Page 86 of Auctioned To Her Dad's Mafia Enemies

“Is it him?” I ask Vito, my voice a low growl.

Vito spits on the ground. His eyes are darkwith certainty. “Yes.”

Matteo’s face is a mask of ice, unreadable ashe pats the man down. He yanks a wallet from the back pocket of his jeans,rifles through it, and shoves the ID into my hand.

Maryland license. Cohen Barker.

My breath stills for half a beat.

It’s him.

Aemelia’s stalker. The man who sent her rosesand terror. The man who tried to make her feel small, afraid. The man who madeher tremble in my brother’s arms.

Rage floods my veins, thick and sharp, andbefore I can think, I drive the toe of my boot into his gut.

He gags and curls in on himself, coughing andsputtering.

“I’m a florist,” he whimpers, voice reedy withpanic. “I just deliver flowers.”

Matteo smashes his face into the asphalt againand presses the gun harder against his temple.

“Shut the fuck up.”

I crouch down, close enough that he can smellthe blood already on my hands.

“You threatened someone I love,” I say, myvoice low, lethal. “You made her live in fear for her life.”

I lean in until my lips almost brush his ear.

“What kind of man does that to a sweet,innocent girl?”

He whimpers something unintelligible, butMatteo cracks him across the back of the head with the butt of his gun. Cohenfucking Barker goes slack, blinking dazedly.

“Now, you piece of shit,” I say, flicking openmy thin-bladed knife with a sinister click. I let him see it—the razor edge ofthe blade gleaming in the streetlights. “I’m going to take yours.”

The knife glides like butter through histemple, silent and precise.

For a moment, his eyes go wide with terror,his mouth falling open in a breathless gasp. Then, the light leaves them.

Blood seeps onto the concrete, pooling beneathhis twitching body.

I straighten, wiping the blade on his pant legwith cold indifference.

“Put him in the van,” I instruct Matteo, myvoice steady and emotionless. “Drive it into the river.”

Matteo nods once, and with Sandro’s help, theyhaul the corpse into the van like a sack of trash.

Andre pulls up in the black SUV, and I climbinto the passenger seat, gun still loose in my hand.

As we pull away, I glance once at the emptywhite van, a coffin with wheels, knowing it’ll be rusting at the bottom of theriver by morning.

A fitting grave for a man who thought he couldterrorize my woman with roses and bullets.

When we rejoin Aemelia’s family, I switch carsto slide into the seat beside Carmella, and we drive back to the Venturibuilding in silence thick with the weight of the night, the faint scent ofblood still clogging my nostrils.

Tonight, we put an end to Enzo’s reach.

We snuffed out the man who dared to think hecould make our woman afraid.

---