Page 76 of Owned by the Italian Mafia Boss
We all look down, and Delilah gasps when blood pools from underneath the door.
I wrap my arms around Delilah and spin her until she’s beside Ryan. “You two stay together. Do you understand me?”
“Carmine.”
“Do you understand me?” I repeat.
Her eyes are round, but she nods vigorously, taking hold of Ryan’s hand.
“Good.” I take out my gun, and Ryan turns three shades of white.
“Ready?” I mouth to my men. They all nod. I lift my leg and kick the door open, letting out a string of curses at what I see inside.
Impossible.
There’s no way I could have missed this. Caleb, Christy’s boyfriend, has Delilah’s professor on the ground, gripping his head by his hair and a bloody knife in his hand. The professor isn’t dead, though. He’s barely alive, but he won’t be for long.
“Caleb!” Delilah sees him from behind me. “Oh my, God, what are you doing? What did you do!”
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Delilah.” He wipes the blood on his jeans, dropping the professor to the ground. “I can’t stand you. I can’t stand him either.” He lifts the knife and points it at Carmine. “Is it nice to have the life I deserve? Is it everything you thought it would be? Do you know how exhausting it is to try to ruin your fucking life? You’re like a cockroach that won’t die. You keep coming back. I hired the kidnapper, but he goes off the rails. I tried to kill your professor so you couldn’t take your test, yet here you are. You’re fucking everywhere!” he shouts at her.
I cock my gun, and Caleb maniacally laughs.
“You aren’t going to want to do that. I know something you don’t,” he sings.
“Why would you do this? What did I do to you?” Delilah cries. “And what about Christy?”
“What about her? She’s so fucking needy.”
“You better shut your fucking mouth,” Gianni steps forward, aiming his gun at Caleb’s head. “Don’t talk about her like that.”
“Why not? Do you want to fuck her too? I’ll let you have a shot. She’s a prude, though. She won’t give it up. So good luck with that.”
Gianni goes to pull the trigger, but I place my hand on his arm to stop him.
“What do you want, Caleb?”
“My name isn’t Caleb. It’s Caleb Milazzo.”
The room becomes dead silent. I can hear the blood dripping from the professor’s throat onto the floor and his gurgles as he struggles to breathe. I want to help him, but as long as Caleb stands over him with a knife I can’t.
If he can just hold on a little longer.
“That’s impossible,” Ari spits venomously. “We would know if we had a brother, and we wouldn’t have left you alone.”
“Your dad fucked around, cast me out, and sold me to Romano when I was just a baby. A fucking baby!” He roars. “You don’t know what it was like growing up in that household.”
“I do,” Ryan steps forward, putting on a brave face.
“I don’t know you. I would know you if we ran in the same circle,” Caleb, whatever he calls himself, says.
“You wouldn’t have. He kept me locked away. I escaped, and I came here. These aren’t the bad guys, Caleb. They would have taken you in if they had known.”
“I grew up in violence and pain, and I was constantly unwanted. I want everything you have, Carmine. I want to bring down the empire you’ve built, and to do that I started with Delilah—the only person you seem to give a damn about other than yourself.”
He’s obviously lost his mind.
“Romano had nothing to do with any of this. It’s been you the entire time?”
