LEV
Alessio. Fucking. Vitale.
He wasthere. He snuck up on her when I wasten fucking feet away.
The front doors of the mansion slam shut in my rush to escape, no exact destination in mind. All I want is to hunt his ass down and make sure he never breathes near her again. First, I’ll lock her in a room so she can’t go through with her insane plan
I need away from this place—fromher—before doing something stupid, more so than what I already have. Before my skin literally crawls from my skin—which is scientifically impossible—because that is what it feels like. For half my life, I’ve been uncomfortable in my own skin, but right now…blyat.
Doesn’t help that final words will trigger Vanessa’s suspicion.
One. Two. One.
That’s the thing with Serafina. She robs me of my goddamn ability tothink. To process. To evaluate. Everything that’s kept me alive and sane for twenty-seven years, gone with a single bat of her fucking eyes, her eyes that are the precise shade I spent years searching for.
I spoke, forgetting about the numerous people around, because caring about anything beyond her marrying that asshole was impossible. Her standing at an alter in front ofhim,speaking vows that ties her tohim, wearing a wedding dress forhim,hisring on her finger.
It’s all too much. The image alone is pure static.
One. Two. One.
I pace by my car, every muscle urging me inside it, to drive until locating him. After I tear every soldier in our employment apart to uncover the rat, I’ll rip Vitale’s location out of him before I yank his fucking heart out.
I’ve never felt like this before. This…desperate. Like a field of magnetic energy has exploded inside me with no proper place to be unleashed. Directionless, uncontrollable, deadly.
The kind of deadly Papa would be proud of. Finally, I’m living up to his expectations.
He stuck me in prison to make me this way, when reality was, all it took was a scrap of a woman named Serafina Mancini. She’s the Cosa Nostra’s greatest weapon, because she can control me with a single gesture, and no one even realizes how dangerous she is.
My heart drops to dust at my feet, my mind uncaring about how illogical and impossible that metaphor is. Without my heart, I’ll die.
It’s suitable, when considering the future Serafina’s designed for herself in there.
One. Two. One.
I should have seen it, should have picked up on it. Serafina returned from the bathroom, spooked out of her mind, and refused to talk.
Because I was so focused on making her happy, her safety slipped up.
Thisis why I shouldn’t have gotten involved. Why I should have kept my dick in my pants, my hands to myself. I’m compromised, and now, instead of witnessing my Pakhan’s half-sister wed, I’ll be watchingher—Fina—moya printessa—tie herself to someone who’ll hurt her. I’ll be witnessing my nightmares come to life.
One. Two. One.
One. Two. One.
One. Two. One.
No amount of tapping or counting makes this tolerable.
Feet scrape over the gravel behind me, catching up as I reach the garage without a location in mind. Even before she speaks, I know it’s Anastasia. We’re twins, for fuck’s sake. As much as I’m unaware about so much in life, we’ve spent nearly every waking breath together. She knows me better than anyone else.
“Lev…what the fuck?”
While I’ve never directly admitted my struggles to her, I once asked if her head feels staticky, and she only replied with a pitiful expression.
It’s the same expression she’s looking at me now with, as my hands lift into my hair and yank. I yank out every thought of Serafina, everything wrong with me. I yank and yank until the fuzziness in my brain smooths, and for fucking once, I’mnormal.
Serafina makes me feel normal. How can that sensation continue when she’ll be wearing another man’s ring, only to make him a widower by the night’s end when she fails at assassinating him, so he takes her life?
