Chapter 45
LEV
Alessio. Fucking. Vitale.
He was there. He snuck up on her when I was ten fucking feet away.
The front doors of the mansion slam shut in my rush to escape, no exact destination in mind. All I want is to hunt his ass down and make sure he never breathes near her again. First, I’ll lock her in a room so she can’t go through with her insane plan
I need away from this place—from her—before doing something stupid, more so than what I already have. Before my skin literally crawls from my skin—which is scientifically impossible—because that is what it feels like. For half my life, I’ve been uncomfortable in my own skin, but right now…blyat.
Doesn’t help that final words will trigger Vanessa’s suspicion.
One. Two. One.
That’s the thing with Serafina. She robs me of my goddamn ability to think. To process. To evaluate. Everything that’s kept me alive and sane for twenty-seven years, gone with a single bat of her fucking eyes, her eyes that are the precise shade I spent years searching for.
I spoke, forgetting about the numerous people around, because caring about anything beyond her marrying that asshole was impossible. Her standing at an alter in front of him, speaking vows that ties her to him, wearing a wedding dress for him, his ring on her finger.
It’s all too much. The image alone is pure static.
One. Two. One.
I pace by my car, every muscle urging me inside it, to drive until locating him. After I tear every soldier in our employment apart to uncover the rat, I’ll rip Vitale’s location out of him before I yank his fucking heart out.
I’ve never felt like this before. This…desperate. Like a field of magnetic energy has exploded inside me with no proper place to be unleashed. Directionless, uncontrollable, deadly.
The kind of deadly Papa would be proud of. Finally, I’m living up to his expectations.
He stuck me in prison to make me this way, when reality was, all it took was a scrap of a woman named Serafina Mancini. She’s the Cosa Nostra’s greatest weapon, because she can control me with a single gesture, and no one even realizes how dangerous she is.
My heart drops to dust at my feet, my mind uncaring about how illogical and impossible that metaphor is. Without my heart, I’ll die.
It’s suitable, when considering the future Serafina’s designed for herself in there.
One. Two. One.
I should have seen it, should have picked up on it. Serafina returned from the bathroom, spooked out of her mind, and refused to talk.
Because I was so focused on making her happy, her safety slipped up.
This is why I shouldn’t have gotten involved.
Why I should have kept my dick in my pants, my hands to myself.
I’m compromised, and now, instead of witnessing my Pakhan’s half-sister wed, I’ll be watching her—Fina—moya printessa—tie herself to someone who’ll hurt her.
I’ll be witnessing my nightmares come to life.
One. Two. One.
One. Two. One.
One. Two. One.
No amount of tapping or counting makes this tolerable.
Feet scrape over the gravel behind me, catching up as I reach the garage without a location in mind.
Even before she speaks, I know it’s Anastasia.
We’re twins, for fuck’s sake. As much as I’m unaware about so much in life, we’ve spent nearly every waking breath together. She knows me better than anyone else.
“Lev…what the fuck?”
While I’ve never directly admitted my struggles to her, I once asked if her head feels staticky, and she only replied with a pitiful expression.
It’s the same expression she’s looking at me now with, as my hands lift into my hair and yank. I yank out every thought of Serafina, everything wrong with me. I yank and yank until the fuzziness in my brain smooths, and for fucking once, I’m normal.
Serafina makes me feel normal. How can that sensation continue when she’ll be wearing another man’s ring, only to make him a widower by the night’s end when she fails at assassinating him, so he takes her life?
There’s no rational explanation for my behaviour in Vanessa’s office, or an answer to Anastasia’s question.
If I turn and face her, she’ll spot the truth for herself, and maybe that’s necessary.
If someone’s aware, they’ll understand why containing myself during the wedding I vowed would never happen will be unbearable.
Serafina will be marrying another man while I watch. It’s like those stupid, dramatic reality shows she enjoys. Except this will be my reality. Cold, hard, and shitty.
My sister’s hand rests on my shoulder. She pushes down, silently asking me to turn. “I told myself I was delusional. That you wouldn’t do that. But I saw it. This whole time, I saw it. In my gut, I knew. You don’t believe in twin bonds, but Lev, I fucking knew.”
As exhausting as it is to still lie about this, I mumble. “What are you talking about?”
“You care about her.”
“Of course. She’s my job. She’s Vanessa’s—”
“Nyet.” Her sneakers scrape over the gravel as she rounds me, forcing me to face her.
“No, you care for her. You were different returning from Italy. For the first time in a long time—maybe ever—there was life in your eyes. I nearly didn’t recognize you, my own brother, but damn, I’ve never been happier to see a stranger. When did it start?”
“I didn’t touch her in Rome, if that’s what you were asking.”
“There was something about you both. Tonight, the way you looked at her…and Serafina—she gravitates to you. You realize you’ll have to tell Zeno and Vanessa?”
“They’ve likely figured it out by now.” Which means the feeling of dying if Serafina walks that aisle may be my impending reality when they take their shot at me.
Yet, it was all worth it to have her, even for a short time.
Her lips purse with consideration. She finally drops her hand from my shoulder and leans back on the garage’s siding with a deep sigh. “You’ll have to let her do this.”
“Never.”
“I hate it too. There’s so much that could go wrong, but Zeno’s tried everything, and short of murdering him outright, the Mancinis have to play this smart. If she thinks she can kill him and end this, it’s not our place to forbid her. Not your place. She’s Cosa Nostra, for better or for worse.”
“She’s part-Bratva,” I snap, knowing my argument is weak at best.
“Which means she can succeed,” she counters, her voice soft. She reaches for my face, tipping my head down, a touch she would never have dared before today, and I don’t have the energy to brush her off. “She’s strong, Lev. You won’t let anything happen to her.”
I already have. If I paid better attention, he wouldn’t have gotten to her—twice.
“If something does? If he realizes her plan too soon? He’ll kill her. He’ll—” Numerous images bombard me at once, choking me up, the static returning tenfold.
Serafina on the bed, throat sliced, blood staining the white sheets.
Serafina, her lifeless eyes forever directed at the ceiling, his handprint bruising her throat.
Or worse: Serafina being kept alive, forced to endure the madman who’ll spend their entire marriage taking her any way he demands.
“He won’t. She’ll stop him before then. You think any of us will let it get that far?”
More steps approach behind us, the gravel being kicked out of the way.
Like I assumed it was my sister earlier, I know who’s nearing without checking.
It’s in her slow and cautious tread, uncertain what she’s walking into.
Then, there’s the energy emitting from her and the way my body knows. How my head instantly quiets.
Anastasia drops her hands with a final look and walks away. She murmurs something I don’t catch, leaving me alone with the woman who’s destroyed me numerous ways in this single night.
“Lev—”
I don’t recall moving, but suddenly, she’s crushed in my arms, my mouth on hers, the fact that Vanessa’s office window overlooks this part of the property not even the slightest consideration as I back her into the garage’s wall.
This is fixation. When my head won’t focus on anything else, she consumes my every thought, awake and asleep. Obsession, right here in my arms.
And she’s threatening to take it all away.
Almost immediately, she breaks from my kiss with a sound of impatience. “Lev.”
The last time she talked, she ripped out my heart. Who knows what she’ll take this time? I won’t survive another round.
I hoist her up, wrapping her legs around my waist, ensuring she’s safe. In my arms, he won’t touch her. I won’t let her down, won’t let her ever go.
“Lev…stop,” she murmurs against my mouth.
“No,” I growl, taking her mouth as my hands reposition her dress, pushing it further up her thighs to slot myself between them.
“No, you will not do this. You will not marry him. You won’t…
you won’t…” My arguments fade as I’m left with nothing but my own emotions to battle with.
“You’re not walking down the aisle to him. ”
“I have to.” The whisper sounds like she’s shouting my demise from a cliff. Her demise, which will later lead to mine when I go on a rampage and wipe out every Vitale breathing. As long as I get Alessio before others take me down.
“I promised, Fina. I fucking promised no one here would let you marry him. Days ago, when you were in the basement, you remember?”
“I do.”
She just had to use those words?
“Then you’ll understand why you can’t. I vowed no one would let you go—that I wouldn’t let you marry him. I promised to kill him before it came to that.”
I still will. Vanessa will stress about potentially initiating war, and she’ll be pissed, but she’s already angry after realizing I did the one thing with Serafina she asked me not to. At this point, my Pakhan’s anger is at the bottom of my list of concerns.
“I’ll do it,” I mumble into the base of her throat. “I’ll march every soldier in our employ into his territory to ensure you don’t walk down the aisle.”
“The issue is I know you would. He could strike first, and people I care about will be at risk. I won’t lose you.”
“You’re asking me to do the same.”