“Come here.”
She did because she was afraid he’d start chopping body parts off Tucker if she defied him.
Achilles studied her. His eyes dropped from her face to her neck. She wore a satin scarf. He tugged it free. It fell to the floor, revealing blue and purple bruises.
Achilles closed his eyes. His nostrils flared. Every single emotion ran through his body.
“Is. He. The. One. Who. Touched. You?”
“ Y—yes.” Her voice was small and frightened and drenched with shame. “But I asked him t?—”
He turned to Tucker Reid, unholstered his gun, and shot him straight in the face.
She stared at Tucker’s limp head tilting sideways. The blood oozing from his forehead. Shock and hatred swirled inside her, each fighting for dominance. She had so many things to say to him. All of them could send her to an early grave.
Achilles stepped forward, eating the space between them, so close their noses brushed. “Never again, Tierney. You hear me?”
She tilted her chin up, refusing to give him her words.
“If you let another man touch you, just assume you’ve sentenced him to his death.”
“You’re sick,” she whispered.
“I know.” He grinned, his coal eyes burning with hatred. “Every. Single. One. You can try to hide them. Protect them. I’ll always find them, and I’ll always kill them.”
Her body trembled with rage. It consumed her so badly she thought her skin was going to explode. He pushed her into a corner. No one was going to defy him. He was Achilles Ferrante.
The joker of the underworld. The sadist everyone feared.
“Next time you bring someone home to get screwed, your bodyguard will kill him. That’s an order from above. I meantwhat I said, Piccola Fiamma. If I can’t have you, no one can. Stock up on those sex toys. Because you won’t be seeing another dick for a long, long time.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Tierney
The following weekend,we were invited to dinner at the Ferrantes’.
The last thing I wanted was to see Vello again, but Tiernan and Lila pointed out that for my return to become official, it would be good to put everyone in the same room. Send a message. Plus, I had a certain someone waiting for me in their basement I couldn’t wait to reunite with—my traitorous father.
I knew Achilles wanted him to marinate in his own misery longer, but knowing I was about to be on the same property as him and that he was suffering brightened my mood.
I sat in the back of Tiernan’s Mercedes while he drove to his in-laws’, staring out the window. Preppy Long Island mansions zipped past us, with their manicured lawns and German cars parked out front. I still couldn’t believe I was back on American soil and that Vello had permitted it.
“What made him change his mind about me?” I asked, eyeballs still stuck on the view. “I mean, other than beating him up.”
“Those weren’t beatings. We got…carried away.” Tiernan cleared his throat. “When Enzo and Luca finally tore us off him,they didn’t kill us. That was my cue that Vello’s power over his sons had dwindled.”
“So…Luca and Enzo chose Achilles over their father?”
“Apparently, Vello was almost as shit a parent as Tyrone. It’s common knowledge he’s hanging by a thread and about to kick the bucket. That he hasn’t chosen a successor yet is pissing everyone off. The Ferrante brothers decided to split the pie the way they see fit and appoint the don on their own terms.”
“And he’s agreed to that?”
I watched my brother through the rearview mirror. His mouth lifted at the corners derisively. “Let’s just say he didn’t have much choice.”
“Does he know Tyrone’s in his basement?”
“That would require him to use his functioning brain cells. And he currently doesn’t have any of those.”
