Page 327 of Sinfully Savage Mafia

“And why did you think meeting with Frankie was gonna solve anything? The guy is a goddamn weasel! He’s never gonna change! And he wants to take us down. Him, his father. They were just waiting for the right time…” Matteo narrows his eyes. “For the little prince to step in so they could cut him off at the knees!”

Dante looks at me and gives me a little shrug. “We’ve gotta find out if this whole thing with the Volkovs is a real threat or if it’s Frankie fucking with your head.”

“So, what, you wanna go to Brooklyn and meet them for fucking borscht and vodka to talk it all out?” I snip.

Matteo holds up his hands. “Okay, just relax, dammit. I’ll talk to Alek. He’ll make a call.”

“No,” I say. “This is my mess to clean up. I don’t need the Severinovs to run interference for me. I’ll figure it out!”

“Did you ever think Frankie might be baiting you?” Dante asks. “He and Sal pulled the first job. The Volkovs weren’t involved. We have no dealings with them.”

“Yeah, so?” The stress knot at the base of my skull is growing with alarming speed.

“Maybe he’s trying to distract you again. Have you looking out for the Volkovs when the threat is right under your nose. He wants to take us down, to make sure we suffer like his family did. Him, not the Volkovs.”

“Dante is right,” Matteo says. “Save yourself the aggravation and kill the fucking prick! Kill Frankie before he?—”

My blood boils, rushing between my ears with such force that I don’t even hear the door slam open.

“Kill Frankie?” A high-pitched female voice cuts through the tension in the room as Marchella storms into the room, looking like a goddess in the floor-length gown I bought her earlier today. Her high heels click angrily on the hardwood floor, her face twisted with rage. She walks right over to me, not even bothering to acknowledge the computer screen, and she shoves her hands against my chest. “You fucking liar!” she screams. “You promised me you’d take care of everything, that you wouldn’t hurt him!” Her eyes spit emerald fire as she pushes against me again. “You told me to trust you, that we’d be safe! And you’re planning to kill him!” She reaches out and slaps me across the face with a force that sends a stinging sensation exploding across my jaw. “I hate you!”

I capture her wrist in my hand before she can land another smack, hissing at her. “I did what had to be done. I wasn’t about to let him hurt my family!”

“What about what you promised me? I guess that doesn’t count, right? Because I’m not one of your brothers? I don’t rate?”

“I have a responsibility to my family, Marchella,” I growl. “It’s my job to keep our organization protected.”

“Well, I guess that ‘job’ will have to be what keeps you warm at night, Roman.” She flips her wrist, pulling it from my grip. “Because I’m done playing your fucking games!” Marchella twists around and stalks out of the room.

I run after her, yanking her back toward me. “Your brother is the liar,” I mutter. “He doesn’t give a damn about anything other than revenge. He wants to see my family crumble!”

“Can you blame him, after everything that happened?”

I fist my hair. “This is all on your father! Why is that little detail something you and Frankie keep on forgetting? And for the record, he’s lucky my father didn’t have him killed after what he did to us back in Sicily!”

“You are an insufferable asshole!” she yells, twisting around to grab a bottle of red wine from the counter in the kitchen. She hurls it toward my head and I duck in time for it to shatter against the wall…a wall that had been stark white only seconds earlier. Now, it looks like a murder scene with splotches of red wine soaking into the sheetrock.

I run after her, reaching an arm around her midsection, but she swings her shoulder into my chest. She tries to punch me again but I capture her fist before she has the chance to crack it against my jaw. “Ahh!” she screams, stomping on my foot with the skinny heel of her shoe, and then driving her knee right into my balls.

I release her, crumbling onto the floor, doubled over from the hit, and she grabs my car keys from the kitchen island before darting out of the apartment.

The girl literally brought me to my goddamn knees.

I struggle to my feet, gasping for breath and clutching myself as Dante comes out of the office a minute later.

“Damn, Romo. Your girl is fucking brutal. Listen, Matteo is pissed as hell and he wants us to?—”

“Forget…Matteo. She has…my keys…” I rasp. “Frankie is…in trunk.”

“Christ,” he mutters, sliding on his sneakers and running out the door. I pull myself to a half-standing position and go after him, taking the steps as fast as I can, which isn’t saying much since I’m still partially incapacitated.

I’m almost at the bottom floor when Dante disappears through the door into the garage. “Jesus Christ!” he yells. I run-walk to the door, grasping the handle and pulling it open to find Frankie scrambling out of my trunk and Chella firing me a death glare from across the space. The driver’s side door is open. I guess she got sidetracked when she heard her idiot brother thrashing around in the trunk.

“You fucking asshole!” she screams, shaking her fists in the air. “How could you do this to him? He was about to suffocate in there!”

Frankie doesn’t waste a second before he lunges for me, throwing his body into me with such force, we land against the glass wall with a loud thud. I roll him over and pound his face with my fist, forgetting about the trauma recently done to my manhood.

“You forget how this ended the first time?” I grunt as he smashes his fists into my covered midsection. “Did you forget how you ended up in the goddamn trunk? Huh?”

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