Page 84 of Wrong Pawn. Right Capo.

After a moment, she pulls back, hovering over the stab wound on my stomach and the bleeding in my shoulder, but I slowly stop her, lifting her chin to meet mine. The shoulder wound is just a graze.

Anger surges in my chest when I see her bruises up close.

“The bastard hurt you,” I grit out.

She drags my hand up to her cheek and leans into it. “I’m fine, Adriano,” she whispers.

I’m not satisfied with that answer. Fuck, everything in me wants to find the mayor and kill him with my own hands, and since I cannot, I do the next rational thing to calm my thoughts: I kiss her.

The kiss is deep, holding her close until her weight finally relaxes against mine. She sighs into the kiss before gently pulling back.

“God, I fucking missed you,” I whisper against her lips, not being able to hold myself back anymore.

“I missed you too, Adriano.”

Tears cloud her eyes, and I hold my breath when I see the look in them.

For years, I’d built walls. Discipline. Control. Emotion was a liability. I saw her as leverage… a tool. A delicious, forbidden pawn.

I used that to justify everything I did to her. But now… fuck… now, the way she isn’t looking at me with the hatred I deserve, but with something else—something I can’t yet name—strikes a sharp ache in my chest.

“Capo,” a voice calls out. I look over her head to see Francesco standing quietly at a distance. That’s when I remember the instruction I’d given Elena.

“I told you to meet Francesco. You didn’t.”

She shakes her head, her voice a trembling whisper. “I-I couldn’t leave you.”

I clench my fingers, the mere thought of how close I came to losing her invading my mind.

“Don’t ever put yourself in harm’s way for me, Elena. I can handle myself.”

There’s silence, then she says, “But you did. You risked your life—everything—for me, Adriano.”

Something shifts in my core. “I thought you’d hate me.”

She pauses, her shoulders sagging. “I’m still mad at you for some of the things you did… but I’m… I don’t want to hold anything over your head.”

“Boss, we have to leave now. The feds are swarming the area. If they see you in this state, it may be hard for Conrad to cover our tracks.”

I nod and follow Francesco until we reach the car, sliding in after Elena. The ride back to the mansion is silent until Elena gasps. “Enzo! H-He was outside the mayor’s place and—”

“He’s fine. Some of my men rescued him just before the mayor’s men started shooting at him.”

Her eyes widen momentarily before she inhales deeply. “Thank you.”

Thankfully, Francesco had been keeping an eye on the mayor’s residence, so he spotted Thompson's guards abducting Enzo. They were driving the old man to some isolated stretch of road, waiting on orders to execute him, but our guys intercepted the vehicle just in time.

I release a heavy sigh, the movement sending a dull ache through my stomach. While that bastard, Caughn, was gloating in Nevada, I was recording. He thought it was over when he stabbed me, but Liza had sent Jeremiah after me. As it turns out, right after I left, she’d sent him to the shack to see what her husband had left there. When Jeremiah saw Caughn’s Polaroid and the coordinates, he told Liza, and she was convinced that the mayor—and Caughn—had something to do with her husband's death. She’d only seen Caughn once and recognized him as a relative of the mayor, but even then, she knew—wife’s instincts—that the evil duo would be her husband’s undoing.

She deemed it necessary to make sure that justice was served and that I had actually killed Caughn. If I hadn’t, she’d convinced Jeremiah to put a bullet through Caughn’s chest instead. That was why Jeremiah flew to the location. I had a feeling there was something going on between Jeremiah and Liza.

Thankfully, Jeremiah reached me just in time to get me out of the room Caughn had locked me in, and provided first aid. After that, I returned to Manhattan and handed Francesco the evidence.

We filtered out the parts that could implicate me and sent the recording to Shane, who expressed massive interest in the story.

Then we found someone reliable in the FBI. Mark Conrad. He was a loyalist of my father and immediately sprang to help when he saw I needed it. The meeting was supposed to happen at the initial waterfront location, but the mayor rerouted us to a decommissioned container yard a couple of miles away. The motherfucker didn’t trust the initial location. Probably paranoid that a man like me would have cased the place, or at least had men staking it out.

I still wish I had killed him with my own hands, but death is an easy way out for a man like him. Caughn’s final words echo in my mind, snapping the last puzzle piece into place. The mayor had planned on eliminating him, too.