Chapter 13
DANTE
She passed out thirty minutes ago, and despite my disdain for whatever show she’s watching—it's nothing more than women flashing around their money without class—I’ve had no desire to move.
I find her not-so-quiet snore from a blocked nose rather cute. She’s dead weight against me, and so unguarded. It’s different from her usual facades of indifference or irritation. My cock jumps at the thought of her scathing tongue, but she's something different right now, here in my arms.
Something that, dare I say, I have the urge to selfishly protect so no one else gets to see this side of her.
My interest in her only grows by the day.
I don’t understand it, nor do I justify any of the things I find fascinating about her.
I just pursue them, and I always get what I want.
Once I’m done with her, I’ll most likely discard her like all my other toys.
I wanted to worm my way deeper into my brother's personal world, simply so I could destroy it from the inside out.
She was supposed to be nothing more than a stepping stone on my way to that goal, and yet here she is with her head on my chest, snoring like a bear, holding a tiny dog on her chest. And I want to protect her?
From what? Me?
Borris raises his head, as if feeling my insult, and licks his lips, giving me the eye.
“You’re not getting another treat,” I say to the ever-demanding dog. His appetite seems to be bottomless. “Come on, time to put her to bed.” He jumps to the floor as I slowly work around her, as carefully as I might when operating or torturing, depending on what room I’m in.
I then pick her up and wonder if this is what a "normal" life would look like. Returning to a home where I’d have a wife. Maybe children, because that's the social expectation. Could I have that if I were to truly hide and shun my demon and finalize becoming a surgeon?
Pressing her closely to my chest bridal-style, I carry her to her bedroom. I nudge open her door, and am disgusted by the pigsty she lives in. How the fuck does she move around all of these clothes?
I tuck her into bed, my eyes narrowing on what appears to be a stuffed llama.
The fuck is this woman still doing with a stuffie?
Yet the moment her head hits the pillow, she rolls over, mumbles something, and scoops it into her arms. My eye twitches.
Yeah, I'm fucking jealous of such a small, insignificant stuffed toy.
Borris jumps up onto the bed and lies near her feet. I begin scooping the clothes off the floor because I can’t fucking stand the mess. I throw them into the hamper, then find myself dragging it out to the kitchen with the intention of doing her laundry.
I do, however, hover at the door as I leave, watching her as she sleeps. She's beautiful in every way. So innocent right now, which appeals to a primitive part of me I’ve never explored before.
Is this what normality could taste like?
Watching over the same woman until we grow old together?
The thought always revolted me, and I never considered I’d last long enough to reach the "silver fox" era of my life—and I would undoubtedly be a silver fox. I’ve just never much thought about what my future might actually look like—until now.
I close the door, leaving it slightly ajar, and put the laundry in, separating the whites and colors. My phone starts buzzing, and I look down. I expected it to be one of the hounds. I even hoped for an order from Luca because some shit was finally going down. But it’s my brother.
I consider not answering, knowing it would piss him off. Then again, my voice is the thing that pisses him off the most these days.
I’m smirking as I answer. “Miss me already, big brother?”
“Still an ignorant little shit, I see,” Lorenzo responds.
“Did you really think New York was going to change me?”
“No. But I was hoping a few weeks on the job might.”
Oh, my sweet, delusional brother. Thought of himself as a hero for providing me with what he considered a "better" life. He was kidding himself if he thought the way we were raised didn’t instill bloodlust in me the way it did him.
But perhaps he thought giving me another outlet for cutting people open would appease me.
For a time, I tried to convince myself of the same.
For fucking years, I played happy-go-lucky student and doctor. It fucking grated on my nerves until I finally snapped, and I loathe my brother for it. And he has the audacity to think I’d actually run back home with my tail between my legs after being handed this opportunity?
“Are you kidding me? I haven’t had this much fun in ages. Well, not since the last massacre, anyway.” There’s a pause on the other end. I knew that would get to him. It’s a taboo topic we don’t discuss, but I’m more than happy to go over the finer details.
Lorenzo thought he’d gotten me out of shit in my early twenties when I attacked and killed a group of people. Little does he know that event was what grabbed Luca’s attention, and I’d been working small jobs for him until he promoted me to Lorenzo's old position.
Lorenzo, however, tried to dissuade me from that bloody life as he "cleaned up" my connection to the massacre. Had I been honest about why I murdered them, it might’ve changed the trajectory of our relationship.
But I was so fucking offended after all those years of him leaving to follow Luca to New York and reappearing only to treat me like an annoying younger brother, even though I'm only four years younger than him. So, I simply told him I did it for fun.
I let him take care of my mess because, truthfully, it’s a lot of work hiding bodies, and if he was willing to do it for free, then I was going to let him. But that’s when he directed me toward being a surgeon. The only one who has been in denial about my true nature is him.
He's nothing but a hypocrite, as if I’m the vulgar one when he’s literally been doing this for years longer than me. The difference is, now I get paid full-time for it.
Luca has never given up on or shunned me.
My own blood, however, is quick to look down on the monster I really am.
“Killing sprees are reckless. They create more cleanup and show immaturity. And—”
I cut him off. “Oh, Lorenzo, you’ll just never get it, will you?” I wedge the phone between my ear and shoulder as I pour in laundry detergent. “I’m not you. Have no intention of ever having a pole up my ass and panting over my master.”
“Don’t speak about Luca like that. Show some respect,” he growls.
“Oh, I do respect him and his position. It’s you and your tactics I don’t care for. If you’re trying to convince me to finish my final year of residency again, give up now, Lorenzo. I’d hate to be really pissed off with you. Who knows what I might do? You know, because I’m so reckless.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
I turn on the washing machine and then begin to clean up the kitchen counter.
“Just remember that, while you and your woman might be in Italy, there’s still plenty here you’ve left behind for me to destroy. Don’t piss me off.”
“You’re in over your head if you think you have any leg to stand on with which to threaten me,” he snarls. “Let me assure you, if you try to break anything linked to Lily or bring her the slightest discomfort, I will hurt you.”
I laugh, noticing the way he threatens to hurt instead of kill.
It’s Lorenzo’s weakness, but since he also hasn’t tried to convince me to return to my previous life yet, I’m assuming he’s called for another reason.
“I’m rather busy on a cleanup job right now, Lorenzo, so unless you have something exciting to add, I’m hanging up. ”
I lift Romi’s handbag to wipe underneath it, and an envelope sticking out of it catches my attention.
My lack of morals is on full display as I open the envelope and peek inside.
I’m smiling as I see what looks like photos of Romi with vibrant red hair as a child and then a teen.
It’s very much her. Even when she’s wearing nice dresses, she’s got dirt on her knees.
She most likely gave the boys hell, even back then.
I continue flicking through the photos, studying each of them as my brother continues to speak.
“Want to explain to me why I’ve uncovered information about a small group of Bratva members who were murdered a few months ago?
There are rumors going around about a boogeyman who uses scalpels as weapons, creating wounds and then stitching them back up as a torture method.
No one here knows anything about it, simply that they found the bodies and began cleaning up so it wasn’t linked to them. Sounds pretty extreme.”
“Sounds like they really pissed someone off,” I reply, giving nothing away.
My brother, for as irritating as he is, is very perceptive.
I should’ve known that somehow he’d dig up every little bit of information in a matter of weeks.
I’m not entirely sure why Luca’s kept my involvement secret, but part of me wonders if it’s because of his loyalty to Lorenzo. Although what Luca says goes.
It irks me to admit the two are close. Lorenzo would never agree to my involvement. But even then, I can’t imagine Luca making it so personal—not when it comes to his empire. So, there must be something else I’m missing. Either way, I don’t care. I receive a task, and I complete it. End of story.
“Anyway, I don’t know what this has to do with me, but if that’s all, I’m hanging up.”
“What were you thinking, provoking the Bratva like that?” he questions. “This is different from when you were twenty and went on a massacre. This can jeopardize—”
I hang up. Snooze. I won't willingly listen to another one of my brother's self-righteous lectures. And though he’s right about it drawing the wrong kind of attention, I remain quiet about the fact that everything has been orchestrated by his—our—boss all along.
I pause at a photo of Romi and an older gentleman. Her father, perhaps? Interesting. He looks like a farmer of sorts, with a dusty long-sleeved shirt and a cowboy hat. But what draws me in is the proud smile she has, wearing a leather jacket that at the time was slightly too big for her.
The next photo is of her on a pink four-wheeler, showing what looks like a fucking bedazzled llama on the back of the jacket. That is very her.
I slip the photos back into the envelope, thoughtfully. I wonder if she’d still wear a bedazzled llama on her back now as an adult. And I conclude that she definitely would. There’s not much I could imagine the little spitfire being embarrassed by.
Another thought crosses my mind. And I smile, because who am I to deny myself such a good time?