“You can try.” Alessandro doesn’t stop moving. “But you’ll be dead before the bullet leaves the chamber. Your choice.”
“I’ve got your girl.” Bruno shifts, pressing the gun to my temple. Cold metal against skin makes everything sharper. “Drop your weapons or she dies.”
Alessandro’s eyes finally focus on me. For a second, just a second, something human flickers there. Fear. Rage. Pain.
Then it’s gone, replaced by a terrible emptiness.
“You touch her,” Alessandro says conversationally, “and I will spend the rest of your very short life making you beg for death. I will peel the skin from your bones. I will keep you alive while I feed you your own organs. I will make you watch as I destroy everything and everyone you’ve ever cared about before I finally let you die.”
Bruno’s hand trembles slightly. “Big talk for a man whose girl is about to get her brains splattered—”
Alessandro’s gun rises and fires.
The bullet takes Bruno in the shoulder, the one holding the gun to my head. His arm jerks back, weapon clattering. He screams, stumbling, trying to regain his weapon—
Alessandro is on him.
What happens next will live in nightmares forever.
Alessandro’s knife finds Bruno’s stomach. Once. Twice. Three times. Each thrust is precise, clinical, designed to cause maximum pain without quick death. Bruno’s screams turn to gurgles as blood fills his lungs.
“You threatened what’s mine.” Alessandro’s voice is still conversational despite the violence. “You put your hands on her. You thought aboutrapingher.”
The knife finds Marco’s groin. The scream that follows isn’t human.
“This is what happens.” Another stab, this one to the thigh, the femoral artery opening in a spray of red. “This is what I do to men who touch what belongs to me.”
Bruno collapses, bleeding out fast now, hands scrabbling uselessly at the wounds. Alessandro watches him die with no expression at all.
Then he turns to me.
The transformation is instantaneous. The dead eyes become human again, concerned, terrified, and devastated. The monster becomes a man.
“Elena.” His hands are gentle as his knife slices through the zip ties. “Cristo, Elena, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Are you hurt? Did they—”
“They didn’t.” The words come out shaky. “You got here before, they didn’t—”
The zip ties fall away. His arms come around me, and the dam breaks. Sobbing against his chest, surrounded by bodies and blood and the aftermath of violence, but all that exists is his warmth, his presence, the way his hands shake as they hold me.
“I’ve got you.” His voice is wrecked. “You’re safe. I’ve got you. Nobody’s going to hurt you. I promise. I promise.”
“You came.” I can’t stop crying. “How did you, they killed your men, how did you—”
“Tracking your phone. I asked Marco to keep an eye on it. You didn’t think I’d leave you without being able to track you? Didi you?” His laugh is broken. “I’ve been tracking you since you left. When the signal started moving, when my men didn’t respond—”
He doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to. The bodies around us tell the story clearly enough.
“We need to move.”
Marco appears at the van opening. “Police will be here soon. And boss, the feds. We need to clean this up fast.”
“Get a crew here. I want this van disappeared and these bodies dumped where they’ll be found. Send Greco a message he can’t ignore.” Alessandro is already lifting me, cradling me against his chest like something precious. “And Marco? Pull everyone back from Elena’s shop. She was right the protection makes her a target.”
“Boss—”
“She was right. I made her a target by claiming her.” His arms tighten around me. “Find another way. Something she won’t notice. Something that won’t paint a sign on her back.”
Marco nods and disappears to coordinate.
