Until she’s right on him.
She jams a stun gun into his side, finger firmly pressed down.
His body jerks violently before hitting the floor with a sickening thud.
I kick him in his kidney, then bring a heel down on his hand, the crunch of breaking bone reverberating up my leg.
“Between the legs,” I order.
She obeys, pressing the stun gun into him again.
His scream rips through the air, raw and animal.
We freeze. But the walls are thick down here. No one is coming to his rescue.
I strip his gun from his waistband. “Bring me what’s inside the duffel.”
Eyes on Emo, I hear her gasp. “What the hell is this?”
She returns with the white catsuit between two fingers, revulsion twisting her mouth.
“This,” I say, my smile sharp, my tone ice-cold, “is sweet, sweet revenge.”
RENZO
Every move as a made man—and,if I’m honest, every choice since I could hold a gun—was driven by the need to prove myself.
But this right now is about me and my wife.
When this meeting with Massimo is over, I’m putting a ring on her finger and knocking her up, either order works.
Fina. I’m coming home, babe. You better be ready.
I’m eating pancakes, enjoying a rare moment of triumph, when the news breaks. Ambush. Guns. Chaos. Fina caught in the middle. Like distant thunder, I barely register at first what’s happened. Then it lands, sharp and heavy, and everything stills.
That sick motherfucker went after my girl?
Massimo secures a private helicopter to take us straight away to Sardinia. Miles and minutes pass but the storm inside me doesn’t move; it gathers strength. My heartbeat slows, cold and deliberate, while my mind catalogues every possibility: men, weapons, attack plans. Patience. Precision. Pain reserved for the right moment.
I don’t say a word. Neither does Sandro, seated in the helicopter beside me. The tension between us is a living thing, thick and dangerous. Outside the window, Sardinia grows closer.
By the time we land, the streets around the ambush are frozen in a tableau of violence. Black-clad bodies litter the pavement. Two of Sandro’s men lie broken, one slumped against an abandoned car, its doors wide open—Sandro’s car …Fina’s carfor the day. No sign of her. No sign of Riley. No sign of the dead man walking.
My hand closes around a wounded man in black, hauling him up by the throat until his feet leave the ground.
“Where are the women?” My voice rumbles low and sharp, a growl edged with fury.
He nods toward the church.
“And your boss?” Another nod.
I slam him down, smashing his skull into the pavement over and over until his brain stains the sidewalk.
“If they’re harmed, if they’re dead …” Sandro pauses, then grinds out a warning. “I’ll slaughter every Accardo breathing.”
He’ll have to beat me to them.
We storm the stairs, kick through the doors, and move through the foyer into the nave. Our men cluster protectively around us. Sandro barks orders, every syllable sharp, precise.