Guilt churns in my chest. Even as my woman dives into her work with impressive single-minded focus, I can’t stop replaying the way she looked at me last night before she made a mad dash to the door. The panic on her face was my fault. I backed her into a corner—again and again and again—until she broke.
I don’t want to put her through that kind of shit again, but I can’t guarantee I won’t. I want and need her.
She was right when she said I was the biggest threat to her, but I’ll erase all the other dangers so she can focus solely on me.
I choose a bistro I only spent a few minutes in the last time I staked out the ER and settle into the corner booth with a light meal and fancy coffee. My view through the front windows is limited, but I have clear visuals of the side doors, and every time Mia rushes a new patient to the back, I admire her braided hair.
She’s just as gorgeous in scrubs as she was in her wedding dress. Maybe more so with how artifice-free she is.
When she doesn’t return to the waiting room for a remarkably longer time than normal, worry heightens my senses. I buy a to-go coffee and toss a few extra bills on the table on my way out the door.
Just as I lift my foot to cross the road, she emerges from the break room hall wearing a different color set of scrubs and her hair in a ponytail. In the harsh lighting, she looks pale and withdrawn, but she checks her watch, glances at the reception desk, then calls the next patient.
I pivot, deciding not to cross the road, and instead join a few smokers a couple of stores down. The spot offers a better line of sight for the triage and reception area.
None of the men offer me a light. I lean on the brick wall, pull my lighter from my pocket, and suck down my first lungful of nicotine in several days and wonder how I went without for so long.
My wife returns, answering my question.
I didn’t need cigarettes because I had her. She’s my main addiction now.
She says something to the nurse behind the desk. They exchange nods as the other woman heads toward the break room. Mia scans the waiting room before plopping down in the chair and checking her watch.
I pull my phone out of my pocket. As the top of the hour rolls over, my wife picks up the phone and speaks. She didn’t dial out, which means she answered a call. A soft smile ghosts across her lips before she checks her surroundings again and ducks her head so the counter hides her face.
I grit my teeth as jealousy and suspicion roar through me. She’s never smiled at me like that, but I yearn to own all her happy moments.
The phone calls lasts for only a few minutes, but each passing second increases my doubt and fury.
A boy—much younger than Tristan—pulls away from his mother and darts after a cat as the tabby disappears into the alley behind me. I snuff my cigarette on the brick building and catch the boy as he runs past me.
His mother, less than four steps behind him, yells his name and skids to a stop. After apologizing a million times, the woman thanks me and props the angry little boy on her hip before stomping away. Her loud admonishments earn her glares from other pedestrians, but she continues to correct her son as though they don’t exist.
The way she pays them no mind reminds me of Mia.
I can picture Mia doing the same thing this woman did.
Yearning floods my soul. Ever since I denounced my family and came to New York City, the dangers surrounding me made getting close to a woman too risky, but now with Mia Rivera relying on my protection, I can’t help but want things I shouldn’t. She’d look damn appealing pregnant. Her hips are already to die for, but with her belly rounder and her hips wider from my baby growing in her womb, she’d have me walking around with a hard-on all day, every day.
When the man smoking next to me makes a lewd comment about the mother admonishing her son, I send him a warning glance before starting down the sidewalk.
Unable to leave the area even though I should go check out Narciso’s hideout, I slip into the next store and browse the shelves for a while, keeping the emergency room in view as much as possible without garnishing attention. After buying a pack of gum, I continue my surveillance of my woman on the streets until the sun goes down. With fewer people wandering around, I slip into the shadows and force my feet away from the hospital, only for a sense of dread to sprout in my chest.
With my senses on high alert, I cross the road and turn back toward the emergency department. The hairs on my nape stand on end.
I glimpse Narciso’s familiar profile in the crowd, but he pushes between two people and I lose sight of him. Even though he’s in street clothes, I’d recognize him anywhere.
He came back to hurt my woman. I thought he’d stay holed up in his hideout for a few more days, but his injuries must not have been as severe as I’d hoped.
I stalk forward and find Narciso as he crosses to the far side of the road. He gives a furtive glance behind him, recognition in his eyes, but not toward me.
I follow his gaze and curse under my breath as ice infects my veins.
A man I thought I’d never see again lurks in the alley near the side entrance of the emergency room. He doesn’t hide his appearance, which leads me to believe he doesn’t expect anyone to know who he is.
For a moment, I wonder how he found me, but then I realize his eyes never leave Mia as she rushes out to meet the ambulance.
Destin, my brother’s third best soldier, tosses his lighter in the air and catches it as though considering smoking a cigarette despite being illegally close to the emergency room entrance.
Mia’s voice rings clear despite the noise of the city as the patient goes into cardiac arrest. She jumps on top of the stretcher and begins chest compressions on a man easily three times her size.
I peel my attention away from her and try to make sense of Destin’s fixation. Understanding clicks into place as Narciso glares at Destin over the top of the cab he hailed before dropping inside.
Either Narciso himself or the mastermind behind his attacks led my brother’s man here. Narciso didn’t realize he had a tail before it was too late, and now that he’s shown interest in a nurse working at a small, twenty-four-hour emergency room, Destin believes Mia has information she shouldn’t.
I need to find out how and why Narciso is involved with my brother, and I need to find out now. Tonight. Before Destin can make a bigger mess.
I cross the road and slip deeper into the shadows, trying to read Destin’s next move. When he saunters over to the smoking area I visited earlier and continues checking the hospital doors, fury pulses through every cell in my body.
He plans to hurt my wife.
Mia clocks out almost twenty minutes early, but she stays behind the counter chatting with her coworker as she waits for my text. Even though I know her obedience stems from necessity—the last time she walked home alone in the dark, I kidnapped her, and now she knows someone crueler than me is lurking somewhere—delight arrows down my spine.
Destin sinks into the shadows and trails behind a group of drunkards, but his attention never wavers from Mia. I send her instructions via text, and after reading them, she says goodbye to the nurse behind the counter and swings her bag over her shoulder.
She steps through the double glass doors and turns in the direction I told her to, even though it heads away from her apartment. The tension in her shoulders as she hurries down the street triples my fury, but I vow he won’t lay a single finger on her. Turning off my humanity, I sink into my ruthless killer persona and track Destin through the streets.
After a detour around the block, he positions himself at the mouth of the alley before Mia passes by, unaware of my presence behind him. I wait. His body tenses in anticipation. The toe of Mia’s new shoe lands on the pavement at the corner of the building. He leans forward.
I lunge the distance between us and lock his throat in the crook of my arm. Trapped in my chokehold, the idiot barely reacts before I restrict the blood to his head and knock him out. I shove him to the ground, enjoying the cracking of his head against the concrete, and cram a piece of garbage too big for him to swallow into his mouth before pulling a rope from my pocket and tying it around his face. I add a plastic shopping bag over the top of his head, leaving a tiny hole near his nose, and secure more rope over the top. Despite my instinctual urge to check on Mia first, I cuff his ankles together, pull his arms behind his back, and loop his wrist cuffs around his ankle chain, effectively hog-tying him.
I rise from the darkness and stalk to my woman. Too smart to stand under the streetlamp, she hovers in the shadows on the other side of the mouth of the alley. The hard glint in her eyes as she glances behind me shows me she’s in fighting form despite the long grueling hours at work, but I’ve waited too long to taste her, so I weave my hand into her hair, pull her to me, and steal a kiss. Despite her initial resistance, she responds as I devour her mouth, stroking her tongue over mine and nipping me. I drop my forehead to hers and tighten my grip on her hip.
“Go straight home. Don’t wait for me, but I’ll be back before you leave for work. Capisci, mia caramellina?”
She searches my eyes before she nods. I don’t know what she’s looking for, but confusion mars her brow.
The man stirs in the alley, but his stinted shuffling sounds like a rat rummaging through the garbage.
I take Mia’s phone from her hand—she was smart to have it out but not call the cops—pull up our chat, type in a period, and hand it back to her.
“He’s not the man you treated, so stay alert. Hit send if there’s an emergency. Text me when you get home safely, then sleep with your phone on this screen with a single character message ready to send. Capisci?”
She nods even as she searches my face with deeper intensity. I twist my hand in her hair and press her up against the building.
“Not good enough. Like you mean it, Mia.”
Her shivering breath ghosts over my lips.
“I understand the instructions, I just…”
When she trails off, her kiss-swollen lips are too much of a temptation. I nip and lick her bottom lip.
“You what?” I ask before dipping my tongue between her teeth.
“It doesn’t matter. Go do whatever it is you need to do,” she demands.
I pull her head back by her hair and snarl against her chin before trailing my lips down her throat.
“It matters. You matter. Tell me what’s wrong.”
She pushes against my chest, but I don’t budge. With an annoyed sigh, she rolls her eyes and says, “Nothing is wrong, but this is stupid. He’s awake and making noise. Let me go so I can get out of here.”
With her anger wrapped firmly around her, she’s the most gorgeous creature in the world. I bite the juncture of her neck and shoulder and hum when she weaves her fingers into my hair.
She gives a vicious yank, lighting up my scalp with stinging pain. I chuckle and bite her shoulder again before licking up the side of her throat.
“I need a better taste of you before I go. Open for me, mia caramellina,” I demand.
She twists her fingers in my hair, but with my hand forcing her head back, she’s powerless as I take her mouth with all my pent up frustration. I behaved myself this morning and was looking forward to pleasuring her all of tonight, but the stronzo hog-tied in the alley destroyed my plans. When I pull back, she stares at me with glazed eyes for a few seconds before snapping into the present.
“Satisfied?” she snarks.
“No. Not at all. I’ll never get enough of you,” I admit.
Despite her pupils shrinking and her nipples pebbling against my chest, she fixes her expression into one of annoyance. I pull her off the wall and aim her in the right direction before grabbing her ass.
“Stay alert, mia caramellina.”
She responds by fixing the shoulder strap of her bag and stomping away from me. Her ass swaying in her jeans hardens my cock. I enjoy the show until she turns the corner, then adjust myself and grimace as I turn toward Destin. Cold fury replaces my lust. I stomp to him and choke him out again before dragging him behind the dumpster.
Less than thirty minutes later, after several more choking sessions—which are mainly for my amusement but also keep him disoriented—and a quick trip in my trunk, I drag him into an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city and prepare for a few hours of torture.
I yank the back rung of the metal chair, testing the bolts anchoring it into the cement floor, and grunt in satisfaction when the chair doesn’t budge. Destin jerks awake as I cut the top half of his makeshift mask off. I leave the plastic and rope around the bottom half of his face. After darting terrified eyes around the room, he trains his gaze on my face. After a flash of surprise, a mutinous expression twists his features. A skillful torturer himself, Destin studies the area with fresh intensity, judging everything and clearly finding me lacking.
I sigh and stalk a slow circle around him, ensuring he feels like cornered prey despite my gaze roaming over the abandoned warehouse.
Yeah, the location is cliché as fuck, but if it gets the job done, I don’t give a shit.
I stop in front of him and bend at the waist, putting my face in front of his.
“Remember me?” I ask.
His eyes flash with hatred and he mumbles into the gag.
“Sorry, old pal. I’m not ready to listen to your shit yet.”
It’s a lie. I want nothing more than to hear him squeal, but rushing would only cheapen the experience.
I lift a rusty pair of pliers from the table and lean down so my eyes are level with his again.
“I have to make good on my promises, now don’t I?”
His pupils shrink. I smirk and rip all ten of his fingernails out, ignoring his jerking and flailing as I systematically complete the first task on my list. He retches behind the gag, but I don’t give a shit. I return to the table, toss the pliers down, and pick up the gardening shears.
When I turn back to him, he still glares at me, so I follow through with the vow I made before I left my brother in San Francisco.
I chop off all ten of his fingers with relative ease, the shears wicked sharp and the arms of the chair preventing him from closing his hands into fists. He screams and bucks. Blood spurts everywhere. I snarl in disgust and lift the shovel from the burn barrel a few paces behind him. His flesh sizzles as I press the heated metal to his stubs. The cauterization isn’t complete, but it’s enough to slow his bleeding and keep him alive for a few hours longer.
“I warned everyone what would happen if we saw each other again. You laughed, didn’t you?” I say as though it’s his fault we’re in this mess. With pain blurring his eyes and sweat dripping down his ashen face, he meets my stare and shakes his head.
I yank his boots and socks off his feet and grimace at his poor hygiene.
“You know, for all your big talk, you look like shit, Destin,” I goad.
He shakes his head harder. I sigh and fit the shears around his big toe.
“Have you murdered your way up the ranks yet, or did my brother offer you a place in his new endeavor to appease you?”
I don’t wait for a response. I don’t need one. Any answer he gives will only infuriate me further.
I close the shears. His severed toe rolls across the concrete. I repeat the process until I run out of little piggies to snip.
“You know I won’t stop cutting pieces off you for a long, long while, yeah?” I say as I yank the shovel out of the coals again.
I wait until he’s done screaming and gagging to continue.
“And there’s only one way to end this, so you’d better be ready to talk when I take off this gag, otherwise I might feel the need to get creative.”
I drop the shovel into the burn barrel and pull the long, thin steel construction pin out from the fire. It glows as I wave it in front of his face.
“Capisci?”
Even as he nods his head, he glares at me.
Good. I can use defiance. I can’t use a blubbering, pathetic mess.
With a cold smirk, I run the tip of the pin over his cheek, less than an inch from his eye. His flesh sizzles. He jerks and curses into the gag.
I hook the handle of the pin back over the burn barrel and use the serrated knife from the table to cut the rope wrapped around the bottom half of his face. He leans to the side, spits out the garbage, and spews chunks all over his severed digits.
The stench would be unbearable if it didn’t mean I was one step closer to getting answers.
I slip the serrated knife into his collar and split his shirt down the front.
“You’re a long way from home, Destin. What the fuck are you doing in New York City?”
“Scouting,” he spits.
The thought of him targeting Mia for my brother’s sex trafficking ring is too much. I pinch his left nipple and slice it off, fury and disgust filling me with the need for more violence.
“Are you scouting the nurse or Narciso Vivaldi?” I snarl, but I sever his right nipple before he can respond. As blood oozes down his chest and pools in his lap, I retrieve the gardening shears and purposefully nick his hip as I cut his waistband.
His unhinged chuckle warns me I won’t like his next words, but I meet his glare head on.
“I knew that bitch looked familiar. Have you been hiding her all this time? She must have a golden pussy for all you gave up for her.”
I gouge a chunk of muscle off his thigh with the shears. A well of crimson springs up and rains on the concrete.
He screams and laughs at the same time.
“Nothing you do to me will save her now, you know that, right, stronzo?”
He devolves into manic cackling. I toss the shears, snatch the construction pin, and grab him by the throat.
“Why’s that, Destin?”
“Do you really think Narciso Vivaldi has anything Seppi Capito wants? I’m tailing the smallest fish in this pond, but you’re so fucking scared it’s pathetic.”
I sink the tip of the pin into his shoulder. He throws his head back and curses in between laughs.
“Who’s backing Narciso?” I ask.
He shakes his head and says, “You’re so fucking dead unless you dump the worthless whore and leave New York.”
I yank the pin out of his shoulder and stab it through his throat. It’s still hot enough to sizzle his flesh and slow his bleeding. I jerk it around a few times before jabbing it into his guts several times. The squishing of organs will always haunt me, but he deserves the most gruesome death I can provide.
I leave the pin protruding from his stomach and take a few calculated steps toward the table. When I turn around and reveal the shiny axe to him, he gurgles and shakes his head.
“If Narciso is the smallest player, then I’m just wasting time on you. You don’t know shit, do you? Seppi barks, you heel. It’s fucking pathetic.”
His eyes flit between my face and the axe. Regret and hatred shine from his eyes.
“Feral mutts like you don’t deserve to be called men,” I snarl.
I lift the axe with both hands above my head and bury it in his groin. With the handle jutting up from the seat, I lean my hip on the table and light a cigarette. Despite the severity of his wounds, the fucker holds on for several minutes before he gives up the ghost.
As I clean up the mess, I replay his words over and over, frustrated at my inability to get names from him. If Narciso didn’t pull Seppi’s attention to New York City, then who did? Very few people have more power than the Vivaldi family, and I can rule out at least two others of the five founding mafia families, so my options are as vague as before learning of my brother’s involvement.
A pig farm down the road will take care of disposal, but it’s always best to toss smaller pieces into the pens, so I do the heavy lifting in the abandoned warehouse.
I pause with a severed limb halfway in a black plastic bag.
This stronzo acted like he knew Mia, but she’s never been to San Francisco. Aurora confirmed she was born and raised in New York.
He must have been confused. I shove his fingerless arm into the bag and snarl, only to pause again.
I thought she looked familiar, too.
Fresh suspicion surfaces. I yearn to deny my doubt, but she often reacts in ways I don’t expect.
My hackles rise as I realize she could ruin the entire life I’ve built for myself. If Narciso and whoever he’s working with have put their sights on Mia Rivera, then she poses the biggest threat to Giorgio, Aurora, and Tristan.
Surrounded by gore and reminded of my origins, I push the love—because I can’t deny what I feel for her anymore—into a tiny box and seal it closed.
I’ll get the truth from my wife, no matter what it takes.
