Page 80 of Taken By the Mafia King
“You think I’m the one scheming? I was upstairs enjoying a nice, quiet breakfast with Olivia when Delaney came into the room with her father’s finger in her hand! Oh, and also, she had a gun! What the hell is going on?”
He pressed me against the wall even harder, our bodies practically meshing together. I was too pissed off to notice if it turned me on.
“You forget who you’re talking to.”
“You talk about keeping me safe all the time. Saying I’ll have a target on my back if I walk outside those gates, when in reality, you have a deranged woman living a few doors down from me that cannot be contained. She will smother me in my fucking sleep, Killian. What is your plan with her? And why have you not told her the truth?”
“You’re not privy to that information,” he hissed, heat radiating from his body. “And being allowed to freely move about my home is a privilege, not a fucking right. You’d best remember that.”
“Tell her,” I snapped, shoving against him, but he didn’t move an inch. “Before she kills one of us, Killian. Whoever she was before the auction is gone, and now she’s wandering the house with her dead father’s finger!”
“What would you have me do, Sera? Kill her? Do to her what I did to her father?”
I found it hard to breathe as he pressed into me, his arm locked over my chest.
“Do you think she’s the first person who’s lost her mind in this house? She’s not. And you’d be wise to ignore her, and let it be. It’s none of your concern.”
I shoved him hard again and he backed up a step, but only because he wanted to.
“Go back to your room.” His hard eyes glared at me, and a chill went down my spine as I remembered who he was.
“This is wrong. She believes her father is alive and coming for her.”
“Like you, her father is the reason she’s here in the first place.”
His words stung, but I ignored them. “Unlike me,” I hissed, pointing a finger at him, “you bought her, Killian. This mess is your responsibility to clean up!”
Pure death flashed behind his eyes at my tone. I relished in it, my mouth curving into a smile as he looked me up and down and growled through gritted teeth. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”
“My pleasure,” I said.
I turned on my heel and stalked toward the stairs. He shouted for Mikey to follow me, but I was already halfway up the staircase when I heard Mikey’s frantic footsteps in the foyer.
“Well, well, well,” came a lifted female voice in front of me. Menthol-laced smoke burned my eyes. When it cleared, Killian’s mother, dressed in red, stepped toward me as I came to a halt on the second-to-last stair. She looked me up and down, herthin, red-painted lips thinning even more as they pressed into a fine line of calculated distaste. “I can’t believe you’re still alive, Bianchi.”
Eyes as pale blue as Killian’s sized me up, her cherry red lips curving into a cat-like smile around a cigarette when she met my gaze. Her stare felt more dangerous than the loaded gun Delaney had burst into my room carrying. More dangerous than Killian’s rage. I attempted to move past her but she blocked my path and remained perched at the top of the stairs like a predatory bird. And I was the mouse.
Killian’s mother was up to something.
CHAPTER 57
KILLIAN
The men in my office were all lower bosses of families that had enterprises between Philly, Boston, and New York. None of them had the kind of sway or business I’d acquired over the years, but they had enough power in their own territories that allying with them against the De Luca family would make an actual difference. The real work would be in the aftermath. The destruction of one of the most powerful families on the eastern seaboard would have a ripple effect, and we all knew it.
Turf wars were common after a power struggle. Bosses would fight for the freed-up resources left behind in the wake, and I couldn’t let that happen. Chaos was bad for business.
While they all stood to gain something from taking out Giuseppe, several of the men were still hesitant to work with me.
Like they had the option.
I had Sera to thank for the sudden shift in the dispositions of the outliers standing in the room when I returned to my office. The murmured whispering done while I was trying to shake Sera down in the hallway ceased as I strode back into the room, cuffing my sleeves.
Let them whisper. It wouldn’t mean shit in the end when all the pieces were played.
I looked around the room, challenging any flicker of uncertainty I saw in their eyes. “Where were we?”
One of the men glanced from me to the finger still on the coffee table. I hadn’t forgotten. I could smell it. Perhaps the severed digit would leave more of an impression on them than my girl storming in here like she owned the fucking place.
