A Madness of Crows: Mafia University #3

44. Day 100 - Caterina

Cecile chokes.

A line of red opens up against her skin, bright crimson drops beginning to spill over her neck, her chest, flecking her amethyst dress as she staggers, her eyes locked on me.

I assess her coolly as she drops to the floor, her fingers clawing. Garbled sounds come from her throat. “Your carotid artery has been severed. You have around ten minutes before you die, Cecile. And you’re going to feel every single one of them.”

Stefano is pale when I turn to him, his eyes moving between Cecile and Salvatore. “Cat – how did you—,”

I hold up my nails as a response. “The girl at the bar. The nail polish contains something that creates a temporary paralytic effect.”

Frankie Costa.

“We’re leaving.” My voice tight, I turn to check on Salvatore. “But not before I tie up some loose ends.”

A low sound comes from him as I reach forward and rake my nails down his cheek. Skin splits open in my wake.

Stefan grabs my wrist, turning my hand over to reveal the cuts in my palm from the glass shards. The sting barely registers. “What about Alessia?”

My throat tightens. “Luc will get her out. If Salvatore is dead, he can’t push Matteo to use her against me.”

One hundred days.

One hundred days of hell, and I am going home.

And if they don’t have Alessia, I will go for her myself.

His dark eyes fix on my face, his expression slipping into readiness. “Where do you want me?”

I open my mouth—

The room shudders. I almost lose my balance, Stefan’s arm keeping me upright as something resembling thunder shakes the floor beneath our feet. The candles on the table collapse, flames flickering out. One sets the cloth alight.

“What the hell was that?”

I breathe in as shouts come from the corridor. Someone pounds on the door, the sound of feet running. My hands grip his arm. “They’re here.”

They came. And if they came—

“He did it.” I stare at Stefano, my eyes prickling. “Luc. He got her out.”

Because that is the only reason they would risk a direct assault.

Stefan glances over my shoulder. “He’s starting to come around.”

“Good.” He watches as I use a steak knife to tear a part of the burning tablecloth into strips, binding Salvatore’s hands behind the chair. I stuff another chunk into his mouth. “I want him awake.”

Understanding lingers there. Fury, too, as he watches his uncle. “So then, Caterina Corvo. Orders?”

My lips twitch, even I focus on our current situation, thinking it through. “Iliana and the girls downstairs are the priority. Staff, too. Our side might not know they’re there. How many men are here?”

His eyes flare. “Around two hundred. My mother is safest in her room until it’s over. This is going to be messy, Cat.”

My heart twists at that. I hope they brought the fucking cavalry. “Weapons, then.”

He nods. “They took mine, but there’s a storeroom down the hall. I’ll break in.”

Nodding, I turn back to Salvatore. “Take your time.”

“Bar the door behind me.” He nods. “There might be a few outside.”

And we have no weapons. I glance down to the steak knife on the table, the bloodied shards of mirror. “Then we’re making do.”

It feels good to hold a knife again, even if it’s nothing close to the sets I used to wear. I snag two, one for each hand as Stefano moves to the door.

At my nod, he pulls it open.

Only one. He rushes in with panicked eyes. “Sir. There’s an attack…,”

His voice trails off as he gets a look at the scene around us, and I throw the knife in my hand without thought. Exhilaration sings in my blood at the sensation.

Fucking hell.

Don’t get too excited, Caterina.

Stefano rubs a hand over his face as the guard stumbles back. He wraps an arm around his throat, tightening as they struggle until the man’s legs stop kicking.

Stefan drops him, his eyebrows dipping. “That’s a steak knife. It’s not sharp enough—,”

“I get it,” I hiss back at him. “I just – it’s been a while.”

Stabbing will work just as well, even if it doesn’t quite feel the same. I glance down at the jagged edge with a new thought as Stefan crosses to the door. “I’ll be back.”

I push the door closed behind him, dragging a chair and jamming it beneath the handle to slow anyone trying to enter.

And then I turn back to my husband. On the floor beside him, Cecile still gurgles, her labored, rapid breathing signaling that she’s running out of time.

Salvatore looks more aware now, at least. Ice blue eyes glare at me, his face still slack.

Adrenaline surges, pumping my blood with fizzing exhilaration.

It ends tonight.

“It seems as though I can’t take quite as long with this as I wanted to.” I pause beside the table, picking up the glass shard and moving toward him. The steak knife sits in my other hand. “I have places to be.”

The only sound is his harsh breathing beneath the gag as I slide back onto his lap. “Where were we?”

I scan him, my brows knotting. “Ah. Yes.”

His eyes flicker as my hands drop to the row of buttons on his shirt. I flick open the top one. The next. Slowly revealing his chest.

My fingers walk across his skin. “It’s quite poetic, really.”

His eyes narrow. Below me, his body shifts. Not by much, but enough to tell me that he’s regaining feeling in his lower half.

I lean in, making sure he hears every word. “If you hadn’t touched Frankie Costa, she would never have made sure I had what I needed to do this.”

My nails scrape against his chest. “Kind of wish she was here to see it in action.”

Slowly, I lift the steak knife and trace it against his skin. “And if you hadn’t forced Stefano to brand me, I would never have had the idea to do this.”

I stab the knife directly into his right pec. A grunting sound comes from around the gag, and I grin at him. “I’m afraid I’m not quite the artist that Domenico is, but I’ll try my best. Knife’s a little blunt, just to warn you.”

His moans turn to roars as the last of the sedative wears off. He pulls at the bindings, but they only pull tighter as he struggles.

Sighing, I sit back to admire my handiwork. “That’s rather good, actually.”

The crude outline of a crow stands out against his skin, jagged and bloody.

I tap the knife handle against my lips. When he bucks, I stab the knife into his other side. “Now then, husband. Be quiet and let me think.”

He is not quiet. He screams beneath that gag as I drag the jagged edge of the knife over every piece of skin that I can see.

The room around us silences.

I glance down. Cecile’s eyes are open, her mouth twisted as if she’s seen something horrific in her final moments.

I click my tongue. “Cecile is dead. I wonder if you’ll last longer?”

His eyes bulge in fury. Not a hint of care for the woman on the floor next to him. At the sounds that come from beneath the gag, I shake my head. Shrug.

“I would offer you the opportunity to say your last words, but I just don’t want to hear them.”

Another rumble sounds from under my feet.

I slide off his lap, admiring my handiwork. “Our time is coming to an end, Salvatore. But you’ve been so generous to me, that it feels only fair to leave you with one, final taste of your own medicine.”

His eyes, pain filled and glazing over, widen in panic as I drop down.

My words are guttural. “You thought you had won. That you’d broken me.”

Stripped away everything that made me Caterina Corvo.

“But you were wrong.” I wrench his trousers open. “I warned you what would happen if you ever touched another woman. I believe it was your hand, no?”

He screams beneath that gag. Screams and rocks in the chair.

There is nothing left in my chest but revenge. For everything he has taken from me, for what he has done.

“This feels much more appropriate.”

I’m breathing heavily when it’s over. I yank out the gag, and he moans. “Open wide.”

Standing back, I watch as he slumps in the chair.

“I’d leave you like this,” I muse. “But men like you tend to be cockroaches. You just keep coming back.”

And I slam that knife into his throat.

When the twitching has stopped, I pull it back out.

Stefano bangs on the door, his voice coming through.

I pull the chair away. “Did you get them?”

“Merda, Cat.” He steps inside, his arms full. “Are you hurt?”

I glance down, taking in the crimson that covers my body. My gold dress is no longer recognisable. “No.”

His eyes move past me, to the lump of flesh in the chair. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

Relief shines in those eyes as he turns from his uncle’s body. “You won’t be able to run in that dress.”

I grab the steak knife and start sawing, ripping the material away from my lower legs to free them up. “This knife is surprisingly versatile.”

He dumps the weapons on the charred table, picking through them. “No knives here. We only ever use guns.”

I’ll take whatever weapon I can get. We load up with several Glocks apiece, strapping additional ammunition to our arms with black straps. Stefan eyes me when I slide the steak knives beneath the holsters on my upper arms, but he doesn’t say anything as we move out.

The smell of smoke lingers in the air. We move quickly but quietly, Stefan pointing out a route as I pause to kick off my useless slippers.

Gunfire sounds, and Stefan pushes me into an alcove. He looks down at me. “You ready? Stay with me.”

That energy still surges in my veins as I reach up, pressing my lips against his in answer.

Just in case.