Chapter 8 #2
Her hand lifted so people can admire the ring.
Her mouth saying yes.
Something vicious twists through my chest.
Did he pressure her? Corner her? Feed her whatever lies he had to in order to make her agree? Or did she accept him willingly? Did she look at him and decide I was the monster she needed saving from?
My hand curls into a fist.
No.
I refuse to believe she chose this.
Elizabeth is mine. She was mine before Russo ever touched her world, and she’ll still be mine when I rip his apart.
I turn back to the room. “I want eyes on every property he owns between Naples and Bari. I want the names of everyone involved in planning this wedding. Anyone who’s spoken to her. Anyone who’s seen her. Anyone who can tell me whether she’s being watched, guarded, or kept on a leash.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“And get me photos.”
“Photos, sir?”
“Of her.” My voice goes colder. “Recent ones.”
Because I need to see her face. I need to know if she looks frightened. If she looks trapped. If there’s any sign at all that she wants out.
And if she doesn’t…
I shut that thought down before it can finish forming.
One of the men clears his throat. “What’s the plan?”
A smile almost pulls at my mouth but there is no humor in it.
“The plan,” I say, “is to remind Dante Russo that there are consequences for stealing from me.”
I reach for the bottle of whiskey set out on the hotel bar, pour two fingers into a glass, and throw it back without tasting it. The burn does nothing. There isn’t enough alcohol in Italy to touch what’s moving through me right now.
Engaged.
The word keeps echoing in my skull like a gunshot. She’s engaged. And in two weeks, he means to stand in front of God and whatever gathering of parasites passes for high society in his world and claim her as his wife.
Over my dead body.
No…
Over his.
I set the glass down harder than necessary, the crystal cracking beneath my hand.
“Book nothing in my name,” I say. “No official channels. No family contacts in Bari. Russo doesn’t hear so much as a whisper that I’m here until I want him to.”
“You’re going yourself?”
I look at him like he’s a fool.
“Did you think I’d miss it?”
Silence. Then, “No, Boss.”
I nod once. “Good. Because when I show up, I want the timing to be perfect.”
I can already see it. The ceremony. The guests turning in their seats. The priest pausing mid-prayer. Russo looking up and realizing too late that the man he thought was an ocean away is standing in the same room.
And Elizabeth—
My pulse pounds harder.
Elizabeth seeing me.
Shock on her face. Relief, maybe. Fury, if she thinks I abandoned her. Tears, if she still remembers what we were before everything burned.
I’ll take any of it.
Anything but indifference.
I step closer to the table and brace my hands on the back of a chair, leaning into the tension pulling at my spine. “He wants a wedding?”
No one answers. I lift my head.
“Fine,” I say softly. “Then let him plan one. I just hope he understands it’s going to end in blood.”
The information starts coming in within hours.
At first it’s names, addresses, schedules—dry details that mean nothing until they mean everything.
The florist they hired. The church Russo’s family has used for generations.
The jeweler who designed her ring. The seamstress handling last-minute alterations.
My men build the wedding piece by piece until I can see the whole thing in my head like I’ve already lived it.
Then the photos start arriving.
The first one comes three days after I land in Naples.
I’m sitting in the hotel suite with a glass of whiskey in my hand when a man steps inside and offers me an envelope like he’s handing over a death sentence. Maybe he is.
I take it, tear it open, and slide the photograph into my hand.
Elizabeth is standing in a kitchen I recognize from Russo’s house.
Wide marble counters. Copper pans hanging against white stone.
Morning light spilling through enormous windows.
And beside her is an older woman I’ve only heard about in whispers and reports—Teresa.
Russo’s aunt. The woman practically raised him.
They’re baking.
Baking.
Flour dusts Elizabeth’s cheek. Her short hair is pulled back carelessly, a few loose strands framing her face, and she’s laughing at something Teresa said. Really laughing. Head tipped slightly back. Eyes bright. One hand wrapped around a rolling pin like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
I stare at the photo until my grip bends the corner.
“She seems comfortable,” the man says carefully.
Comfortable. The word nearly makes me black out with rage.
Comfortable in Russo’s home. Comfortable with his family.
Comfortable enough to smile like that while I’ve been tearing through cities trying to find her.
I should feel relieved she’s alive. That she’s safe.
That she isn’t caged, bruised, drugged, or begging to be rescued.
Instead, all I can feel is something hot and filthy crawling up my throat.
I set the glass down before I shatter it in my hand. “Get out.”
He doesn’t hesitate.
The second the door shuts, I look at the photo again.
Teresa’s hand is on Elizabeth’s shoulder like she already belongs there.
I think of Elizabeth in my kitchen. In my house. In the life that should have been mine.
Then I think of Russo seeing her like this—soft, smiling, warm—and something murderous settles deeper into my bones.
The next photo arrives four days later.
There’s a boutique window in the background.
White silk mannequins. Lace. Satin. A little gold placard with a designer’s name I don’t give a fuck about.
Elizabeth is stepping out the front door with two women beside her, one of them Teresa, the other some dark-haired assistant or friend.
Garment bags are being loaded into the back of an SUV.
Wedding dress shopping.
For one long second, I can’t breathe.
She’s wearing an oversized cream sweater that makes her looked washed out. There’s no smile on her face this time. Not exactly. But she isn’t crying either. She isn’t fighting. She isn’t looking around like she’s searching for help.
She looks calm.
And somehow that’s worse. Because fear I know how to handle. Fear I can fix. If Russo were forcing her, I could tear his world apart and drag her out of it knowing exactly what I was fighting.
But this? This quiet acceptance? It poisons everything.
I flip the photo over, jaw clenched so hard I hear it crack.
“What else?” I ask.
“The fitting is tomorrow. Russo’s people locked the place down.”
“Then buy someone.”
“We tried.”
I look up.
The man straightens. “We’re still trying, Boss.”
I stand and cross to the window, the city glittering below me like a field of knives. “Try harder.”
He leaves fast after that.
I keep the photo. I don’t know why. Maybe to punish myself.
Maybe to study every line of her face until I can figure out what she’s thinking.
Maybe because some sick part of me needs proof that this is real—that Elizabeth is here, alive, breathing, preparing to become Dante Russo’s wife while I stand on the sidelines like a man already dead.
The last photo comes on the eve of the wedding.
By then I haven’t slept properly in days. I’ve memorized routes in and out of Bari. I know the church, the guest list, the floor plan of the reception hall, the names of the men on Russo’s security detail. I know where the snipers will likely be posted if he’s smart.
He is smart.
But not smart enough.
When my man walks in with the final envelope, I know by his face I’m not going to like what’s inside.
I take it anyway.
And there they are.
Standing in the entry hall of Russo’s house.
Elizabeth is in a pale dress, something soft and elegant.
She looks like the eve of a wedding should look on her—beautiful, luminous, almost unreal.
Dante Russo is standing in front of her, his arms around her waist like he has every right in the world.
His head is bent toward her, his mouth near her temple, and though the photo is silent, intimacy pours off it like blood from a wound.
Elizabeth’s hands are resting over his shoulders. Not pushing him away. Not clawing at him. Resting there. Like she lets him touch her.
Everything in me goes still. Then the glass in my hand explodes and whiskey and blood hit the floor together.
I don’t feel the shards cutting into my palm.
I barely feel the warm trickle of blood sliding down my wrist. All I can see is Russo’s hand on her skin.
Russo’s mouth near her ear. Russo holding what belongs to me as if he’s already won.
As if tomorrow is a formality.
My voice comes out so low it doesn’t sound human. “Leave.”
My men don’t wait to be told twice. The suite empties. The door shuts. Silence crashes down around me, thick and unbearable.
I stare at the photo again.
He’s touching her like he knows her. Like he’s earned softness from her.
Baking with his aunt.
Shopping for his wedding.
Standing in his house on the night before he puts a ring on her hand in front of God and every bastard who matters.
A laugh rips out of me, raw and joyless. Russo is going to pay for this. Not just for hiding her. Not just for touching her. Not just for daring to put his hands on my woman. But for every single second he made her believe she could belong to him.
I drop the broken glass and pick up the photograph with my uninjured hand, studying it one last time.
“Enjoy tonight,” I say to the empty room, to Russo’s face, to the man who has no idea what tomorrow is bringing. “Because it’s the last peaceful night you’ll ever have.”
Then I set the photo down, wipe my blood across the front of my shirt, and reach for my gun.
Tomorrow, Dante Russo learns exactly what it costs to steal from Lorenzo Conti.