Page 97 of Revenge on the Mafia

“How? You teach me.”

“You don’t need me. But I wanted to teach you because you’re so talented. So I taught myself first.”

“Why?”

He smiled. “Because I know, mi solecita, that you’re too stubborn to let anyone else near you.”

“I am not.”

“Ah… I must have made a mistake.”

I giggled.

“Come on, let’s play again.”

I stared outside and crept closer to him. “But the angry clouds are coming.”

“So let it. The music will always be louder than the storm.”

Very slowly, I placed my palm on his chest. I felt each thud of his heart as if it were racing outside his rib cage.

“He was the best,” I sobbed.

“He was,” he confirmed.

Magda cleared her throat. I couldn’t make myself dismiss his gaze, burning with something dark and soft. He was magnetic, and he had my full attention.

He exhaled slowly, his breath lining with tension. Like I’d pushed him to the edge of his control. Then rose to his feet and walked away. I stared at the space he’d left behind while I heard him talking to Magda. I was aware of what I must have looked like. Fucked-up hair and wearing his coat. Right after yelling his name and then screaming it out in his office before flying out the door.

When he came back, he lifted me off the floor and brought me to his bed. A steaming cup of chamomile tea sat on the nightstand.

He must have told Magda to prepare it before coming after me. It left a hole the size of a sinkhole in my plan to kill him. He had already taken everything away from me. Why couldn’t he give me one thing? So I could hate him fully with my complete chest. But even that he made me do half-heartedly.

He gripped my chin and yanked my face toward him. “Only one person could have taken it.” The missing money. “My father told me it was Juan. But it wasn’t. I never doubted him for a second.”

“Who did then?”

His throat bobbed. He took a step away and tucked his hands away in his pockets. Regret shone in his eyes. “My father.”

“Your father stole his own money?”

He scoffed. “Yes.”

“Why?”

His phone rang, breaking the tension in the air. It wasn’t his usual ringtone, and he didn’t even blink before picking it up.

“Tell me,” He said, his tone authoritative as he walked away.

I stared after him. How could he walk away from me when we were having the most important conversation we could ever have?

My stomach twisted with anger. Why would the Don steal his own money? Why would he blame my father for it? Why wasn’t he answering my questions? Why?

I geared up when his footsteps approached. “I can’t believe you’d just walk away from me. I need to know—”

He held up his hand to silence me. Something had changed. The tension in him had tightened in the last few minutes. “I’ll tell you soon enough, stella mia. Drink your tea and get dressed. We’re going somewhere.”

“Where?”