.
So they’ll suck my lungs dry instead.
She’ll drain me of every-fucking-thing...
“Don? I said he’s here.”
“Who?” I say, staggering toward him, fighting to stay standing. The figure I leave behind doesn’t move, still on her knees, huddled against the wall. Blinking, I keep going. As long as I don’t look at her, I can think. Focus.
The man observing the show raises an eyebrow but has the sense to keep his fucking mouth shut. Pushing past him, I brace one hand against the doorway and suck in a lungful of air. Exhale it slowly. Try to refocus. He came here for a reason.
A visitor…
“The man Antonio spoke with?” I ask, craning my neck in his direction.
He nods. The fact that he’s wearing a different shirt and jeans betrays how late it is. How long did I sit in that damn study, gathering the nerve to see her?
“That’s why I’m here. He should be passing through the gates any minute now—”
“Have your men detain him,” I say, standing upright. I take a step, and my thoughts get clearer. Another and I can breathe normally again. The further I get from her, the better I feel. In control.
“Wait.” Luciano raises a hand before I can leave the room behind entirely. “First… I think you need to explain what the hell you were doing.” He inclines his head in a direction I refuse to look, his eyes blazing. “Assaulting the daughter of the mafiya head? Are you suicidal? Is that it? Fuck, man! Feel free to take yourself out in a rain of hellfire, but leave the famiglia out of it—”
“Are you done?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
He blinks in shock rather than answer, as if he can’t decide whether I’m truly insane or just foolish.
Maybe it’s a bit of both.
Reentering the room, I spot a leather couch and collapse onto it. It’s uncomfortable as fuck, but it provides enough support for me to ignore the rest of the world and think. My fingers find my chin, stroking the stubble there as I do so.
My first priority is finding proof that Antonio set me up. Though why would he even go through the trouble? Sure, he was a selfish fuck, but seeing the state of the famiglia for myself, I doubt control of the harbor would be enough to change their fortunes around. There had to be more to it.
I don’t know exactly how much time passes before Luciano loudly clears his throat.
“I’d hate to interrupt,” he snarls. “But I don’t know, maybe you can relax another time? When we aren’t on the verge of fucking Armageddon.”
“You don’t trust me,” I point out, tilting my head to face him directly.
“Frankly, I’m wondering if you’re any different from Tony,” he warns, cutting his eyes away from me. “You two seem to have a lot in common.”
In my peripheral vision lurks a figure clothed in yellow, still hunched on the floor. Fuck…
Gritting my teeth, I ignore her.
“And yet you’re still here,” I say to the man before me. “Don’t pretend like you wouldn’t be cutting and running like hell if you really thought I was crazy. You’re still here, which means you’re smarter than you pretend to be.”
“Or I could be just as fucking crazy as you are,” he retorts. “Perhaps it’s the allure of it. I’ve heard the stories. The big bad
Donatello who singlehandedly fought the Hortega Cartel and made off like a bandit with the spoils of war. You were a legend. Though, hell, they could have been just stories.”
“Stories,” I scoff. “Because Antonio’s done so much better than I did—”
“Antonio was a dick, but he wasn’t stupid. We always keep an ear to the ground, and you, Donatello? Mischa’s been gunning for you like hell. It’s all over the fucking city. The real question is, what do you plan to do next?”
I lean my head back as I contemplate that very problem. The good Don? He wants to wallow in his agony and pretend this isn’t happening. Forget. Ignore. Repent.
As for the other part of me that isn’t drenched in misery?
It only craves power. Revenge, the pettier, the better…
Above that? Vin’s safety. If there’s any chance of him staying alive, I’ll crawl over glass if I have to. Whatever it takes. Luckily—or not—for me, every motive circles back to my captive little Stepanova. Funny, given only a few minutes ago, I’d been ready to let her go.
“I wanted to sell the girl,” I admit, ignoring the fact that she’s here in this room, listening to every word. “Use the money to challenge Mischa, or barter the threat to make him back down.”
Luciano whistles through his teeth, but when I look over, he has his head inclined thoughtfully. “She’s pretty enough to catch a nice price, but I don’t think you’re doing it for the money.”
“No.” I brace my hands against my knees, surprised by the laugh that rips from my chest. “Not for the money.”
But he’s right. Her youth and face alone would fetch a hefty amount, even before her identity came into account. Some crime lord would take her, eager to feel like a big man by breaking someone so seemingly innocent.
Though, a part of me scoffs, what makes you any different?
I try to envision it—her at the mercy of someone else. Their hands mauling that pale skin. Their fingers imparting new bruises around her neck. Another monster forcing his way inside her... The hot sensation flooding my skin isn’t glee at the prospect.
