Page 8 of Brutal Vows

I keep my mind carefully blank. He waits until I park to reach across the center console and place his weathered hands over mine.

He may be a criminal according to the law, but he’s always been a damn good father and was a loving husband tomia mamma. Even after her death, he keeps his heart devoted to her.

Equal measures of awe and sadness arrow through me as I study the back of his hands. I hope my tattoos look half as good as his when I’m old and grey, and although I’m on my way tohaving as many scars as he does, the years’ worth of hard work etched into his knuckles writes the story of his life.

“Look at me,mio figlio,” he demands.

My father did not raise a coward. I meet his eyes without hesitation.

“No matter what the doc says, I’m not getting treatment. I have no regrets about my life or worries about the future. The Russo family is in excellent hands with you as their consigliere. I’m proud of you,mio figlio.”

The angst in my soul fades away, but I send him a challenging quirk of my brow, twist my wrist, and weave my fingers through his.

“You sound like you’re giving up, old man.”

“I’ve abused this body for seventy goddamn years. Hell, it’s a miracle I lived through my teenage years, much less my twenties and thirties and all the way to seventy. Things aren’t the same since your mom left.”

His fingers flex in mine.

“But I’d rather put a bullet in my own head than spend my remaining time in a fucking hospital or watch those I care about mourn me while I’m still here.Capisci?”

I can’t help but smirk at my father’s stubbornness.

“Capisci, Pops. I’ll keep your secret on one condition.”

The moment we open the car door, my father will become the ruthless man who helped build New York City’s most powerful mafia kingdom, so now is my only chance to persuade him. He nods his head, demanding I name my price.

“Take the pain meds and humor me with the noninvasive treatments you can do at home. Ma would roll over in her grave if I let you suffer needlessly.”

He quirks a brow.

“You’re just going to check on me every day if I say no, aren’t you?” he asks.

I answer him with an unwavering smirk. He scoffs and shakes his head as he opens his door.

“You’ve got better things to do than bug your old man.”

“Pops,” I scold.

“Alright, alright. Fucking hell, I’ll shovel whatever drugs they tell me to down my gullet, so you do whatever it is you need to do to get rid of the latest threat to our family.Capisci?”

The same fury boiling in my gut shines in his eyes, and I know he’s thinking about the attacks on Nico and Serenity, so I nod and follow him out of the car.

When the doctor diagnoses my father with lung cancer and gives a prognosis of six months, neither of us flinches.

Nothing matters beyond protecting the ones we love.

Fate’s audacity to take my father from me only increases my fury. Knowing that every second I spend hunting down the conniving, manipulativestronzowho dared threaten the Russo family will pull me away from my father’s waning time on this earth fuels the rage within me.

My don’s command rings in my ears.

Kill them all.

Chapter 3

Loretta Giordano

I take my sweateroff the hook by the door, shuffle out of the patient recovery room, and pull the mask off my face, but the chilly air in the hallway does little to ease the ache in my chest. My arms shake as I thread them into my sweater sleeves and tug it over my head.

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