He said something that I couldn’t quite make out because my vision was blurring before everything went black.
Seven
“These seizures will become more prevalent as her body acclimates to the genetic changes,” Dr. Stedmeyer explained as we all stood together in the hallway outside of Cini’s room. “If we don’t figure out a way to help her manage them, then it could potentially cause a negative toll on her body.”
This was worst-case-fucking-scenario. Never in a million years did I think that Cini would be turned into a damned lab rat by the Russians. Even stuck in that damned mansion she should have been safe.
The panic on her face as she had felt another seizure coming on was like a knife to a gut and it had filled with the same burning rage I’d felt earlier when I pulled her off of that damned metal table.
“Other than that she’s a healthy omega, yes?” Amante asked, his eyes still glowing with the same keen interest they’d had when he walked into the hospital room earlier.
In that moment, any doubts I had about his part in Cini’s kidnapping had evaporated like smoke. I’d always known Amante was a monster, but to see him essentially sell his daughter off to be experimented on?
He was worse than a monster.
There wasn’t a place in hell deep enough to keep a man like him, but I vowed to myself as I stared at the man that, even if it killed me, I was going to send him there myself.
Dr. Stedmeyer cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with the tone of Amante’s question. “She’s not just an omega, Mr. Amante. She’s a mix of all three designations and we’re not sure what goes with that. She could present more of one than the others with time or—”
“She could die,” Dante’s voice cut through the air like a blade and we all turned to face the hulking alpha who was clenching his jaw so tightly that I could almost hear the tendons in it popping over the steady beeping noises that were typical in a hospital. His brown-eyed gaze was fixed on Amante as if he was a bug he wished he could grind under his heel. It was rare to see Dante truly furious and I found myself worried he might actually try to swing at Cini’s father.
But instead, he released the tension in his shoulders and turned back to Dr. Stedmeyer. “Isn’t that right, doctor?”
“Yes, there is a possibly as I told you earlier—”
Dr. Stedmeyer was cut off again, this time by Amante who just waved a hand like the doctor’s words didn’t matter. “My blood is stronger than that, no matter the container.”
He said it like he was talking about an object and not his very alive, very hurt daughter.
Still, it shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did. Amante had hated Cini from the moment she was born and the doctors told him she would be functionally deaf. Alesso had once told me that one of his first memories was of Cini failing her first hearing test and how enraged his father had been at their mother.
His distaste for his daughter was infamous in our circles, but tonight? After we had pulled her out of that hellhole that I was certain he had a hand in putting her in?
I was done. My patience had shattered in an instant and I rose up to my full height in order to tower over the older man.
“Lusciniais stronger than any blood. If she survives this then it will be becausesheis strong,” I snapped, making Amante gawk at me as if he had never truly seen me before. I had always been Alesso’s subservient second in command and look at how far that had gotten me.
Ranieri’s elbow dug into my back and I realized where we were before adding in a terse: “Sir.”
The man’s blue eyes—the one thing he shared with both of his children—narrowed at me like he was sizing me up.
“You are not needed here anymore, gentlemen,” he finally said, dismissing us entirely. “Head back to the estate and see what we can salvage from the rubble of what’s left of the Volkov compound. I will handle things here.”
I wanted to argue with him, my instincts telling me that I shouldn’t leave Cini. Even the bite on my neck throbbed as I opened my mouth to refuse an outright order from him for really the first time in my life.
But thankfully, the rest of the guys had my back and wouldn’t let me light years of careful planning on fire in an instant.
“Yes sir,” Nicolo said as Ranieri and Dante dragged me around to start walking in the other direction. “We’ll be back to check on Ms. Amante later.”
With that, we left the hospital room, my mind on just how I could end Amante’s rule over us and Cini, and fast.
“This has fucked everything,” Ranieri said later as we sat around our dining room table.
After spending the rest of the morning putting out fires at the Amante estate, we’d finally been released from our obligations when Amante returned without Cini, who would need to stay in the hospital for at least a few days.
The flame out of the Russians and Cini’s subsequent change in designation seemed to put the older man in good spirits despite my earlier blow up because he let us go without much questioning as soon as he arrived.
“It hasn’t,” I insisted with a hard shake of my head.
