Chapter 5 Slava
SLAVA
Ordinarily, torturing a D’Ambrosio Made Man to death—especially one who almost killed me-would’ve brought me immense pleasure.
Not tonight.
Tonight, I’m distracted by more than just the throbbing bullet wound in my shoulder. Because my fucking mind is too busy focused on the woman who wrapped my own tie around it.
Bella.
I run her name across my lips and taste it like it’s something to be savored, and an unwanted rush of heat rushes straight for my dick.
Bella is the kind of girl who can make a modest blouse and knee-length pencil skirt look downright inappropriate. When she’d come into my office for her first interview all those months ago, it was like a wet dream walked through my door.
Her long black hair had been tied up in a ponytail that day. But a few loose strands fell down by her ear, framing her heart-shaped face.
In that moment, the only thing I could think about was how good it might feel to wrap her hair around my fist while her soft pink lips wrap around my cock.
And her eyes.
Fuck…
Big and innocent, they’re a soft brown with flecks of gold hidden behind a layer of cool professional frost. But every once in a while, I’d catch her in a moment where the frost fades to reveal a hunger churning underneath.
Like she can't decide whether she wants to fuck me or kill me.
But I don’t shit where I eat, and I know better than to hire a PR manager just to create a scandal with her that I’ll need her to solve.
Which is why it’s all the more infuriating just how good she is at her fucking job.
Thanks to her, I don't have to think about optics anymore, because she thinks about them for me. She’s managed to front-run every scandal, deflect every piece of bad press, and feed me up from the drudgery of playing the part of billionaire philanthropist so that I can do what I set out to do for the last six years:
Put every motherfucker of the D’Ambrosio Family in the ground.
Including the one currently tied up in a chair in front of me.
"He's not giving us a damn thing." My Avtoritet Alik wipes his knuckles on a bloody rag. “Don Leo trained his dogs well.”
A wet gurgle comes from our victim’s throat in response.
When we got started hours ago, he had a defiant laugh, and the straightest set of bleached-white teeth I’d ever seen.
Now, those teeth are scattered all over the concrete floor, his lips are split in three different places, and each breath sounds like it might be his last.
“Wake him up,” I grunt.
“Suka blyad, Slavochka.” Alik shakes his head. “If he hadn’t talked all night, he’s not about to start now.”
“Just do it, Alik.” I open my fist and close it around the empty air, wishing that I was grabbing something else instead. “This mudak tried to kill me. I want him to suffer.”
Alik curses under his breath, but he does as he is told and grabs an EpiPen from a nearby table. Giving me one final look back as if I’ll change my mind, he then plunges it right into the man’s chest.
The man’s eyes fly open as the epinephrine rushes through his system, and he struggles against the restraints holding him to the chair. This is the third EpiPen we hit him with tonight, and at best it’ll buy us another minute or two of consciousness.
I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted him to suffer.
But it wasn’t because he tried to kill me.
Every time I look down at this man, all I see is Bella’s dark hair spilling across the floor. I can feel the press of her body against mine, and remember the desperate weight of her as she tackled me to the ground.
And when I breathe, I swear I can still smell her scent that made me want to bury my face in the curve of her neck and inhale.
Tonight, I’m more bothered than usual by her. But it’s not by her beauty. Nor her seductive eyes. Nor her singular devotion to her job when she tackled me to the ground as the bullets started flying.
No, it was a defiant jut of her chin. A proud lift that I saw once upon a time, when I had a gun pressed against Luca Farnassi’s head.
A flicker of suspicion rushed through me from the moment I saw Bella repeat the same hated gesture that seared itself into my mind. I wanted to dismiss it as a pure coincidence.
Then I saw her necklace, heard her answer, and knew that God had a cruel sense of humor.
Family heirloom, she said.
Little fucking liar.
I knew exactly where that necklace came from, because I spent months adjusting the design by millimeters, obsessing over proportions until they looked right.
Seven points for the seven months of secrecy. A diamond at the center because she deserved something that would last forever. Gold because silver was too common, too ordinary, and too expected for a woman who had never been any of those things.
Until Luca Farnassi helped take her away from me in the worst way possible, and then stole the necklace for himself.
After killing him, I swore that I would destroy everything Luca ever touched, everything he ever loved, until there was nothing left of his memory but ash.
I hadn’t counted on Bella Creminelli being one of those things that Luca loved.
No, I remind myself. Not Bella Creminelli. Bella Farnassi.
There are too many goddamn coincidences for Bella to be anyone else but Luca’s little sister. To think that I had the final piece of my revenge at my beck and call for months. To think that I’ve spent those same months fantasizing about all the terrible, inappropriate things I wanted to do to her.
And this whole damn time, she’s been wearing my necklace around her throat like a trophy she doesn't know she's carrying.
My cock stirs against my thigh, and I want to put my fist through the concrete wall.
I could have taken it tonight. In the alley, with the chaos as cover, it would have been easy.
Just reach out, unclasp the chain, and let the weight of it fall into my palm. She couldn't have stopped me. She wouldn’t have even understood what was happening until it was already done.
I didn't.
Because taking it by force would have meant nothing. It would’ve been just another theft. And I’m no thief, and I know there’s no satisfaction from taking the necklace from Bella's throat.
I want her to offer it willingly.
I want her to uncover the truth herself. I want her to dig into the past and find the rotten truth. I want her to realize, with her own two eyes, that her brother was a thief and a traitor and a man who deserved exactly what he got.
I want the truth to crack her open slowly and methodically. And then I want her to come to me on her hands and knees.
Not dragged. Not forced. Willingly.
I want her to look me in the eyes and beg me for forgiveness. Then, and only then, will I break her in every way a man can break a woman.
Because punishment is only sweet when the one being punished begs you for it.
My fingers ball into a fist again. This time, I imagine them wrapping around her delicate throat while I fuck her mercilessly.
On my desk. On the floor. In my bed. Against the wall.
Over and over again until those innocent brown eyes flecked with gold start rolling into the back of her head with every thrust.
Fuck.
The sound of Alik’s fists impacting against the D’Ambrosio Made Man snaps me back to present reality, and with it, a fresh clarity dawns.
You see, I’m not pissed off that this man might’ve killed Bella tonight.
I’m pissed off that he might’ve killed her before I had my chance to make her beg me for forgiveness.
"Wrap it up," I say.
Alik looks back at me with an incredulous look on his face. “Now? I just got started working him, Slavochka.”
“We’re done here. He’s not going to tell us anything useful.”
Another string of curses tumbles out of Alik’s mouth. But obedient as ever, he shrugs, draws his pistol, and puts a bullet through the prisoner's skull.
The shot echoes off the concrete walls. Blood and brain matter paint a beautiful abstract pattern across the floor behind the chair. The body slumps, twitches once, goes still.
"Now what?" Alik holsters his weapon.
I check my watch. Just a few more hours until dawn. A few hours until I walk into my office and face a woman who’s been the object of all my twisted fantasies.
A woman who saved my life and whose hands bandaged my wound.
If I really am about to do what I’m going to do, then I need to make sure that I’m targeting the right person.
"I need you to look into someone," I say. “A woman.”
Alik cocks an eyebrow at my request. In all the years that I’ve known him, I have never asked him to investigate a woman before.
“Name?”
"Bella Farnassi.”
A second eyebrow joins the first. “Like Luca Farnassi?”
“The very same.”
“And just what am I supposed to look for?”
Everything, I want to say. Every secret she's buried, every lie she's told, every reason she has to be in my orbit. I want to know what she eats for breakfast and what she looks like when she sleeps and whether she thinks about me when she touches herself at night.
“The exact moment that she became Bella Creminelli.”
Silence descends between us and Alik looks at me like I’ve lost my goddamn mind. And maybe I have. But there’s only one way to find out.
“I have every reason to believe that Ms. Creminelli is Luca’s little sister.” I turn toward the stairs, leaving the body and the blood behind. "You’re going to find out for sure."
“And what will you do if she is?”
I flex my hand again, and I can practically feel both her pulse singing under my fingers and her pussy shuddering around my cock. “I’m going to make her pay for the crime her brother committed against me.”