Page 80 of Brutal Vows

The tiny cameras in her earrings and necklace split the screen and offer a clear view of the man she squares off with.

I glance at the screen and barely manage not to smash it. The scarred Russianbastardois a dead man walking. The situation hasn’t turned physical yet, but by the glint in thestronzo’seyes, it will soon.

I swerve around a cab and mash the gas pedal.

“Oh, I was talking to them long before then,” Livia says from off screen.

The tension grows as Loretta processes her sister’s damning words.

“Since when?” Loretta asks.

The man steps closer to her. She doesn’t back up.

“Since years,shlyukha,” the man says with a heavy Russian accent.

Livia called him Viktor. In the last two minutes, Loretta has uncovered more about the men I’ve been hunting than I have in the last eight months.

“What? You’ve known each other for years? How? Why?” Loretta asks.

“I have things they want,” Viktor says.

He steps closer. My fury grows more explosive than ever before. I jerk the wheel and cut through a side street.

“What things?” Loretta demands.

“Don’t be stupid, Loretta. Ever since those Italian thugs chasedpapàout of New York City, our family has obsessed over coming back.” The hidden jab that Loretta was never a part of the family slides through my ribs and pierces my heart as I imagine my wife’s pained expression.

“Then they made it worse when they kicked Julieta out,” Livia continues. “We’ve been planning to overthrow the entire mafia scene for almost two decades, and you expect me to believe you’ve been clueless the whole time?”

The camera angle shifts, and even though the change is subtle, I imaginemia gattinasinking into a stance for better balance.

Fuck, she’s preparing to fight.

“Yes, because you left me in the dark,” she snaps at her sister. “So spell it out for me. What does this asshole have to do with anything?”

The cameras shake as Loretta gestures toward her captor. My gut clenches as he smirks, the scar running from his brow to his lip a horrible sight, but the hunger in his eyes is so much worse.

I park the car behind her apartment building and snatch my phone from the dash as I exit the vehicle.

“Viktor and Feliks have the power to destroy all the founding mafia families,” Livia brags.

Vinny, one of the three men assigned to protect Loretta tonight, opens the back door from inside the building before I reach it. I dart through and take the stairs four at a time.

“Why would they help you?” Loretta asks.

Livia laughs. Sound blasts from my phone as Viktor grabs Loretta’s hair. She hisses but doesn’t retaliate.

Hold on, mia gattina. I’m almost there.

I force my legs up the stairs faster.

“They have a thing I want,” Viktor says.

He means her. My wife. My soulmate.Mia gattina.

He can’t have her.

I punch through the fire safe door into the hallway and pull my pistol from my chest holster and a keycard I bought off the front desk clerk a few days ago.

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