Page 127 of Impenitent Claim

“You’d better take care of her,” he warned.

There wasn’t a fiber of my being that could mock him at this moment. “You know I will.”

“I know you will.” With that, he turned and limped up the stairs. “We’ll have to torch this place.”

“I have a better idea.” As we left the dilapidated property, we made plans for how to leave the city and how another power player could scavenge the ruins of the Rinaldi Famiglia.

Chapter 47 – Isabella

The sound of the front door slamming open trickled upstairs. I was petrifying, turning into stone as my muscles fused to the floor.

“Someone, help!” came the feeble croak.

Great.Now I was hearing things too.

The familiar voice of my old friend floated through the fog in my mind. Madonna, I missed him! Five days. Five terrible days since the angel of death descended to take one, and five nights not knowing what happened to the other. My damn imagination picturing the worst possible fate to overcome Alonzo after what happened to….

Gio….

How many times could a heart break? I barely had the strength to rise, drink water from the tap, and use the facilities before collapsing back in the middle of the floor. Yet my body managed to fuse the four chambers back together only for grief to shatter the damn organ the instant it began to feel again.

The strega showed me a picture of Gio’s body, screaming at me the whole time that it was what I deserved. How I brought that on my brother, and how Alonzo was no doubt in the same peril.

“Help me! Please,” the voice cried plaintively.

Muttonhead turned to look over his shoulder. He heard it too.

It wasn’t in my head. This wasn’t the ghost of the dead come to torment me. The voice was real!

It’s him! It’s Alonzo!

I shot to my feet, bones and muscles protesting the sudden movement. “Lonzo? Lonzo! Is that you?” I shouted.

“Isabella!”

He was downstairs. Why was no one helping him?

The house had been unusually quiet, but no one? There really wasn’t anyone home?

“Lonzo, you’re here,” I sobbed, the tears I thought were long dried pricking painfully in my eyes.

I stepped forward, but the sausage-fingered guard stiffened. His gummy gaze was infused with greed as he gaped at me.

“Seriously?” I demanded of the oaf. “He’s downstairs, and no one is helping him! I have to go to him.”

“Signorina Rinaldi is to stay in her room. She comes out, I break a leg.” The words were a lisping, robotic recitation of the orders he’d also received. This wasn’t the same meathead from the first day. It was his brother. The pair took shifts, blocking my door day and night at the orders of their witch overlord.

Always watching.

With the lack of doors in my room and bathroom, it wasn’t like it was hard.

“That is the don’s son, and he’s hurt. I need to help him,” I snapped, drawing myself up. I spent the hours of not knowing as a heap that fell apart. Not anymore. Action called, need summoned. I answered with a resounding fire that chased away the frigid numbness.

The guard was in the process of repeating his orders.

We didn’t have time for this.

Fury, livid and bright, fueled my veins as I stomped to the nightstand. It was a hot, welcome change to the freezing weight of grief. The secret compartment my father had designed specifically for me slid open, revealing the precious handgun I hid when not sleeping. There hadn’t been a good reason to use it before. I couldn’t escape without knowing what happened to Alonzo or…my phantom.

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