Chapter 28 - Daisy
DAISY
Life is short. Don’t burn the bridge. Use explosives. It’s way faster.
Daisy?” There are five men in the room—well, actually, there are far more than five, but there are five who draw my attention and keep it.
The sound of my name ringing out comes from the only man standing to the right of the long dining table.
Giulio comes forward and immediately, a wash of air lands on either side of my back, telling me that Otello has stepped back.
Not that I can blame them. Giulio looks ready to kill someone. Straightening my spine so I don’t look like a scaredy-cat, I tip my chin up and meet his vivid blue gaze head-on. Chips of black ice swirl within.
Okay, my mind is on board with the brave front, but my body? Not so much. My stomach churns, and I have to curl my fingers into my palms to hide the fact that they’re trembling.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Giulio stops before me, the question lingering between us.
In our defense, I don’t explicitly recall anyone telling us that we weren’t allowed to come, my inner psycho says, though I can sense that her trembles are anything but fear.
Are you turned on? I snap. This is totally not the time for your man snatcher. Keep it under wraps.
Two words, she replies. Makeup sex.
Leaning to the side, I offer a smile to the rest of the men. What else can I do when my psychotic twin mind has decided to shoot pornographic images of angry sex through my head? Don Luciani is the only one who smiles back. Dante and the other two men are simply frowning at my entrance.
“Daisy.” Hard hands land on my shoulders as Giulio forces me to look at him. “Answer me. What are you doing here?”
“She’s not the mole,” someone says behind him.
Leaning over again, I recognize the one who spoke as Emil. I offer him a wave.
Giulio releases my shoulders but snatches my hand and lowers it again as he casts a glare over his shoulder. “Of fucking course she isn’t,” he snaps.
Yes, the mole. That’s what I’m here for. “I came to stop you from making a mistake,” I say.
Giulio turns back to me. “What?”
“The mole. Emil—” I gesture to the man in question. “You said he was dangerous, and Otello said you came here because of me. He tracked me down and—”
Giulio is shaking his head and growling low in his throat.
Hot. Hot. Hot. Yup. Mean Daisy is back at it again, prancing around my head in a miniskirt that’s too small to even be considered substantial underwear and a red lace bra. She whips around and points at me. If you’re bad enough, do you think he’ll spank you?
I roll my eyes.
“Did you just roll your eyes at me?”
Oh shit, I hadn’t meant to do that out loud. Wait… can you roll your eyes out loud?
Roll your eyes enough and maybe you’ll find a brain back there, Mean Daisy says.
When this is all over, I’m going to find you a person, I warn her. After all, there’s someone for everyone—and for you, I call that person a psychiatrist.
She grins. Good luck with that, cupcake. A single pink frosting–coated dessert appears in her hand, and she licks it. I’m not scared of a little therapizing—though if I may make a suggestion?
I grind my teeth. She’s ruining this whole “save Giulio from himself” thing I’ve got going on. What?
Killing the guy threatening Giulio and your new fam is good for your mental health. What do you know, she actually has a pretty decent idea.
Ignoring Giulio, I extract my hand from his grip and then step around him, further into the dining room before I lift a finger and point at the man in question. “You!”
Emil glances around as if I could possibly mean someone else, despite the fact that my pointer finger is leveled directly at his chest. “Yup,” I snap. “I mean you, buddy.”
“Daisy, I swear to—” Giulio locks onto me again, but I brush off his fingers, and when he doesn’t let go, I reach down and pinch him. Hard. When that still doesn’t work, I twist. His hand jerks back. “What the fuck!”
“Don’t stop me, Giulio,” I say. “I’m ignoring you on purpose because I’m mad at you.”
“Mad at me?”
Waving off his indignant response, I plant my free hand on my hip and continue my glaring match with Emilio Cesari, who’s no less panty-meltingly attractive despite his furrowed brow.
Eyes on the prize, Mean Daisy reminds me. He’s not expecting you to do shit. This is your chance to get close.
I take her advice and move forward several more steps.
Just as Mean Daisy anticipated, no one moves to block my way.
Just a little bit farther. I glance at the tabletop.
I probably should have brought a gun or a knife or something.
My eyes skitter to the side and there! There’s a table against the far wall with a whole boatload of guns and knives.
Seems like an idiot move for them to just leave them there, but I’m grateful, nonetheless.
You’re doing the world a favor, Mean Daisy assures me. Ridding the world of dumbasses who would just leave guns and knives out for anyone to take.
You know, you’re not so bad when you’re encouraging me, I tell her.
She snorts. It’s not my fault it took you this long to acknowledge me. I can be your best fucking ally when you actually listen to me.
That she can, because as I skirt around the big-ass beast of a man standing in front of Emil—sensing all eyes on me as I approach him—I realize that it’s mostly because of her that I made it this far.
It’s because of her that Michelle and I didn’t die in that alley.
Giulio cares about me now, but back then, we were virtual strangers, and he had no reason to protect my ass.
Though I hope that’s changed now and I can rely on him like he can on me, people’s morals are so capricious that there’s no way I would be standing here now if I’d simply depended on everyone else’s good intentions.
Damn right! Mean Daisy jumps up and down, the tiny skirt flapping over her hoochie, making her look like the most disturbingly dressed cheerleader in history. Now, let’s kill him!
“Listen, Signora,” Emil says as I stop in front of him, “I can assure you that your husband has nothing to—”
I don’t let him finish. I dive beyond him and grab up one of the guns there before the last part leaves his lips. Everyone freezes as I lift the barrel, pointing it right at his chest as his eyes widen in shock.
Yeah, I silently chide him, bet you didn’t expect this, motherfucker.
“Daisy, don’t—”
A scream from the room beyond the dining room—a kitchen, if the glance over the top of the half door separating the two rooms is anything to go by—interrupts Dante’s shout as he leaps up from the table.
I squeal as my body is lifted and catapulted backward with two heavy bands around my waist. No, not bands. Arms. Jesus, the man who had been standing alongside Emil has arms like a trucker. Big. Brawny. Covered in scars.
It’s only when the gun is plucked from my hand that I kick my ass into gear and start struggling against my captive. “Let me go!” I shout.
“Sorry, bambina,” the man’s low, throaty voice roves over me, and despite its gravelly tone, it’s soothing. “I cannot let you hurt yourself.”
“No!” I beat my fists down on his arm. “I don’t want to commit suicide! I want to kill him!” I point to Emil.
“Exactly,” he replies.
“Give her to me,” Giulio orders as the swinging half doors flap open and a wild-eyed, harried-looking Constantin barrels out. I stop fighting and for an infinite moment, nobody moves.
Then everyone does.
Distantly, I recognize that Constantin is dressed the same as he was yesterday, but his shirt is wrinkled now and there’s a cut on his forehead with blood leaking down his face.
His hair is unkempt and in disarray against his scalp as he takes in the room.
When his eyes land on me, they’re full of so much hatred that I turn into the stranger’s embrace and practically scale his body.
All the put me down, put me down, put me downs in my head have suddenly turned into don’t put me down, don’t let that man kill me, kill him for me instead!
Constantin’s attention on me, however, doesn’t last. Instead, he dives for the dining table, heading directly toward where Papá Stefano still sits.
“No!” The scream that echoes out of my throat this time is full of horror and dread.
Tears are already gathering in my eyes. I’ve never had a dad before, and though Papá Stefano isn’t my father, the hope that he might one day become that for me if I stay with Giulio clings to my chest. That can’t happen if he’s dead.
Shouts and curses sound, and the world spins as I’m thrust into a familiar chest, the stranger who held me diving forward just as Emilio Cesari and Dante also converge.
Constantin lifts the blade in his hand, already coated in blood.
“Fuck.” Giulio’s voice is right next to my ear, and he turns my face into his chest.
Oh, come on! Mean Daisy whines. I want to see!
I do, too, I realize, and I fight against him to turn my head. “Don’t look, Daisy,” he orders. “You—”
“Giulio.” My face tilts up toward his and his down to mine.
Without thinking, I lean up and slam my mouth into his.
The shock that ricochets through him loosens his hold, and as soon as it does, I’m twisting out of it, reaching for the second gun on the table.
Emil and the giant stranger lift Constantin, bending his arms behind his back, and Dante helps Papá Stefano up.
Thankfully, the older man looks all right save for a shallow cut on his cheek.
The chair he’d been in lies in a heap on the floor.
Emil and the stranger grunt as Constantin fights and struggles. “You are weak!” he screams. “You have gotten weak, Stefano, and your sons are no better!”
Dante leaves Papá Stefano and backhands the man into silence. Blood goes flying with the strike.
Mean Daisy’s low, sexual groan echoes through the chambers of my mind. brOTHER. IN. LAW. I spell out the words to her in big neon letters. Don’t get any ideas.