Page 459 of Sinfully Savage Mafia

“How’s this gonna work?” Dante asks.

“We need to split up,” Matteo says, grabbing his own gun from the waistband of his pants. He walks toward the door and pulls it open just as a piercing sound erupts into the air.

The fire alarm.

Sonofabitch!

“He knows we’re locking everything down. This is his only way out,” Matteo growls. He points to the guys I don’t recognize. “Kaz, Alek, get down to the lobby. Keep an eye out for him, and call if you see Heaven or the baby.” They head out, leaving me, Dante, and Patrick with Matteo.

“Patty, stay here with Maura. You two, come with me.” Matteo runs out of the apartment and heads down the hallway to the stairwell since the elevators aren’t running.

“Where are we going?” Dante asks.

“Basement,” Matteo says abruptly. “He wouldn’t be dumb enough to try and escape through the front entrance.”

A ringtone pierces the air and Matteo grabs his phone.

“Heaven!” His brow furrows, his jaw tightening with each passing second. I can hear her tearful voice on the other end of the line. “You’re where?” He puts the call on speaker, his face draining of color as Conor’s sadistic laugh shatters the tense silence.

“You heard her, bro. We’re on the roof. All three of us. I didn’t want to take any chances that Anya would foil my plans, so I decided to speed things up a little bit. She was having a weak moment when I dropped her off and I felt like maybe morality was grabbing her by the tits. Now I’m here and it’s about time we settled all of the bad blood between us, don’t you think?”

“What do you want, Conor?” he says, his fingertips turning white because he’s squeezing the phone so hard.

“I want what you took from me,” he growls. “What you both took. For the past year, you’ve made threats against all of my associates, telling them if they work with us, they’ll be dead to you. You’ve destroyed everything, Villani. You and Heaven. And you deserve to be punished. So I’m gonna do just that. And my niece is going to help me.”

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Matteo screams.

“Then you’d better get up here fast. We’re dangerously close to the edge, Matteo. One little slip, and I shatter your life the way you did mine. But I want you to be here to witness it. I want to hear you beg for their lives, to promise you’ll give me everything I want, to make me whole.” He chuckles again. “Because that’s how this story ends. Happily for me, not so much for you.”

CHAPTER27

DANTE

“Conor,” Matteo says, running up the stairs. “We can work this out. Don’t do this. She’s your blood! They both are!”

“The baby is half Villani,” he says. “And I hate the Villani family. I want to crush the Villani family!”

He takes the stairs three at a time until we get to the door leading to the roof. With a quick look backward, he stabs the mute button. “I’m gonna lure him into the open. You take the shot whenever you get it, do you understand?”

Before I can reply, he un-mutes the line. “I’m here. Opening the door now.”

“You’d better be by yourself,” Conor grumbles.

Aisling wails in the background and Conor yells at her to shut up. Every muscle in my body tenses as my eyes tangle with Anya’s.

“I’ve got your back,” she whispers, pulling out her gun. We both cower against the walls on either side of the door when Matteo creeps onto the roof. “But how are you going to get out there?”

“I need a visual,” I mutter, peering out the streaked glass. In the distance I can see Conor by the edge of the roof. Matteo is holding up his hands and Heaven is next to Conor. He’s got Aisling in his arms, the bastard. How the fuck am I gonna get my shot?

Tiny hairs on the back of my neck prickle and I flip around just as a heavy hand clutching a gun swings around at my head. I grab the guy’s arm and twist it around his back, popping his shoulder blade before I fire off two shots and kick him head first down the stairs.

Another guy flies out of a corner at Anya, grabbing her by the hair. Big mistake.

She sweeps his leg, sending him crashing to the floor before she plugs him in between the eyes. “We have to get out there,” she whispers. “I’ll do it. Let me distract him.”

“He’ll kill you on sight. He knows you ran straight to us,” I say.

She shrugs. “I’d like to think I can take him, but if that happens, so be it. Maybe it’ll give you a second to take the shot.” Her hand closes around mine. “Please, Dante. Let me do this for you. For your family.”

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