CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
KAGE
“Raina, what the fuck is this? Why do you have another phone?”
She swallows hard, but says, “That’s the one she brought me.”
I open it and see there’s only one contact, and one text. I read the last message.
Anastasia: He doesn’t love you. That’s not something the Bonettis are capable of. You’ve helped me so far, but I need more. Don’t give up.
“Who’s Anastasia?”
“The ADA,” she says.
Two words that send my world into chaos.
I swallow past the bile threatening to rise in my throat.
“You’ve been talking to the District Attorney’s office? About my family?”
She nods, with tears rolling down her face.
“You knew about this, Lorenzo. You said you wanted to talk about my phone, but never did.”
I toss the phone in the sink and clench my fists.
“I knew about the text message from your uncle. Do you really think if I knew you’d betrayed me like this, that you would still be alive?”
My head is fucking spinning, and I cannot get control of my thoughts.
“This must have been really fucking entertaining for you, isn’t that right, Abruzzo?”
She shakes her head. “Lorenzo, it wasn’t like that.”
I run a hand through my hair, nearly pulling at the roots, and I know now, I do have a fucking heart. And right now it’s smashed.
“I’m a goddamn fool. I should have killed you the day I found you. I made a mistake then, but now I’ll correct it.”
“Lorenzo, no. I was angry. Look at the texts. I told her I wouldn’t help her. I didn’t want anything to happen to you, or your brothers, but especially not you.”
I step closer to her and glare at her.
“Get on your fucking knees, Raina.”
She gets off the bed and kneels on the floor, as I take in the woman that made a fool of me. I would’ve given her everything, and it pisses me off that she’s still so goddamn beautiful it nearly takes my breath.
I walk over to the end table, pull out the drawer and grab the pink shock collar she wore before.
Pushing her long hair to one side, I place it around her neck, ignoring her pleas for me to listen to her.
“You were in the cage in the bedroom before, because I wanted you near me, at all times. Even if you were in there, I wanted to look at you. Now, the sight of you makes me sick, so you’ll be in the basement. It’s like death row. Once you end up there, you don’t ever see the light of day again. You just better hope my brothers don’t want to come torture you before you die.”
I grab the remote for the shock collar as she sobs.
“Please, Lorenzo. Listen to me.”
The truth is I couldn’t hear her if I wanted to. I can’t hear a damn thing beyond the screaming in my head.
I press the button on the controller twice, and she falls to the floor and shakes, while she claws at her throat, trying to stop the pain. I don’t take pleasure in it, it’s a shared pain. It doesn’t make me feel good, but I don’t have a choice. She already made the decision for me.
Knowing damn well she won’t be able to walk well, I pick her up, hating it when she wraps her arms around my neck, and carry her to the basement.
She sobs into my chest, and it only makes me hate her more than I already do. I press the code to enter my basement, carry her over to the cage, and set her inside before locking it.
“I have to go tell my brothers what you’ve done. Don’t expect to live long, Raina.”
Again, she begs me to spare her life.
“Please, Lorenzo.”
I narrow my gaze at her as the anger builds in my chest.
“It’s Kage . You’ve lost the right to call me by my given name. Also, it’s not only up to me, Raina. There’s a way we handle people who do this to us. I’ll spare you the details, but it will not be pleasant. You should have died twice already. Now you will.”
I head to Bones’ house, after telling him everybody needs to be there, including the women. This affects everyone, so they should be present when I tell them what Raina did. I brought the phone with me, in case my brother wants to see it. We need to find out who the hell this ADA is, and figure out how to handle it. Prison is not an option. It’s weird to me that it’s an ADA handling this, because normally they put special teams together for taking down mafia families, but it’s entirely possible she’s part of a bigger team.
I pull up outside my brother’s house and park. Taking a deep breath, I get out of my Range Rover and make it to his door.
He stands in the doorway with an arched brow, and concern etched on his face. I knew he could tell something was very wrong, but I refused to tell him until we were all together.
“Everybody’s inside already.”
We walk toward my family, sitting on the couch. Bones goes over and sits by Athena, and beside her sits Bella, with Reaper beside her. And on a chair in the corner is Psycho, who looks at me with worry.
“You look like shit, brother. Everything okay?”
I shake my head.
Athena asks, “Where’s Raina? You should have brought her.”
I take a seat on the dark leather chair placed across from the sofa.
“I want to start by saying I’m fucking sorry. This is my doing, and I take full responsibility.”
Bones eyes me warily.
“What’s going on, Kage?”
I swallow past the lump in my throat.
“When Raina was in the hospital, an ADA visited her. Gave her a phone, and there’s been some contact.”
The entire room fills with the word ‘fuck’ in concert, and everybody starts asking questions over the top of each other, and again, my goddamn head spins.
Athena gets up and walks back to the kitchen, as she yells for Bella’s help. Bella runs after her, as my brothers all stare at me like I’ve destroyed the family, and they’re right, I have.
They both return with Whiskey, and glasses for all of us. I say thank you because, fuck, I need a drink right now. Or ten.
Picking up a glass, I take a long pull as Bones starts asking questions.
“First thing we need to know is what was said.”
I shrug. “I wouldn’t let her talk. I was pissed, but here’s the cell phone.”
“You haven’t read them?”
I stare at the liquid in my glass as I answer him.
“No.”
Psycho says, “Obviously we have to kill her.”
I cringe at him, and at myself, because I still don’t want to fucking kill her. If Bones says to kill her, I will not have a choice. It’s one thing to refuse to kill a woman that was simply born into a rival family. It’s an entirely different situation when she’s betrayed us.
Bones scrolls through the messages on the phone.
“We need to find out what was said in that hospital room, but honestly, based on these text messages they have nothing. Everybody knows we deal in drugs and weapons. That’s not news. And I doubt Raina would have useful information for them at this point. They should’ve tried for Athena.”
Psycho says, “Athena would never fucking betray us. I still say she needs to die. Sorry, brother, I know you’re all warm and fucking squishy for her, but she’s a liability.”
Athena and Bella share a glance, like they’re having a conversation the rest of us can’t hear.
She looks over at Bones.
“Can I say something?”
He gazes at her softly as Psycho groans.
“Of course, Butterfly.”
“The Bonetti men have a habit of taking people that maybe don’t want to be taken. And I’m happy now.”
She squeezes my brother’s hand.
“I’m very happy, but that wasn’t always the case, and I bet Bella would agree. If an ADA would’ve come and talked to me back then, before we were married, I might have cooperated.”
Bella shakes her head.
“I definitely would have. I’m glad that didn’t happen, but I hated Nico at first.”
Reaper glances at Bella with an unsure expression on his face.
“But you wouldn’t now?”
She giggles softly.
“I wouldn’t now, Nico. Of course not. Besides, at this point my body count is getting as high as yours, so I doubt they’d help me.”
Bones rises off the sofa and says, “Let’s go. We need to talk to her, and,” he looks at Psycho, “we are just talking tonight. This is Kage’s girl. How he wants this handled will carry weight.”