Domenico
Besiana looks at me like I’ve taken a knife to her already wounded heart.
The truth is, I want to keep her as far away from this as possible.
Away from the docks, the warehouse, her father.
I zip my coat as I tell her again she should stay at the hotel.
It’s not a social visit, I say. Rafe and I are going to have a chat with Adrian, and it won’t be pretty.
We won’t kill him yet, I add, but it’ll be worse.
She narrows her eyes and lifts her chin.
“If you think I can’t handle it, then you really don’t know me at all.”
“Besiana,” I say, reaching for her arm.
She spins around and storms toward the door. “I’m coming.”
I follow her out into the December cold. The city lights flicker beyond the Hudson, yellow and blue against the night sky. We get in the car. Besiana stares straight ahead, her jaw set. I take a breath and start the engine.
“You know this is going to get bloody, right?” I say, breaking the silence as we drive downtown.
“With my father, it always does.” She turns to look at me, defiant.
I want to say more, but I know when I’m beat. I nod. “Fine. But you wait outside.”
We pull up to the docks. They’re mostly abandoned at this hour, with only a few late-night workers moving under the glow of streetlights.
I park the car in the shadows, far from the closest streetlamp.
The warehouse looms ahead, a hulking, empty shape against the river.
I reach over and squeeze Besiana’s hand.
“Stay here by the entrance until I know it’s safe,” I say, but I can tell she won’t.
We step out, the cold air hitting us hard. The water laps against the docks, and somewhere in the distance, a ship’s horn cuts through the night. Besiana hugs her coat tighter around her. We make our way to the warehouse.
Inside, it’s exactly how I remember from the last time Rafe and I worked over a guy here.
Crates stacked up high, dust hanging in the air, and the damp chill that always finds a way into your bones.
What I didn’t expect was the sight waiting for us.
Rafe is standing over Adrian, who’s tied to a chair in the center of the room.
“Missed a spot,” I say, motioning to Adrian’s bruised and unconscious face.
“Saving it for you,” Rafe says, voice deadpan.
I kick Adrian’s chair, slapping him until his eyes flutter open. He’s in bad shape already—swollen cheek, blood caked under his nose. When he sees me, there’s hatred in those pale eyes of his, but nothing else.
I smile, a slow, deliberate one. “You tried to kill me. And my father. And every one of my brothers. Now we’re going to take our time with you.”
He doesn’t flinch. Cold bastard.
Rafe holds up a pair of pliers. “Can I start with his fingers?”
“Patience,” I say. “I want him to see it all coming.”
I pull the gag from Adrian’s mouth, and for a moment he smiles. Then Adrian’s eyes shift, landing on the entrance. I turn, and I see what he sees. Besiana, standing there, staring at her father. Rafe gives me a look like what-the-fuck?
Adrian starts pleading, his voice hoarse but urgent. “Zemer, you have to let me go. They can’t treat me like this. I am your father.”
“Besiana,” I warn, “I told you this would be ugly.”
But she’s already walking toward him. Against my better judgment, I step back and let her through.
She stops in front of him. “Baba?”
“It’s going to be okay,” Adrian says, looking up at her with those bloodshot eyes. “We’ll go back to how it was before. Before everything went bad.”
Besiana hesitates, and my heart drops like a rock into my gut.
One moment of doubt is all Adrian needs.
He lunges forward with sudden strength, gripping her wrist and yanking her into his chest. The move is one fluid motion, a blur of speed that even I didn’t see coming.
Her eyes go wide as she stumbles into him.
Before Rafe or I can react, before we take a single step, Adrian is holding a knife to her throat. Son of a bitch.
The blade glints under the dim light, a cruel slash against her skin. I freeze. Rafe freezes. Adrian stands, dragging her up with him and out of the chair.
“Where did he get that?” I growl, the question like fire in my throat. I’m ready to kill Rafe for being so reckless with his tools.
“Stay back!” Adrian shouts, dragging her up and out of the chair. He’s moving, backing toward the exit with Besiana held tight.
Rafe’s face is like stone, unreadable. “This your plan, old man? You won’t get a hundred yards.”
“Baba, please—”
“Silence!” Adrian’s voice is cold and steady. The blood’s stopped pouring from his nose, but it’s still smeared down his chin. The blade presses tighter against her skin.
I clench my fists, taking a step forward. I can see Besiana swallow hard, her throat moving against the knife’s edge.
“You think you’re stronger than me?” Adrian’s words slice through the room. “You’re just a girl, Besiana.”
I want to reach for her, to rip her out of his grasp, but I know how this plays. Any wrong move and the bastard will cut her. Besiana’s eyes meet mine.
Adrian jerks her closer and laughs—not a loud sound, but biting and full of contempt.
“You should have killed me when you had that gun in my face, girl,” he spits out. “But you were too weak. You do belong with the Rosettis, after all. But me? I’m strong. And, as you know, I have no compunction about killing my closest family members.”
Rafe shifts beside me, tense and ready, but we both know we’re walking a tightrope here.
Every word from Adrian is like a poison, seeping into the room. “You have nothing, Besiana. No power. No strength. You’re as useless to them as you are to me.”
She doesn’t flinch, not visibly, but I know it hits her hard.
We stop, the whole world holding its breath. Adrian’s gray eyes are sharp as ice.
“This is why you should never trust anyone,” he tells Besiana, starting to move again.
Besiana doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t move. I can see the fury building behind her eyes, an intensity even Adrian hasn’t calculated.
In a blur, I see her hand go to her leg.
She pulls her mother’s knife from a sheath on her thigh and stabs him, plunges that dagger to the hilt into her father’s chest.
Adrian’s eyes go wide. The shock freezes him. His hand loosens around the blade.
Besiana pulls back, the look on her face cold and clear as frost.
The bastard didn’t see it coming.
Adrian’s pale eyes are wide, staring at her like he’s seeing her for the first time. His body jerks back. Besiana takes her chance, ripping herself away as he gasps for air. The knife is still in him, deep, as he stumbles and falls.
Rafe and I lunge forward, moving fast while he’s down. I grab Besiana, pulling her to me as Rafe reaches Adrian with fury in his eyes. Adrian chokes, his breath coming out wet, blood blooming across his shirt like a stain spreading.
“You’re the only one I can’t trust,” Besiana says, breathing hard.
Adrian is bleeding out, fast. I watch the life leaving him, those pale eyes going dim.
“Dom,” Besiana whispers. Her voice trembles. She stands frozen, her eyes wide and unfocused, like she can't quite believe what she’s done. She’s in shock, I can see it.
“Are you hurt?” I demand.
I search her face, her body, terrified of finding blood that isn’t Adrian's. She doesn't answer right away, just keeps staring at Adrian's body, motionless on the ground.
“I— I killed him,” she finally says, as if testing the truth of it, struggling to make herself believe the words escaping her lips.
She shakes her head like she’s coming out of a dark fog. “I killed my father.”
There’s disbelief in her voice. The shock on her face is still there, but she starts to register her surroundings, starts to understand what just happened.
Her eyes meet mine again, and they’re raw, vulnerable.
“I killed him,” she repeats, her voice steadier this time.
The realization cuts through the haze and fills the warehouse like a shout. I’ve never seen her like this, never seen her anything but composed, but now she looks like she’s about to unravel.
She looks down at her hands, stained red.
“Besiana,” I say softly, desperate to reach her, to bring her back from the edge.
I reach out and take her hands, gentle, my heart pounding.
"Besiana," I repeat, making her look at me. Her pale green eyes are haunted, filled with a torment that robs me of my breath.
"Yes," I tell her. "You did. And it was you or him. You did what you had to do."
Her gaze drops to our hands—mine, clasping hers tight, both of us smeared in her father's blood. She swallows hard.
"Dom," she whispers back, her voice trembling like a leaf in a storm. "What... what do I do now?"
I squeeze her hands, desperate to ground her, to keep her from losing herself in that moment. "We take care of each other," I say simply.
In the periphery of my vision, Rafe stands over Adrian's body, his face flat and hardened.
We stand there in the cold, Adrian’s body at our feet, his blood spreading across the concrete.
Rafe stares at Besiana, then at me.
“So now what?” he asks.
He’s already shooting off a message for a cleanup team.
“Now,” I say, “we go home.”