Chapter Fifteen
I slip into the house and creep through the hall, heading to the office where I stand just out of view and wait.
We left things on a semi-truce for now after what Matteo did, and I’ve kept my distance.
However, the more I think about it, I’m not sure why.
Why didn’t I kill her back then? Why didn’t I fuck her, break her, destroy her?
There was something though, something that stopped my usual behaviour.
Something that gave me pause. But now I make my move.
I wait in the darkness of the room, and as she pushes in through the door, I lash out.
I smirk as I crash her back against the wall, kicking the door closed behind her, flicking on the light.
The huff of air rejected from her pathetic body as I tighten my grip on her throat.
My fiancée—well, I suppose sister-in-law now. Either way, she’s fucking irrelevant.
I snarl at her. “You’ll die today for what you’ve done to my family.
You don’t deserve to carry the Ricci name.
I should have killed you when I had the chance.
I pull back slightly, slamming her back against the wall again.
Her eyes roll as her head makes contact with the brickwork.
I pull out my gun from the back of my trousers and push it into her temple.
“Any last words?”
She flicks her eyes to mine. A look of defiance spreads across her beautiful face before a slight twitch of her lip tics at the corner. She takes a breath as I loosen my grip enough for her to speak.
“I’m no fucking Ricci. You’re a fucking lapdog, Bell,” she spits. “You’ll never be Don. You’ll never amount to anything while your father still breathes. But I can help you.”
I bark a laugh at her. “Once my father dies, it will all be mine.”
The slight shake of her head and the look of disappointment that slides over her face like a mask makes me pause just enough for her to start talking again.
“My father was the same as yours is, Bell.” Her hand comes up and touches my cheek, and I growl as her skin burns into mine. And I snatch my head away. “He will never let you take over. This will never be yours.” She smiles, devious, cunning. “But together… together we can take it all.”
“Fuck you. You could have had it all with me. You chose my fucking brother.” I press the barrel of my gun firmly against her temple. Spittle flies onto her face as I snarl. “You will never be good enough on your own. You’re nothing, a nobody.”
“You know that’s not true, Bell. I succeeded. I took over. It’s mine, all fucking mine,” she laughs out.
“Stop fucking calling me Bell. You have nothing. They’ll never let you keep it all, and I will gladly help them take everything from you. You’re temporary.”
“Bell, you seem to have missed how many of the Syndicate still draw breath. We could have it now. We can take it all. You never wanted me. You never even looked at me. Fuck’s sake. Bell, you couldn’t have picked me out of a line-up. You don’t even fucking like women. You’re gay.”
I flinch back. I pull the gun back and square it between her eyes.
I push it to her forehead and pin her head against the wall.
Her hands limp beside her body, and there it is, that look of disappointment again.
I am gay. I’m not ashamed of it. I don’t hide it, as such.
It was just never going to be on the cards for me.
I was to become the head of the family. I was to marry her.
She would be my bride. My wife and I would give my father another heir.
That was my fate, the legacy I was given.
I would have become Don, but she fucked it all up by killing her scum of a father and choosing to abandon our marriage. Abandon me, and choose my brother, my younger brother at that.
“Being gay has nothing to do with anything. I would have played my part.”
“Don’t you want more than that, Bell? Don’t you want to be happy?”
I grab her throat again. My gun drops to my side, but I grin and grit out.
“What the fuck does being happy have to do with anything? I will be the Don of the Ricci family. I will follow the legacy I have been afforded. I will be fucking king!” I roar at her.
What the fuck does she know? She was only ever supposed to be a wife, a mother, nothing more, and then she killed her father, stepped up as Donna, and took over.
We gave her three fucking months to prove herself and she did, she stepped up, turns out she’s a macabre little thing, with a penchant for mutilating her enemies and I respected that.
I started to respect her. But little did I know, she set the condition that she would choose who she married if she was successful. That she would pick my little brother.
He has always been handed everything, even though he says otherwise.
I can’t forget my entire existence. My father always had a softer spot for him.
I was always told I had to protect him. I had to look after him.
I was taken to meetings and murders from a young age.
Disciplinaries, my father called them. I soon became stronger, detached, and realised I had a flair for torture.
I became my father’s right-hand man while my brother got to hang out at home.
He got to be a kid, a teenager. I know the scars say differently; they read so close to my own.
But even then, I can’t get the reality to fall into place.
I feel he never stepped into the dark like me.
I resented him. I still do. I was made to feel like he was more important.
But this family is to be mine, and I will carry on as my father and grandfather and generations before them. This is my legacy.
“You could rewrite the book, Bell.” Her voice softens a little.
“We could burn the fucking book together. Fuck the Five; we could take it all. Bell, we could be the most powerful family. Together, we would be unstoppable. You know your father won’t hand you the throne.
Deep down inside, you know he’ll never let it go willingly.
You’re too powerful; you have to see that.
Bell. This legacy you’re fighting so hard for is one that will keep you chained to an old ideal.
You know you’ll never be happy with a wife.
Break the legacy, Bell. Take a husband, rewrite the narrative. We can do this together.”
I huff a laugh at her and relax my grip as I slide the gun back into my waistband.
“And what do you care? You have my brother.”
“And who do you have, Bell?”
“Pfft, I don’t need anyone.”
“He needs you. You’ve both been turned against each other. Your father used you both, creating that separation. Knowing that together you’d be unstoppable. Bell, you have to see how powerful you both are. Together, we could rule the world.”
“You think because you took out your father, that’s the way to do things.”
“I think the families have grown stale.” She steps against me, staring up at me.
Not a flicker of anything other than determination.
“We need to have a cull, thin the herd, get rid of all the outdated shit they live by. Bell, this is our time to reign and your legacy to break. Only you can choose to take what you deserve or decide to be a lapdog to your father for the next fifty fucking years.”
I turn and blow out a breath. I wanted to kill her, but what she’s saying crashes around inside me.
It’s the truth. I know it is. I’ve trained to be impassive, to be emotionless, but since the wedding, I can’t seem to rein it in.
I want to destroy everything my father is so desperate to keep.
I want to make it work for me. I want a partner, a husband.
I want something that’s mine. I see her and my brother when they think no one is looking.
He softens for her. I thought it made him weak, pathetic.
But the more I’ve looked at them both, the more I see that together they’re stronger.
Maybe that’s why I’m fighting against them.
She’s making waves, and he’s right by her side.
I want someone to be by my side. I want him.
I can’t get him out of my mind since I saw him at the wedding.
His sister paraded around in front of me, and their father, Enzo De Luca, offered her as a way to secure more footing within the two families.
I nodded in all the right places, but seeing her brother, I knew she would never be what I wanted.
She would be what was expected. I could take my father’s throne.
I could take him as a husband, but what then?
I spin back on her, slamming her into the wall.
“Stop fucking with my head. Stop trying to turn me against my father. I pull the gun back up, ready to be fucking done with her, as the door flies open and a massive body crashes into me, throwing me onto the floor. She has me so out of it that I never heard him coming. He’s always been stealthy.
As his meaty fist smashes into my side, the gun skitters across the floor.
I try to grapple with him. My little brother is taller than me, but not as bulky.
He’s fast, though, and he lifts off and punches me once, twice in the face as I grab for him, trying to land a blow of my own.
I see her; she leans back against the wall with her arms crossed and just stares down at us as we roll around, trying to beat the shit out of each other.
“Okay, enough,” she bellows and steps forward. She leans down and pushes her hands between us, and we both stand panting and snarling as we face off against each other.
“Touch her again and I will fucking kill you, brother or not!” Vittorio snarls at me.
“Keep your bitch under control, teach her, her fucking place, and I won’t have to.”
He lunges at me again, and I grab for him. That’s when I feel it, the barrel of the gun pressed to the back of my head. I lift my hands slowly.