This sick fuck.
He’s the one who ordered the hit on his brother and sister in law. And if that wasn’t already so low, he now sinks even lower. He’s trying to kill their kids. And all for what? Some stupid painting. Oh, what am I thinking? The man was ready to sacrifice his own daughters for a little more money and power, but he’s not going to use me to get to Matilde.
No fucking way is he going to use me to lure Matilde out so he can hurt her. I'm not going to let him antagonize her a second longer.
I force in a deep breath, calculating...
“I said, get down on the fucking floor,” the man behind me roars, so I slowly make a move as if to lower my gun.
A commotion erupts behind me—my mother’s voice shouting something I can’t make out—taking everyone in the room by surprise, but I snap out of it quicker. I drop, my body moving before my brain can fully comprehend the action. I spin fast and slam my elbow back, connecting with something solid. The gun wavers, and I see the man's face for the first time: a mask of surprise and fury. I lunge, my hands reaching for the weapon, and we grapple. I kneed him, but his grip on the gun stays firm. We stumble, crashing into the coffee table, shattering glass and sending debris flying.
Son of a bitch.
The gun bucks in his grip as he tries to squeeze the trigger, but I twist hard on his wrist and snap it. He hollers, crying like an injured animal, so I wrench the gun from his loose grasp andtoss it away. It disappears under the sofa. There is something familiar about his eyes when they meet mine, but I don’t stop to wonder as I drive a knee into his gut, watching him gasp as air leaves his lungs. There's rage boiling inside me for the man holding his wrist and weeping. I don't care for all the noise he's making, so with one final move, I bring my fist down, connecting with his jaw. His eyes roll back, and he collapses, unconscious, onto the floor. I stand over him, chest heaving, adrenaline coursing through my veins.
Then I turn to Giovanni.
The smug grin is gone, and instead, he looks pissed. But under all that is a man who's clearly terrified. I follow his gaze to my mother, who’s standing by the door, pointing a gun at him. “Mamma,” I say with a sigh. “I told you to stay in the car. Where did you even get that?”
“Your glove box,” she says, her hand surprisingly steady on the gun. “All those years of holding the wooden spoon over you and the Rossi boys finally paid off.”
I guess it did. It helps that she was stubborn enough to come upstairs. Her distraction was what I needed to deal with the gunman.
“Who do you think you are?” Giovanni rages, pulling our attention back to him as he slams a fist against the locked door. “Do you think you can stop me? I had Alessandro killed, and I will kill you all.”
“I don't think so,” a hard voice says from the door, and I turn around to see Matteo walk in, men by his side. “I'll take that as a murder confession.”
“W-what?” Giovanni sputters, fighting when two men move to restrain him. “I didn’t confess shit, and you don’t haveany evidence of anything. You can't take me! I have connections in the police force. I'll be out of jail before you can blink.”
“You're wrong if you think we're taking you to the cops,” Matteo laughs, voice dark and sinister. “I warned you, Giovanni. I told you to stay away from the girls. Now you'll wish you had.”
Giovanni starts yelling and sputtering as two men grab him and drag him out. The sound of groaning pulls our focus to the man on the floor, but I notice something shift on my mother's face as she stares at the man.
“Do you know him?” I ask her.
“Rubio,” she whispers. “He's my older brother. I haven't seen or spoken to him in twenty-seven years. Not since he convinced my parents that I was a whore and made them kick me out with nothing but the clothes on my back and my children growing in my belly. Bastard probably hoped I would die on the cold streets, and then he'd inherit everything.” Her face is a mask of fury as she watches him begin to wake up. “I would like to say that he fell in with the bad crowd when we were younger, but Rubio Conti was always the bad crowd.”
“What do you want to do with him, Silvia?” Matteo asks.
“I don't care," my mother says, and it's the coldest I've ever heard her. “He and the rest of the Conti family became dead to me the day they kicked me out of my home, pregnant and alone, hoping my kids and I would die in the streets like strays. He's no brother of mine, and today, he almost killed my son again… He deserves to pay for his sins."
“Then we'll deal with him as we do Giovanni.”
My mother nods, turning her face to me and then to the locked door. “She hasn't come out yet,” she says. “Should I—”
I shake my head. “I'll deal with it,” I say, turning to Matteo. “Do you mind giving my mother a ride home? I need to take care of Matilde,” I say, nodding toward the locked door.
“I was going to offer to drop you off, Silvia.”
I can read the uncertainty and worry on my mother's face, but she nods. “Call me, amore. I’ll want to know if she's okay too.”
I nod and watch as everyone files out of the apartment. I close the door behind them and lock it before walking to the bedroom door.
“Matilde,” I call out. “Open the door for me, baby.”
Silence.
Long beats of silence follow, and there's no movement on the other side, so I figure I have no choice. I move back and kick at the door handle, breaking the lock. There's resistance when I push open the door, so I use more force. The nightstand she pushed against the door scrapes on the floor as it moves back. I make enough space to slip through, but Matilde is nowhere in the room.
