“We can talk in the house,” Anya yelled at him. “She’s alive, idiot. But she’s going to be feeling the effects of this for a while. Let’s get her inside, yeah?”
“Baby.” Snapping out of it, I pushed down the rage now burning through my blood and thrust Cristiano out of my way. I pulled Allegra away from Anya and lifted her into my arms.
“Dante,” Allegra sobbed. Her entire body was trembling as she buried her face in my neck, her fingers fisting in my shirt as she clung to me. “Oh God, Dante.”
My gaze met Anya’s. “Tell me whoever did this is dead.” They had better be, or I was going to put a bullet in her head then and there. Her single nod was all the confirmation I needed, however, and I relaxed slightly. “Gio?”
“Two of his men. They tried to take her.” She lifted a hand toward the open door that led into the kitchen. “Let’s go inside.”
Turning, I jostled Allegra inadvertently, and she gasped in pain. It was only then I realized her breathing was shallow. “Sorry. I’m sorry,” I murmured at her ear before kissing her temple.
She laid her head on my shoulder. “I’m okay,” she tried to reassure me with a pained smile.
Not believing her, I carried her into the house and sat her on the couch in the living room then crouched down in front of her as I ran my eyes over her from head to toe. “Where does it hurt the most?”
“Everywhere,” she confessed. “Dario wasn’t too pleased when I threw up on him. His boots hurt like hell.”
“Dario?” Cristiano growled behind me, recognizing the name. It was only vaguely familiar to me, but according to Anya, the sonofabitch was dead now.
“And Tino.” She touched her hand to her chin, and I saw the cut on her lip. “He tried…” She shuddered and shook her head. “He tried to touch me, and I clipped him in the groin with my knee trying to get away from him. This was my reward.”
“He touched you?” Something snapped inside me. Standing, I put several feet between us so I wouldn’t scare her with how badly I was vibrating with rage. “He touched you?” I repeated between clenched teeth.
“He tried. Not successfully,” Anya attempted to reason. “And now he’s dead, so it really doesn’t matter.”
“He touched her!” I bellowed.
“And he’s in hell getting ass-fucked by the devil,” Anya snapped. “Calm the hell down. She’s scared enough as it is.”
“Dante,” Allegra murmured softly. “It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with me that won’t heal in a week or so. This isn’t the first time I’ve been hurt like this.”
That didn’t make the rage any better. If anything, it spiked skyward. But I forced myself to lock it down. Dropping to my knees in front of her, I stroked my fingers over her discolored jaw. “I’ll kill him,” I vowed to her. “You’ll never have to worry about this happening again. I swear it to you.”
“I took her to my guy in Brighton Beach,” Anya told Cristiano. “He said there were no new broken ribs, but they were bruised really badly. Her abdomen looks like a rainbow right now. I was worried she might have internal bleeding, but he said she’s fine. Just going to be feeling this for a while.”
“What about the bodies?” he asked in a quiet voice. “Do you need help taking care of them?”
“I called a cleaner. They’ll take care of it and clean up the blood.” I jerked my eyes to her when I felt Allegra shudder. What the fuck had Anya done in front of her? “Dario was kicking the hell out of her. Did you think I wouldn’t slit his throat for that?” she asked defensively.
“You did good, Annie,” Cristiano told her, pulling her into his arms and kissing her forehead. “Thank you for protecting Allegra.”
“Don’t fucking thank me,” she snapped, jerking away from him. “Just let me put a bullet in Gio’s head.”
“Anya—”
“Fathers don’t do this shit!” she exploded. “They don’t send men to nab their daughters or let them hurt her. Fathers are supposed to love their daughters, want to protect them at the cost of their own lives. They don’t do this shit!”
“Anya, calm down,” Cristiano commanded.
“The doctor showed me the X-rays, Cristiano. He—” She broke off, shaking her head. “She has ribs that never healed properly. Years of abuse were on display in every picture I saw.”
“Fuck!” Cristiano growled. Turning, he punched the wall, muttering curses under his breath.
Allegra yawned, pretending to ignore Anya’s emotional rant and her cousin’s show of rage that was only spiking my temper higher. Seeing how tired she was, I made my hands relax and lifted her into my arms. The day before, I’d discovered there was actually a bed in the only bedroom in the house. Thankfully, it didn’t have bedbugs or stains on it.
“Wait.” Anya stopped me. I turned back to face her with Allegra still in my arms, and she pulled a pill bottle from her coat pocket. “Take these with you. They’re pretty powerful narcotics, and she refused to take them earlier. But she’s not going to get any rest without some relief from the pain.”
“I don’t like taking medication,” Allegra grumbled stubbornly. “Pain pills make me dizzy.”
“You’re not going to feel dizzy, because you’re going to stay in bed until you can actually breathe deeply again,” Anya informed her in a commanding, motherly voice. She stroked a finger over Allegra’s cheek, her blue eyes turning arctic at the sight of the bruises. “You’re going to feel even worse tomorrow, myshka. Rest. Let your body heal.”
“Thanks for taking care of me, Anya,” she murmured weakly. “You’re a really great friend.”
“Not many people would agree with you there,” she muttered dispiritedly. “Go. Let your man take care of you. And no more nonsense. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” Allegra whispered.
Pill bottle in hand, I carried her into the bedroom. Flipping the lights on with my elbow, I kicked the door shut before setting her on the queen-sized mattress. There was a thin dark gray sheet on the bed with two pillows that had matching cases on them. A thick but cheap comforter was folded at the end of the bed. It was all I had to offer her right then, so it would have to do. “How are you really feeling, baby?”
“I’m okay,” she tried to assure me, but I saw her grimace in pain as she settled back onto the bed.
“I’ll be right back.” She only nodded, and I went to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water for her. From the living room, I heard Anya’s and Cristiano’s voices, but whatever they were saying was too low for me to hear, and I didn’t care enough to listen in.
Returning to Allegra, I extracted one of the tablets and offered it to her. She made a face at the pill but didn’t put up a fight when I pushed it into her hand. “I really don’t like medicine.”
“And I really don’t like seeing you in so much pain.” I uncapped the bottle of water and pressed it into her free hand. “Take it. You need your rest.”
With an annoyed sigh, she swallowed the pain pill, whimpering when the cold water touched her sore mouth. “Ugh, is it bleeding again?”
As she pulled the bottle away, I saw that a few drops of blood had welled up at the corner of her mouth. Pulling my shirt over my head, I sat beside her and pressed it to her wound. “What happened tonight?”
“I was stupid.”
“I don’t believe that.” I lifted the shirt, checking to see if the bleeding had stopped. It had, but it looked red. It was most likely going to leave a scar. One more to add to the long list of scars her father was responsible for. One more to make him pay for, and I would fucking be making him pay with pain.
“I was. Yesterday, I went out, and I guess Papa was having Anya watched. They must have followed me back to the apartment and waited for her to leave.”
“Wait, you’ve been at her apartment this whole time?” She nodded, and I bit back a curse. She was in the one place I wouldn’t have thought to look because I hadn’t imagined Anya keeping Allegra so clo
se to herself.
“I went to bed early, and Tino and Dario broke in sometime around midnight, I think. You…you know the rest.”
Recapping the water, I set it on the floor. The room was pretty bare except for the bed and curtains on the windows. It wasn’t meant for a person to be particularly comfortable. Just a place to sleep and then get on with the work that needed doing. It was efficient, but not something Allegra would be used to.
“What made you go out yesterday? Wasn’t Anya taking good care of you?”
She was quiet for a moment before sighing heavily. “I had my reasons, but yes, Anya took great care of me. It seems like everyone takes care of me.”
“Why is that a bad thing?” I demanded softly, taking her hand and entwining our fingers. Seeing the engagement ring still on her hand gave me a little hope that she still loved me. “You’re the most precious person in the world to me, Allegra baby. Everyone loves you. All we want is to keep you safe because we don’t ever want to imagine our lives without you.”
“You love me?” she whispered, as if she didn’t believe me.
“Of course, I fucking love you!” I burst out, my voice hoarse with emotion. I cupped the side of her face that wasn’t bruised, using my thumb to lift her chin so she had no choice but to meet my gaze. “I’ve loved you since you were barely sixteen.”
“What about that whole thing with Lauren? She said…” She shook her head, her nose scrunching up. “She said a lot, actually. I didn’t want to believe her, but she seemed so convinced it was true that I couldn’t keep from thinking it was as well.”
“Your mother is delusional, baby. Whether it’s the brain damage that’s caused this personality change in her, or memories of her emotional trauma triggered by seeing you again, I can’t honestly tell you. But she’s never been like that before—at least, not that I could tell.” I stroked the backs of my fingers down her neck, my body hardening when she shivered and her eyes grew hooded. “You are the only woman who has ever owned my heart. I don’t want to think of my life without you. You’re—”
“I love you too,” she cut in as a tear spilled over her lashes. My heart stuttered in my chest, and I realized just how much I’d been dying to hear those words from her. “I have always loved you. Even when I wanted to hate you for keeping Lauren and Jenny a secret, I loved you.”
“I know you want me to say I’m sorry for that, but I can’t,” I told her honestly. “Jenny is my half sister. I would die to protect her just as quickly as I would to protect you. If Gio were ever to find out about her, he would go after her with everything he has just because Lauren had a child with my father.”
“I understand, and I even accepted it. Which was why I went to your room the day I left.” She turned her head away, hiding her eyes from me. “But Lauren was already there. You welcomed her so trustingly into your room, and I overheard everything.”
“You heard me tell her if she ever tried to touch me again I would take both you and Jenny away from her, or that if she ever tried to hurt you, I would cut off everything?” Her eyes snapped back to mine so quickly it caused her to wince in pain. But the surprise on her face told me all I needed to know. “So, you ran off before hearing that part?”
“I ran back to my room to throw up, actually.”
“And I got rip-roaring drunk because I felt dirty after the whole scene with her,” I confessed.
“I got the drunk part,” she murmured, a faint smirk teasing at her lips. “It made stealing your cash and car keys pretty easy.”
I moved forward until our noses were nearly touching. “Don’t you ever run away from me again, woman. I’ll follow you straight into hell if that’s what it takes, but don’t you fucking make me chase you.”
She stroked her silky soft fingertips over my chin. “Don’t break my heart like that again, and you’ve got a deal.”
“These pain pills work pretty fast. They make you sassy.” I softly kissed the corner of her mouth that wasn’t cut, heard her sudden, sharp inhale, and grinned. “I like it.”
She started to grin back, but it turned into a yawn. “I’m so sleepy,” she groaned. “Will you stay with me?”
“Always,” I promised. Kicking off my shoes, I climbed in beside her and moved us until she was able to use my shoulder as a pillow.
Cuddling close, she let out a soft, contented little sigh that went straight to my cock. Kissing the top of her head, I ignored the ache in my balls and closed my eyes, finally able to find peace for the first time in over a week.
Chapter 19
Scarlett
I turned from one side to the other in front of my mirror, making sure not even a hint of the new holster showed. With the leather straps hidden under my maternity skirt, there was no way of knowing I was wearing a gun holster or the two Glocks that were already loaded. If everything went as it should, I wouldn’t need the two guns, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.
“I don’t like it,” Ciro complained from where he sat on our bed, his face set in stone as he watched me.
“This was mostly your idea, not mine. But I’m confident everything will go as planned.” I smirked at him in the mirror, and he rewarded me with a glare. Sighing, I turned to face my grumpy husband. “Is there any other way?”
I saw his jaw clench, knew he was gritting his teeth, and crossed the distance separating us to stroke my fingers over his chin. “Is there any other way?” I repeated.
“There are a hundred other ways,” he muttered. “But this is the one we can control the easiest.”
“That settles it, then,” I murmured and kissed his mouth.
When I pulled back, his arms wrapped like bands around my back, keeping me close. “I still don’t like it. If something goes wrong… If something happens to you or the babies—”
“I have this husband, you see. And he’s a killing machine.” I winked down at him, making his lips twitch, but I figured that was as close to a smile as I was getting today. At this point, I would take what I could get. “He’s got my back.”
“This husband of yours wants to strangle you right now,” he groused.
“How is that different from any other day?” I sassed back and pulled from his hold. “Now tell me I’m pretty, and give me one more kiss. I’ve got things to do.”
“You’re beautiful,” he assured me as he stood and bent his head to kiss me long, slow, and deep. “Watch your back,” he pleaded as he lifted his head enough to press his forehead to mine. “If the least little thing doesn’t feel right, abort the entire plan. Kill them all, Scarlett.”
“I’ve got this. You just keep a level head, and don’t change the plan because you don’t like what you see.” I tapped him firmly on the cheek with my hand. “I don’t need a rage monster on my hands until it calls for it.”
“This is dangerous, vita mia. Don’t—”
“I’m aware of what’s at risk,” I interrupted him. “You have to relax a little and trust that I know what I’m doing. If you can’t do that, then we need to come up with another idea, because I can’t worry about you at the same time I should be concentrating on other things.”
That seemed to shut him up nice and tight. Sighing heavily, I kissed his cheek and headed for the door. “I love you,” I called over my shoulder.
“I love you, Scarlett. Please, stay safe.”
His words melted my heart, but I didn’t turn around. I dare not let him see how close to tears I was now. If he saw them, he would cancel everything, and I was tired of playing games with Gio.
For the last few days, my uncle had been acting even shadier. My distrust in him was only skyrocketing with each passing day, and I was ready just to put a bullet in him and end everything. But we had to figure out how deep he was in with Santino and Fontana. If the sonofabitch was sharing vital information on Papa’s businesses on top of hiring Enzo to kill Dante, then that was going to be a big problem for us all. All Santino needed right now was a little
leverage to attempt to overtake Papa’s territory.
I wasn’t going to allow that to happen, however. Gio. Fontana. Santino. They all had a death wish if they thought they could take me on.
I walked downstairs and straight into the dining room. Papa was sitting in his usual place at the table with Nona and Victoria on either side of him. Gio was sitting at the opposite end from Papa, his eyes observing Papa picking at his breakfast with a greediness it seemed only I could see. Nona and Papa had lost a considerable amount of weight since the limo explosion, but Papa was starting to fight through his grief. I saw more and more of a spark in his eyes with each day that passed.
Walking around the table, I kissed his cheek. His startled eyes lifted to mine, and he actually smiled for me. “Good morning, passerotta.”
“Hi, Papa,” I squeezed his hand when he lifted it for me to take. “How are you feeling today?”
“This old man is feeling very tired.”
My heart clenched, but I only kissed his cheek again and took my seat on the left, right beside my sister. “How were your glucose levels this morning?” I asked her.
“Stop worrying about me, Scarlett,” she grumbled, picking up a triangle of toast and taking an unconvincing nibble from one corner. “Adrian is on my case enough as it is.”
“And your numbers were what?” I persisted.
“Normal!” she snapped. “They were normal. Okay?”
I sighed and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Relax, okay? I’m just concerned. Come on, Tor. You know I’m not trying to pick at you.”
Tears filled her eyes, and she closed them tightly. “I’m sorry, Scarlett. I just… I don’t know. I can’t take this shit anymore.”
“I know,” I whispered and tugged her head onto my shoulder.
One-handedly, I grabbed a slice of toast and ate it while the rest of the table remained quiet. Once I’d eaten, I stood and kissed the top of my twin’s head. “I’m going out,” I announced. “I’ll be back later this afternoon.”