Chapter 7
Collision
THE MAESTRO | Present
Most men, when their wives are stolen, become rabid dogs. They bark, they bleed, and they tear at the leash until they choke on their own spit.
But I am not most men. I am a Vitale, a name I have spent my entire life trying to scrub off my skin, yet the harder I scrub, the deeper the ink bleeds.
The trap I built six months ago is finally snapping shut.
I lean back in the chair as the bitter smoke from my cigar curls toward the ceiling. On the desk lies the crumpled, blood-stained note Corvin left behind. I don’t need to read it again. I don’t need his pathetic breadcrumbs to know that the machine I set in motion is working.
Hannah Visconti is finally crawling out of her hole.
I tap the screen of my phone. A red dot pulses against the digital map of the city’s underbelly. I don’t control the smile that cuts across my face.
The gold and diamond shackle I fastened around my wife’s ankle weeks ago isn’t just a claim of possession.
She thinks it is a token of my obsession, a beautiful weight to keep her chained to my bed.
It is, in a way. But it is also a military-grade, high-frequency GPS tracker stitched into the setting of the stones.
I know the exact second I bury a bullet in Adrian Davenport’s skull that his old man will strike back.
And I know who the grieving Father will run to for help—the one woman I am dying to introduce to her maker.
I let them take her. It is the only way.
I watch that leech put his hands on my wife and drag her into the woods, because a rat always runs straight back to the nest when it thinks it wins. And I’ve been hunting the Queen Rat for five fucking years.
“You’re remarkably calm for a man whose wife is currently sleeping in a ditch,” a rasping voice remarks from the shadows of the corner.
I don’t bother turning my head. I already know the scent: expensive Russian cologne, burnt tobacco, and old, dried blood. “Calm is a tool, Romanovski. You of all people should know that.”
Judas Romanovski steps into the light. He is a big shot, a ghost in a tailored suit who pulls the strings of the federal government like a puppeteer.
Today, the bastard is my accomplice. He is the only man in this godforsaken country capable of breaking every constitutional law just to watch the world burn.
When his own wife walked away from him years ago, the unhinged lunatic systematically set fire to an entire city block just to force her back into his arms.
“Hannah Visconti is a ghost,” Judas says, leaning his hip against the edge of my desk, indifferent to the loaded firearm resting an inch from his fingers. “According to the state ledgers, she’s been buried for four years. If this stunt goes south, my neck is in the noose right next to yours.”
His neck. The Motherfucker probably has half the senate under his boots, but he loves playing the martyr.
It gives him something to cry about to his wife.
According to Romanovski’s twisted philosophy, there is no sensation in the world that compares to the touch of a woman who wants you dead but cannot leave your bed.
“It won’t go south because Hannah is already a corpse,” I say, flicking the ash from my cigar.
“She dies the second her people put a finger on Selene. I don’t want her captured.
I want her erased. I want the Visconti name scrubbed from every ledger until the only thing left of that bloodline is the woman carrying my name. ”
“Spoken like a true Romantic. You mean your precious little captive?”
My jaw tightens so hard a muscle twitches beneath the scar on my cheek. A flash of white-hot possession sears through my gut, leaving the taste of copper on my tongue. My Selene. My ruin. My sun.
“She needs to see it,” I whisper. “She builds a pedestal for that woman. She thinks her Mother is a god and her savior; she always has. If I ride in there and take her back now, she spends the rest of her life looking at me like the villain who tore her universe apart. She has to learn that her God is a monster. She has to watch it burn from the inside out. She has to feel the heat to know the heights of the flames her Mother ignited.”
Her Mother is a clever woman. She knows her pawns well and how to use them. She fooled me once by faking her death. The apartment I gave her was lit on fire, and everyone believed she was dead. Only she wasn’t.
I stand up, walking toward the window. Outside, the storm lashes against the window, blurring everything but my reflection in the glass.
“I have spent our entire marriage being the monster she expects,” I murmur, seeing her in my own reflection. “Whatever I did five years ago… I did it for love.”
Judas scoffs. “Well, you can’t do shit for her if you still refuse to sit on your Father’s throne.
You’re fighting an apex predator with a pocket knife, Vitale.
You need power and balance. You think leaving the throne will give you your wife back?
Try explaining to the man holding a gun to her head that you’re retired.
I’m sure he’ll respect your boundaries.”
He’s right. A crown is a hell of a lot lighter than a casket.
But I’ve lost so much for that throne that nothing is worth it.
“I am not sitting on a throne built with my Mother’s blood.”
“Then forget the girl.”
He flicks his gold lighter, the flame illuminating his pale blue eyes that creep me out every time I look at this bastard.
Instead, I just stare at him until the primitive urge to paint the wall with his brains dies down. He is a necessary evil for tonight. Nothing more.
Forget her?
I would sooner forget how to pull oxygen into my lungs. I would sooner forget the sound of my own goddamn name.
“The solution is fucking simple, Zagreus. Reclaim the throne, take the Cosa Nostra, and nobody touches your woman again. You want patience? It often gets people buried. You’ve buried her once, I wouldn’t bet she’d survive the sequel.”
I almost smile, because, fuck, he does think like a true predator. But I’ve a better plan. What do they say? No root, no fruit.
“And if I burn that throne? Will that make me powerful enough?”
One brow rises. “You’d be declaring war.”
I tilt my head. “No.”
“Then what the fuck would you call it?”
A slow smile pulls at my mouth. “Retirement.”
Judas stares at me as I lean back in my chair.
“No throne. No successor. No Cosa Nostra. No crown for anyone to fight over.” I continue.
Realization flashes across his face. Followed by a smirk. “That’s a terrible fucking idea. But I like it.”