Page 43 of The Don's Prisoner

“You’ve heard of him I take it.”

“Of course, I’ve heard of him! Shit, Gio. What the fuck have you done? Stealing the Irish prince’s girl? Are you fucking insane? The minute you found out, you should have let her go. He’s… Gio he might even be scarier than you.”

I grinned and swirled my drink in my cup, watching the flashing lights from the stage swirl in a color tornado in my glass.

“Oh Seth, no one is scarier than me.”

“I would love to believe that, but I’m not so sure man. You should hear what they say about this guy,” he cautioned and put his hands in his pockets, most likely to keep from running them through his hair again.

“It doesn’t matter. He can’t have her back. She’s mine now,” I growled, and Seth threw up his hands in exasperation. “Besides, Victoria doesn’t want him anymore. I guess she tried breaking things off with him nicely, and he refused, which led to her yelling at him and telling him it was over. Then, he broke into her condo last night and left her a shit ton of roses. It scared her so badly… and that was how we ended up back at my place.”

Seth stared at me, his eyes glinting green, blue, and purple from the lights on stage.

“Shit… Did Victoria know who he was?”

“She had no idea. He told her he was an influencer, that was all,” I said.

“Well, he is…”

“She assumed he was a social media influencer,” I clarified, and Seth nodded.

“Oh yeah, that makes sense. I forget that civilians who don’t know our lifestyle think in different ways.”

I nodded. “So do I.”

My phone rang in my pocket, and I took it out. Victoria’s name flashed across the screen, and I grinned, showing the name on the phone to Seth. He grinned like an idiot too, and I answered.

“Victoria,” I grinned just saying her name. Shit. I had it bad for this woman.

“Gio…” her voice was full of things unsaid. Bad things. She was scared, that was obvious, and my mind flashed to the worst case scenarios. Isabella had crashed the car. Someone had shot her. Someone had shot Isabella. They both had been kidnapped by the Irish. All these things ran through my head in a split second.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, bracing myself for the worst. My eyes met Seth’s as he watched me, waiting to hear what it was.

“Rex was just in the parking lot, waiting for us at Isabella's car.”

My mind froze and rage filled my head. He was going after my sister now too? All because I took a girl from him who couldn’t have wanted him that terribly to begin with if she was willing to dump him for me. A girl he hadn’t even slept with.

I could understand. Victoria was amazing, and by no means did I feel she wasn’t worth the battle that was about to come. But when he was so clearly going to lose, and had already lost her to me, what was the point? Why was Rex willing to start this?

“Gio?” Victoria asked softly, and I grunted.

“I’m here, darling. Tell me what happened.”

“He… he knew who Isabella was, and he threatened the whole De Carlo family if you continued to stand in his way,” she relayed. I could hear Isabella say something in the background, but I couldn’t make out the words. I did hear Victoria’s reply though. “Maybe I should just call this off.”

“Call what off?” I growled. “Our marriage?”

“Yes,” she said, regret in her voice. “I can’t stand the idea of you guys being in danger because of me. He knows, Gio. He knows we are getting married, and he said he is no longer going to ‘play fair.’ Apparently, he thinks breaking into my place was fair… So what the hell does he think not playing fair is?”

I had a feeling I knew what he meant because I knew what it would mean to me. He was going to wage war on us. He would hunt us down and make us disappear if he could—because that would be my plan. He would probably get the whole Irish family in on it too, especially if he thought that the rest of the family had no idea what was going on. They would try to eradicate us.

But we knew it was coming, and we weren't going to let that happen.

“We are not calling off the wedding. We will not let him win. He opened this up and made it more involved than it ever needed to be the minute he threatened my sister. That’s when it stopped being just between the three of us. Now it’s war,” I told her and looked up at Seth. He was nodding and took out his phone, stepping away from the bar. “But don’t you worry, darling. Nothing is going to happen to you, and nothing is going to happen to Isabella. This is not the first time something like this has happened. It’s just the first time it has happened because Nonna decided I needed to get married, and I chose the girl of the Irish mob boss’s son.”

“But—” she started, but I interjected, not wanting her to get more worked up than she needed to.

“No, no, ‘buts’. Have Isabella take you back to my place. I’ll head to your place in a little bit and grab you a few changes of clothes and anything else you need. You’re staying with me until this is over, and don’t you dare think it is in any way your fault. There has been stress between our two families for generations. For all I know, he just sees this as the perfect opportunity to set everything into motion. It is not your fault,” I told her, stressing the last sentence. Hopefully, she heard and understood that.

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