Chapter 12 Noemi #2
Cassio’s words play on a loop in my head.
Shots were fired on the east docks. I grew up in the mafia.
I know what a sit-down with Capos means when territory is being breached.
It means war councils. It means arming soldiers, planning retaliatory strikes, and sending men out into the dark to bleed for a stretch of concrete and water.
I hate this world. I have spent my entire life despising the violence, despising my father for choosing power over his family, and despising the men who treat death like a business transaction.
I should be hoping Cassio doesn't come back.
If the Russians put a bullet in his head tonight, I would be a widow. I would be free. The cage doors would open, and I could go back to the miserable, quiet life I had before.
But as the grandfather clock in the hallway chimes midnight, and the storm rages on outside, I find myself standing by the window, my arms wrapped tightly around my chest, staring down at the sweeping driveway, waiting for his armored Maybach to appear through the rain.
The realization makes me feel physically sick.
I am worried about him.
The monster who forced me into his bed, the tyrant who destroyed my way out and locked me in a tower, is out there in the dark, and a sick, twisted part of my soul is terrified that he won't come home.
You begged me for it. I press my forehead against the cold glass, closing my eyes. I am broken. My father was right, I am a corrupted, twisted thing. Only a deeply broken woman would crave the very man who holds the key to her cell.
At 1:45 AM, the heavy iron gates at the bottom of the driveway slowly swing open.
Headlights cut through the torrential rain. Two black SUVs pull in first, followed by Cassio’s Maybach, and a third SUV bringing up the rear. It’s a full tactical convoy.
My heart leaps into my throat.
I step away from the window and practically run to the penthouse doors, pulling them open. The two night-shift guards in the corridor jump, their hands hovering near their weapons, but I ignore them. I stand at the glass railing of the second floor, looking down into the foyer.
A minute later, the front doors burst open.
A half-dozen made men spill into the entryway, their suits are soaked with rain, their voices are sharp and adrenaline-laced. Matteo is among them, barking orders into a radio.
And then, Cassio walks in.
He looks exhausted. The pristine, calculating Don who left this morning is gone. His suit jacket is missing. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead with rain and sweat.
But it isn't the exhaustion that makes the breath completely vanish from my lungs.
It’s the blood.
The left side of his crisp white dress shirt is completely saturated in deep, dark crimson. It stains his collar, smeared across his ribs, a wet, heavy red that stands out like a beacon against the white fabric.
A raw, involuntary sound escapes my throat.
Cassio freezes. Even amidst the chaos of his soldiers and the ringing of Matteo’s radio, his head snaps up. His pitch-black eyes find me instantly, standing at the top of the stairs, gripping the glass railing so hard my knuckles are white.
The noise in the foyer seems to fade away.
Cassio doesn't say a word to his men. He simply waves a hand, a dismissive gesture, and walks past them. He climbs the floating staircase, his heavy boots leave faint, watery red footprints on the glass steps.
I can't move. I am paralyzed by the sight of the blood, my mind is racing with a hundred horrific scenarios.
He reaches the top of the stairs and stops in front of me. Up close, the metallic, sickeningly sweet smell of copper and rain is overwhelming. His chest is heaving.
"Are you..." I start, my voice comes out in a pathetic, trembling whisper. I raise a shaking hand, hovering it an inch over the soaked, crimson fabric of his shirt. "Are you shot?"
Cassio looks down at my trembling fingers. He reaches up and catches my hand in his. His right hand is clean, but his left hand is stained with drying red.
"It's not my blood, Noemi," he whispers.
The relief that crashes over me is so profound that my knees actually weaken.
Cassio sees it. He sees the sheer terror in my eyes morph into staggering relief, and a complicated emotion flares in his gaze.
"The Bratva hit a warehouse on the south end," he tells me quietly, his thumb stroking the back of my hand. "They tried to take the shipping manifest for next week's cargo. We caught them inside."
"You killed them," I whisper, stating the obvious. The blood on his shirt didn't come from a polite conversation.
"Every last one of them," he confirms, his tone is utterly devoid of remorse.
He releases my hand and steps closer. He is careful not to press the bloody side of his chest against me, but he reaches up with his clean hand and cups my cheek. His palm is warm.
"I told you it wasn't a game," Cassio murmurs, his dark eyes searching mine. "The war is here. And you are staying exactly where I put you."
He drops his hand and walks past me, heading straight for the penthouse.
I stand in the hallway for a long moment, listening to the heavy, receding thud of his boots.