That idea was nice. I hadn’t properly beaten the shite out of someone since before the bomb.
“Why?” The word snapped in the air.
“I heard there will be a crowning ceremony.”
His words caught me off guard. The fecker used the opportunity to rush me.
I swerved, hands hanging loose at my side, and barely missed the blow he’d aimed right at my nose.
Taking the defensive, I backed away, still loose. Still ready to spring the moment I saw an opening. “How’d you hear that?”
It was an idea Da had put together after his double treatment yesterday. He was fading fast. Two weeks of the poisonous chemo—the lifesaving drug that was supposed to kill the disease, but only seemed to transform a fit, spry man into a shell—but his cancer wasn’t responding. It was aggressive.
Da was preparing for the worst, while hoping for the best.
I refused to consider that he was dying. This was a setback. That was all.
Dominico danced into my space. I bobbed left and struck with my right. The glancing blow bit into the soft flesh near his kidney.
“My grandfather was offered double to take care of you,” Dominico huffed.
And struck.
I let him hit me on the shoulder. It gave me the opening to rain hell on his smiling, polished ass. Punch after punch. I didn’t let up until he retreated.
Gasping and swiping at his face, the mafia prince pointed a finger at me. “You have an enemy.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” I charged.
While I didn’t use my legs, the kickboxing style I’d recently learned had an unorthodox method of upper body attacks. When Dominico entered my ring, I made the rules. Which was why I turned to the point style to attack. I crowded his space. Weaved in when I saw an opening. Kept my hands down as I capered about him. He didn’t know when I would strike. I offered himfeint after feint. Only when he was on edge did I unleash the brutal jabs, uppercuts, and straightforward hits.
Caught against the ropes, Dominico held up his arms to block. “Damn, ragazzo! You’re every bit as crazy as the rumors say!”
That compliment made my lips twitch.
Not because this flawless, pretty boy noticed. But because it echoed the events of the other night. When I lit my wife’s bed on fire in a blind fit.
Just seeing the light in her room as I drove into the garage set me off.
Gabriella didn’t belong there. She belonged with me.
I took three healthy steps back. The space gave my opponent room to breathe. “The reason behind the meeting is private. No one knows that the boss will name me his heir.”
“And yet I found out.” Dominico rubbed his jaw. An ugly bruise already bloomed purple and blue against his deep olive skin. “You have a leak.”
“Well, it’s going to take more than a fight to kill me.” I feigned a step forward.
Dominico raised his fists. “We’re not going to kill you, idiota.”
“Oh?” I mocked.
“I told you—” Dominico threw a punch that reverberated through my rib cage “—that would be bad for business.”
I let him land another body shot, timing it perfectly to strike his nose.
Blood sprayed over the mat.
“What will your help cost me, Grimaldi?”
