Chapter 32 Francesco
FRANCESCO
The engine growls beneath me as I tear down the long drive toward the estate gates, tires screeching against gravel.
My hands grip the wheel so tight the leather creaks, and I barely register when I leave the compound or the turns I’m making as I drive onto the main road.
All I see is her face as she fell to her knees before him and that goddamn look in Marco’s eyes as he held her.
Did she choose him because she loves him? Because she wants the life he can give her? Or did she choose to survive?
The questions won’t stop spinning through my head.
I heard Marco before the Rite, begging her to fake it—to lie. So even if it was all just an act… why does it still feel like she left me behind?
I slam the gas harder, trying to rid her face from my head.
The only thing that should matter to me now is my mission. La Mano Nera’s Reckoning Ceremony is coming fast. I should focus on the lead I’ve been putting off for a few days, the one I was saving until after all this madness with the ritual.
He’s a man in the south sector. A rat with a record and a grudge, who used to run numbers for the Elders’ tax laundering scheme.
He reached out through a broker. He didn’t give me his name or anything to identify him with, but he claimed he had proof—names, documents, dates, everything important I need—that could rip the entire Society apart like a throat slit clean.
Right now, I need that fire.
I take the long route, winding through the back end of the city where the air gets thicker and rougher.
Tall buildings made of glass and marble give way to cracked brick and rusted iron fences.
Potholes litter the road. Streetlights flicker, casting a dim glow over the cracked sidewalks.
I pass old shops, a liquor store with bars on every window, and a gas station blinking with only one half-lit “O” in “OPEN.”
My grip on the steering wheel hasn’t loosened since I started driving. My hands hurt, and my knuckles are pale white.
That’s when I feel it—the cold curl of instinct at the base of my neck.
I glance in the rearview mirror and spot a black car three lengths behind me. The windows are tinted, and the headlights are off.
I take an unnecessary left turn.
So does the car.
I curse under my breath and take another. Then another. They still follow.
Motherfuckers.
I swerve right, picking up speed.
“This is not the fucking time for this,” I mutter, my eyes flashing back to the mirror.
My tires scream as I veer off the main road and cut through an alley lined with rusted dumpsters and chain-link gates. The car keeps pace, faster now.
They’re not trying to tail me discreetly anymore.
“All right,” I mutter, anger building in my chest. “You want a fucking game? Let’s play.”
I hit the gas and shoot out into an old junkyard, my engine howling as I weave between containers and piles of debris. It’s a dead end to anyone who doesn’t know the layout, but I grew up breaking bones in places like this.
I take a sharp turn around a bent cargo trailer, forcing the car to follow my path blindly.
Then I slam on my brakes. Hard. My tires shriek.
Their car flies past me before they can stop.
The second I’m behind them, I slam the gas and ram straight into the back of their car from behind.
The metal crunch is brutal and satisfying.
Their vehicle jerks sideways, tires shrieking before it slams into a stack of rusted barrels.
Smoke hisses from their hood.
I kill the engine and throw my door open, gun drawn before my boots even hit the ground.
I get three steps closer before the first bullet flies.
BANG!
“Shit!”
I duck behind the side of a nearby container. Metal pings and clangs around me. Bullets slice through the air. I peek through the corner to see one fully masked man rushing toward my hideout. He fires off shots, destroying my tires. The bastards weren’t following to scare me. They came to kill.
“Two can play, assholes,” I hiss, peering out long enough to fire three rounds back. He screams, a short, sharp sound followed by a crash. I got him in the leg, the shoulder, and the chest. He twitches on the floor before his body gives out.
But I’m not satisfied yet. I still have a few more to kill.
From my hiding spot behind the container, I fire bullets that shatter the windows of their car and bathe the metal in holes.
That’s when the two other men scramble out of the car. One runs across the empty space in the middle of the junkyard, angling left. The other bolts straight toward the yard gates.
I break cover and sprint after the one weaving toward a hidden corner. He ducks behind a pile of junk metal, firing wildly behind him. Bullets hit the ground near my feet, but he’s panicked, so his aim is shit.
Annoyance slithers up my veins. These are who they sent to come after me? Fucking amateurs? What a waste of my time.
I slide behind a stack of pipes, flanking him from the side. The moment I catch sight of his back, I rush him. He turns, and his eyes widen as I slam into him full force, tackling him to the dirt.
We hit the ground hard. His elbow catches my side. I grunt, grab his wrist, and twist until I hear the crunch of bone.
“Ah!” He screams, continuously digging his good elbow into the side of my stomach. I don’t register the full pain shooting up my spine as I rip his pistol from his hand and smash the butt into his temple once, twice. Blood splashes on my face.
“Please…” he chokes.
I place the barrel of his own gun at the opening of his ear and silence his annoying voice with a shot through his skull.
I shove his dead weight off my body and immediately scramble to my feet.
My ears pick up the sound of gravel shifting, and I turn just in time to duck another swing. The third guy is on me, knife in hand, slashing wildly. I block him with my forearm, and the silver blade glints under the moonlight just before it bites into my flesh.
Pain shoots up my arm as I slam my left fist into his gut.
He doubles over. I immediately grab the back of his neck and drive my knee up into his face.
He groans as I knee him again until I feel the crack of bone.
Blood pours from his nose, but he desperately lunges for me again.
The knife slashes in the air, just a hair’s breadth away from my eyes.
“Fucking bastard,” I snarl, twisting behind him.
He claws at my jacket and tries to push the knife up to stab me again, but I lift his heavy body and slam him into a stack of crates behind us, sending the whole thing crashing down with a sickening crunch.
I groan as my body collapses hard against the ground. The slimy bastard uses the brief destabilizing moment to start crawling away from me.
He yelps in pain when I grab a fistful of his long hair and pull him back. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
His answer is an incoherent gurgle as I drive his blade into his neck. Once. Twice. Three times.
Blood spatters on the concrete; he twitches, then goes limp in my arms.
I blow out a heavy breath and start to make my way toward the car again, which seems empty by the look of things. But as I take one more step closer, I see the driver’s door open.
The last one is younger than the others—early twenties, maybe.
Their driver, the person who led these men to me in the first place.
I grit my teeth in anger. He stumbles out of the open door, breathing heavily as he leans against the side of the car.
From the way he’s bleeding, I can tell at least one of the bullets I fired at the car earlier hit him.
He raises his head, and the second he spots me coming closer, he makes a break toward the fence.
He’s younger, so he’s fast.
But he’s not trained.
My feet pound on the ground as I chase after him, hot on his heels. On reaching the chain-link fence, he starts to climb. That slows him down, and I catch up just before he crosses over to the other side.
I grab one of his legs and pull. I see the barrel of a gun pointed at me a little bit too late. A groan slips past my lips as I feel a bullet graze my shoulder.
My blood roars as I climb over his back and tackle him to the ground. His gun skids across the ground.
We roll, fists swinging. He lands a punch to my jaw. I grunt, tasting copper. I slam my elbow into his ribs, grab a fistful of his hair, and smash his face into the curb. Once.
I resist the urge to do it again.
I need one man alive to answer my questions.
“Who sent you?” I growl, pulling his head back by his hair.
“Please,” he rasps, “please, I was just… just following orders, man. I was j-just driving.”
I drag his body up and slam him against the fence.
“Give me a name, and who knows?” I tip my head to the side. “I might leave you with your limbs still attached to your body.”
He pants, eyes wild. “It-it was them.”
My blood runs cold. The Elders. Of course, they never hesitate to send their petty thieves anonymously when they don’t want to get their hands dirty.
“They knew something was going on,” he stammers. “You and the girl, they have been watching the both of you. They had eyes in the house, always watching you. After the trial… after she walked… it was confirmed that she was compromised.”
Why should she be compromised if she—
What did she do?
I slam his head against the fence again. “Where is she? What did they do?”
His voice drops into something quieter. Meaner. Almost smug.
“She’s gone.”
I slide my hand around his neck, and a dark, twisted smile spreads across his face.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to me now. You were too busy sulking and licking your wounds to notice. They took her immediately after the rite was completed. From the Romano house, where they sent her to wait for their verdict. From under your nose. She’s probably dead by now.”
My vision goes red.
My hand tightens around his neck, and slowly, his smug smile transforms into a grimace.
His eyes pop open, his face turns blue as I clench my fingers around his neck, cutting off his air supply.
His eyes dart back and forth uncontrollably as his hands come up to claw above my hands on his neck. But it’s useless.
I watch the life disappear from his wide-open eyes before his body slumps.
Then I stagger back. Hands shaking. Chest heaving.
Standing in the middle of a graveyard I just made with my own hands, blood on my face, pain buzzing like static in every limb, and her name beating in my skull like a heartbeat.
Lia.
They took her.
A scream tears out of my throat, raw and animal, my rage exploding from a place so deep I didn’t know it existed. I grab the nearest steel crate and hurl it at the fence, causing the impact to shudder through the yard.
I fall to my knees, fists pressed to the cold ground, my eyes burning and lungs heaving.
She can’t be gone. She’s not gone.
I swear to every god this cursed Society pretends to worship—
I’ll burn every last one of them down to get her back.