44. Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Three
Alessandrio
A s the morning light cuts lines across the floor, I trace a lazy finger down her spine, marveling at the soft, unmarred skin. Her golden hair is glowing on the pillow, a river of liquid metal against the white cotton. Olivia took everything I gave her last night, and fuck did I give her all of it. It’s hard to believe that a Dolmino was made for me, but I am pretty fucking sure she was.
The sound of a soft sigh disrupts my thoughts. “That feels nice,” she murmurs.
My finger continues to trace the length of her, the contrast of our differences now a beautiful familiarity. She wiggles her ass as I reach her tailbone, and the rise and fall of her ribs halts. I squeeze one round cheek, a triumphant smile curving my mouth. I claimed this last night, made it mine in a way that would ensure she can never forget me. The thought has my dick hardening with a ferocity that makes my balls ache.
My fingers trail over that sweet mound and I hear her sharp inhale as a clawless finger slides between them and down against her already slick centre. I groan with her, plunging my finger to the hilt and marveling at how good she feels. I want to taste her, show her how much I appreciate her giving herself over to me. My mouth follows my fingers’ previous trail, depositing soft kisses against her spine, over her ass until I am beneath the covers, flipping her on her back in one simple move to spread her wide.
“Alessandrio,” she says my name like a fucking prayer, and it draws my eyes from her pussy to her face.
She’s so fucking beautiful. The sight of her sleep softened face is one I will carve into my memory. I want to wake up like this every day and see her, watch those cherry red lips part with my name on her tongue. See the silver flame of her eyes burn with sleepy desire and that gentle flush of her cheeks.
“You are beautiful,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to her pink flesh, our eyes never breaking.
“So are you,” she gasps as my tongue slices where my lips had been.
“Pretty liar,” I chuckle, pressing her thighs wider on the bed.
With that I bury my face against her, riding her clit with my tongue and hear her moaned response. It’s true. I ignore her admission, and soon she’s grinding on my mouth, her heady scent covering my face as I work my finger inside her, my tongue heeding her every demand. When she comes, I hear her soft cries beneath the pillow she has pulled over her face, her thighs locking around my head as I continue to draw out her pleasure with long, languid strokes.
Feeling like an absolute king, I pry her legs from around my head and get off the bed. The pillow is still against her face, making me chuckle as I pull up my sweatpants. Entering the ensuite, I wipe down my face and wash my fingers, rubbing the fur there and despising that I have to remove her scent. I don’t want my brother to smell her all over me. He will know, and I don’t need him knowing my business. I don’t want to share the scent of her pleasure with anyone.
When I return to the room, she is sitting up, her hair mussed, the sheets pulled up to her chest as she watches me.
“Where are you going?” There is a slight pinch between her brows as I raise a clean shirt and pull it over my head, ensuring it doesn’t catch on my horns.
“I’m not done,” I reply, trying to keep the venom from my tone.
“Hunting?”
I nod, lifting a grey hoodie up. “It isn’t over.” Not until he is dead.
Her face becomes solemn, grey eyes narrowed with worry, and I know she can read between the lines.
“He is the greatest threat?”
I tug the hoodie over my head and sit on the edge of the bed so our eyes are almost level.
“Riccardo has evaded us for too long. He is a threat to our family, and to you.”
Even now, I feel my veins fill with the poison of knowing he is breathing the same air as us. The symptoms of that poison are desperation and white hot rage. I want him fucking dead, and now I have an even bigger reason to need it. I reach out a hand, brushing my furred knuckles against her flushed cheek. The silence drags, words building in my chest, all the things I feared to say clogging up my throat. Her own inner war is present, the way her throat works and a wet sheen fills her eyes.
“I’ve got to go.” Coward. I get to my paws, trying not to rush to the door. I turn as I reach for the handle in time to see a single tear slip over her cheek before she brushes it away with a frustrated huff. “I’ll see you later.”
She only nods, her teeth worrying her full bottom lip, and I leave before I can say too many things and make myself feel even more vulnerable.
“Where’s Lucia?” I ask Emilio as I enter their kitchen, surprised at not seeing my sister-in-law fussing over him.
“She isn’t feeling well,” he replies simply, the look on his face at odds with his words.
There is something not right with him. At first I thought it was just the stress of knowing how close we got to a full-blown war, with Riccardo still an open threat. Now I am not so sure. I see the exhaustion in his eyes.
“Shit sleep?” I ask, praying he doesn’t retort with some dumb shit about Olivia and me keeping him up. This house is massive. We are so far away from their wing that I dare say he didn’t even hear her begging for it last night.
He only grunts and rolls his neck. Grumpy prick. I collect things for a protein smoothie as he pours himself a strong looking black coffee from his fancy machine.
“What time will Lorenzo be here?” I ask to break the tense silence and he checks his watch.
“Any minute now.”
His phone buzzes, and I see a security notification flash on his screen. “Speak of the devil,” he mutters, sitting on a stool.
It’s wrong for someone like him to look this weary. It grates on me to see his shoulders curved and his dark head bowed. He grew out his claws, which makes me even more concerned. I blend up my smoothie and post myself against the counter across from him. His blue eyes meet mine.
“We are going to fucking get him,” I snarl without even a hint of doubt, because I feel it in my bones. Something is coming, a showdown. I feel how close we are. “The curtains will close on that piece of shit. He signed his death warrant when he aided Galdano.” My brother only nods and sips his coffee.
“I called in the tech guys. We are going to have them scour the paper trail. I want them to pin down his location. He has to have posted up somewhere in order to facilitate all this.”
“Good,” I reply simply. Jimmy and the guys will find what our eyes cannot and then it will be up to me. “When we find him, I want to go it alone,” I say what’s been hanging over my head. Emilio levels his gaze at me, heavy brows high. “I don’t want to lose anymore men to this motherfucker. I owe him so many deaths already. There are only so many limbs I can rip from his body.”
Our father, Julio, Luca, Matteo, Monique and, hell, even Frankie. I know that Riccardo’s words poisoned and spurred our cousin to make moves against us. Frankie found his backbone when he was supported by a bigger fish. Julio would still be with us if he remained spineless. I clutch the marble counter for support as the rage bubbles with the reminder. I owe him for hurting Lucia and, in turn, hurting Emilio. Lorenzo appears around the corner before my brother can verbally answer, but he nods in agreement and something in my gut eases.
“Our guys are unloading their computers,” Lorenzo says in greeting, his very human face unable to hide the strain of all this quiet like ours.
“Let’s head to my office and have them set up there,” Emilio replies, standing and picking up his cup.
Lorenzo and I follow him outside, to the pool house turned office. The space is a world away from its actual use, with its heavy dark drapes, dark wood and leather furniture. It screams Mafia in its masculine decadence. I huff a laugh as I drop myself onto one of the leather couches, Emilio and Lorenzo sitting across from me on the other.
“Something amusing, little brother?” Emilio questions.
“Just your personal style.” I laugh and see his face scrunch.
“Don’t worry Emilio, he’s just jealous because he just realized he is the Wish version of you,” Lorenzo says and my brother actually laughs. “What they ordered,” Lorenzo continues, pointing to Emilio. “What they got,” he gestures at me.
I laugh, full bellied along with my brother, the sound rich and necessary before flipping my uncle off as he smiles across the table at me.
“Good one,” I gasp through my laughter. “You can die fat and happy now that you actually made a decent joke.”
“Ha-ha,” he mutters.
Our mood lasts as our tech guys set up their laptops, plugging in cords and waking up sleepy devices. When they are done, I allow my brother and uncle to reign over this parade, only giving my input when needed as they flag suspicious looking transactions scouring Galdano’s paper trail. I see Emilio’s gaze land on his phone screen now and again, undoubtedly the security cameras alerting him to any movement.
At midday, Donatella appears for lunch. Emilio is instantly on her as she backs into the room, pulling a trolley ladened with food. They converse quietly, and I see her place a calming arm on his. I make note of the interaction and bank it for later before I gratefully pluck a roll off the trolley and begin to eat, the others also stopping for a quick meal.
It’s after lunch we get our first big break. Paulie shows us an interesting transaction on Marco’s bank statement. A warehouse. It instantly piques all our interest and has us leaning over his shoulder as he pulls up the geolocation on the screen. Tech is incredible. I can’t help but marvel at the way you cannot fucking move without leaving some kind of trail. As an old criminal society, we had to adjust to the times, invest money into associates who were into this stuff. Men who could scour the world at their fingertips to nail down a target.
“Get us footage outside that building for the last seventy-two hours,” Emilio commands, patting Paulie on the shoulder. “I want to get visuals on who has come and gone from that place in that time.”
We sit back on our respective couches, giving the boys space to do their work. Anticipation has my blood thrumming in my veins. This is it. This is fucking it. I stand and pace, a lion ready to be let out of its cage. We are so fucking close.
Emilio’s head jerking pulls me from my dark trail of thought and makes my paws halt. He’s staring through the glass door leading out of the pool house toward his home, eyes narrowed as they swing back to his phone. It’s when he stands that my heart fills my throat.
“What?” I snarl as Lorenzo too gets to his feet.
“Something is wrong.” My blood runs cold at that. “The cameras are all down.”
We move as one towards his desk, where our guns are resting atop its dark surface.
He passes me mine and I feel the tension icy and nauseating. “Could it be a fault? The boys using too much Wi-Fi?” I question frantically as I check the gun’s safety.
It’s the silent shake of his head that has fear riding me. I am out the door first, Emilio and Lorenzo hot on my heels. The latter throws commands at the three men who have stopped in their work to stand over their computers, our tension bleeding into them and halting their work. I raise my gun and hear Emilio barking his own orders down the phone to his security guards.
“No one has come in?” he snarls, “Are you fucking sure?”
I can’t hear no response, stop even hearing Emilio as a violent rushing fills my ears. No. Riccardo can’t be fucking here. I am running now, Emilio and Lorenzo too, crashing through the back door. Donatella looks up, her eyes going wide at our pointed guns and short leashed violence.
“Lucia,” Emilio snaps. “Where is she?”
He has never spoken to Donatella like this, but I feel his panic and it feeds my own. Where is Olivia? I want to scream it at her but bite my tongue.
“Your room,” she cries, but even I hear the uncertainty in her voice.
We crash through the doors into the entry hall and find the front door wide. Not right. Not fucking right. I sprint across the space and out onto the landing. My brother collides with me as I pause, my stomach bottoming out, my brain struggling to make sense of what I am seeing as Emilio snarls with utter terror and rage. For the first time in my life, I fucking falter, hand falling to point my gun at the ground. No.
“Please.”
It’s the sound of my brother’s anguish that wakes up twenty-four years of preparation.
I raise my gun again, but don’t dare shoot, not with the barrel of a gun pressed to Lucia’s temple. Hatred is a tidal wave through my veins, sweeping away any peace, any trust and any love. Because love makes you fucking blind and I have been a fool.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia says over Lucia’s shoulder as she clutches my brother’s wife to her chest and presses that barrel to her fucking temple .
I take a step down the stairs, and train my gun on her face, the same face I marvelled at just this morning. The beauty shifts to something ugly in this new, harsher light.
“Don’t take another step,” she screams, her arm clutching Lucia tighter.
Lucia’s face is a mask of terror, her eyes on her husband as Olivia backs them toward the SUV. They stumble and I hold my breath as hands that were all over me last night destroy everything, in one foul motion. I am a fucking fool.
“I am going to rip you apart.” All my hatred spills from my lips as she opens the door.
Grey eyes, the color of deceit, meet mine, tears coursing unchecked from them.
“I am so sorry.” Her face cracks as if in pain, but I don’t give a fuck.
“You will be,” I promise, taking another step.
“Stop Alessandrio!” Lucia cries, her face pained.
“Stop,” Emilio croaks from behind me.
Olivia is panicked, her eyes wide, gun shaking as she climbs into the SUV and tugs Lucia in behind her. I fight every urge in my body not to fly down these steps, a desperate need to right a terrible wrong sitting heavy on my shoulders. We watch in terrible silence as Lucia gets behind the wheel, the key still in the ignition from when Lorenzo pulled up. The car starts and she casts us one last heartbroken look before closing the door.
“Fuck,” I roar, the sound shaking the very foundations of the home, disturbing all birds in the trees and cleaving in two the very thing I never thought would ever break—my heart.
The car screams from its place, and that sound is the spell that rips us from our fear. My feet fly down the stairs, toward my van. I don’t wait to see if Emilio is following because I know in my bones he is. When I jump into the driver’s side, I fucking fumble for my key. I fumble. Hands shaking with the betrayal of it all. I cast a look to the house and see Lorenzo shouting down his phone, Donatella clinging to his arm, pale as a sheet.
“Go,” Emilio snarls as he slams the door.
I start the engine and stomp my paw on the gas as my rage hones in on the vehicle reaching the street at the end of their driveway.
“I’m going to rip her to pieces,” I spit, more to myself than to Emilio.
“Not if I do it first,” my brother seethes. “I cannot lose her, Drio.” His voice becomes desperately quiet as he places his arm over his eyes and I feel my heart break even more. “I cannot lose them.”
Them? Cold bleeds into me as I slam the brakes on. Another piece of this shit puzzle falling into place that I was too blinded by my cock to see.
“She’s pregnant?” I ask in terrible disbelief.
He only nods, eyes covered by his arm, mouth set in pain. I am going to fucking kill her. I put my paw down on the accelerator and feel the tires skid beneath us as I laser focus my eyes on the gates ahead. Guilt wracks me. I caused this, allowed her to blind me, to blind us, and now she has just knocked down our home as if it were a house of cards.