Chapter 41 Massimo
MASSIMO
Earlier…
“What are you thinking?” Elio squatted beside me and Vittorio after checking the perimeter of the compound.
“I go in the front, Vittorio the back—he’s to look for Katarina—and you be my eyes in the sky.”
Elio nodded. He had his sniper rifle slung over his shoulder and an earpiece with his sister, Giada, on the other end. Between them, they could do a lot of damage.
“It would be less risky to sneak in, get Katarina, and sneak out.”
“But far less fucking satisfying,” I said with a grow. “Sergei Stoyanov isn’t just the man who’s taken my wife, he’s the man who created the fine institution that killed my mother. He dies. Tonight.”
Elio studied me for a long moment and then nodded.
“Go and get your vengeance, brother. You’ve waited long enough.”
“Got it, Commander,” I muttered, and saluted Elio before moving off, nearly missing his grin.
My former commander used to have quite the reputation for never smiling and basically being a serious stick-in-the-mud.
That had changed slowly when he’d met his childhood sweetheart again.
Not quite a storybook romance, but I’d never seen him so happy.
And God, I wanted what he had. I wanted it so much, I could barely breathe.
In a few short weeks, my life had turned upside down and reformed around a new purpose.
Her. My angel.
“Sergei isn’t home yet,” Vittorio whispered in my ear. He was busy making his way around the back of the house.
“We could get the girl and get out of here before he even got home,” Elio pointed out. “Take Stoyanov on another day.”
I tutted softly, closing in on the front door, coming from an angle to check out how many men I was dealing with before they could see me.
“Where’s the fun in that?” I mused, and chuckled when I counted the security presence. “Sergei left three guys on the door of the house where his precious daughters are inside. What a fucking moron.”
“To be fair, three hardened Bulgarian Mafia men is probably more than enough to deter most guys,” Vittorio whispered, sounding out of breath.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Elio demanded in a low voice.
Vittorio breathed heavily in our ears.
“There was a gate to climb over,” Vittorio wheezed.
“Jesus, you need to work on your fitness. You sound like you’re about to keel over.”
“There isn’t much time for going to the gym when you’re a priest.”
“Make time,” Elio argued back with the same uncompromising discipline he’d always employed as our commander.
As I listened to them bicker, I closed in on the men at the front of the house. I ran along the back of a low wall that framed the front door and vaulted easily over it at the last moment, crashing into one of the men. They held semiautomatic weapons with laughable incompetence.
As soon as my boots crashed into the first guy, I was swinging for the next one. I lunged forward and cracked his head on the wall. The last guy turned slowly, and I pulled a knife from my vest and threw it.
Bullseye.
It hit him in the neck, and he pitched to the side. The first guy was attempting to get to his feet. I slipped the garrote out of my back pocket and came around behind him, sliding it over his head.
A short time later, I released his lifeless body to the ground. The second guy, the one who had been knocked out by the wall, stirred. I took my gun, fitted with a silencer, and stalked over to him. A shot to the temple, and he was gone.
A fine patina of blood sprayed over my chest and the mask over my face.
It was a nifty piece of tech, giving me superior night vision, and it also used heat detection tech.
I looked very similar to how I’d looked the last time I’d fought alongside both Vittorio and Elio, except instead of sand-colored camo, I was in unrelenting black, matching my soul.
I glanced up at the camera sitting above the door and wondered if Sergei was watching the footage in real time.
My face was concealed, so the video being used against me wasn’t an issue, and besides, I didn’t think Sergei Stoyanov was the kind of man who could afford to call the cops.
I tilted my head toward the camera, and just in case I did have an audience, waved.
Then I tried the handle. The door swung open. Sergei had really put too much stock in his three guards out front. I was just about to enter when my radio crackled to life in my ear.
“I need a hand here. I’m out back, four o’clock.” Vittorio’s voice, quick and low.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I stepped back from the door and turned in the same direction he’d gone. I took off at a run along the side of the property, vaulting the fence and coming into the large, sweeping back garden.
“Someone’s got him at gunpoint,” Elio murmured in my ear. “I can take them out from here.”
Elio, crouched in a perch somewhere with his sniper rifle, was absolutely unstoppable. The backup that no money could buy. His kind of skills and precision were priceless.
I caught sight of Vittorio in the distance, and the small figure before him, pointing a gun at his back. A smaller shadow stood just behind him.
“Scratch that,” Elio said, a hint of warmth in his voice. “It’s your girl. Seems like we’ve interrupted her saving herself.”
My girl. Of course she was saving herself. She was a fucking force of nature.
I closed in on them, devouring the sight of Katarina, who was now slowly lowering the gun. Tatiana stood at her side. I pushed my mask up and approached them soundlessly from behind.
“Wait, Father Lucciano is here?” Tatiana asked in a small voice.
“Yes, little one. Father Lucciano is here,” I growled, and reached for Katarina. I couldn’t stand one more fucking second of space between us.
She jerked as I hugged her to me, breathing her in. I hadn’t expected Vittorio to find Katarina so quickly. I hadn’t even had the chance to kill nearly enough Stoyanovs yet, though I’d made a respectable dent in their numbers.
“I’m here. I’m here for my wife,” I murmured.
She elbowed me in the side.
I let go, and she spun around and shoved at me.
“Your wife? What right did you have to do that, when I had no idea what was going on? Who are you to do that?” Katarina’s voice rang out, her hands pushing at my chest. The anger was still there, apparently, now clouded with relief.
I could see it in her beautiful face . .
. her emotions written clear as day. Anger and most of all, relief, maybe even a hint of surprise.
“Your husband,” I said calmly.
Her mouth dropped open in outrage. Her hand moved toward my face and met my skin with a slap.
“Who are you?” she demanded again, and a sheen of tears covered her dark-blue eyes.
Words didn’t seem capable of conveying all the things I wanted to say to her.
So I kissed her. I’d always been a more action-over-words kind of guy.
She was shocked for a moment, but then she let me kiss her.
Fuck, it was like coming home after war. My body spoke to her. Remember me, little stray. Remember this and us and everything we are going to be.
Then she realized what she was doing, and her teeth closed on my lip. She bit hard. I had to give it to her, she could savage like the little stray I affectionately called her. Blood filled my mouth. Good girl. Us strays always needed to be able to defend ourselves.
She pulled back. Her pale skin was marked with my blood, dripping down her chin.
It was hot.
I wanted to wear her teeth marks. Her scratches were a badge of honor for a battle well fought and won. I wanted everyone to know.
“Who are you?” she whispered, this time more of a plea than a demand. Her eyes called to me, begging me to make the world make sense for her again.
I cupped her face, pressing my pinkie fingers into the soft, vulnerable underside of her neck, enjoying the feel of her pulse hammering against my skin.
“I’m the man who loves you. The one who will keep you safe, even from yourself, even when you don’t want me to.”
Then I kissed her again; I couldn’t help myself.
Her tears slid down her cheeks and between our lips.
Salt and copper mixed as I slipped my tongue into her mouth, and she whimpered.
When she swayed into me, her strength wasted, her fight out of juice, I moved back.
She watched me carefully, her brilliant eyes ringed with wet, spiky lashes.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, little stray . . .
I want to say I would do it differently, but honestly, I don’t think I would.
I don’t think that there is anything I wouldn’t do to keep you.
” I tucked her hair back behind her ears and cupped her face again.
“I’d kill for you. I’d die for you. Everything else is just details. ”
She let out a long sigh. “You’re an absolute maniac.”
“Oh, he knows,” Vittorio said, standing and watching us with a grin.
A small hand tugged at my pants, and I looked down. Tatiana smiled up at me.
“Knock, knock,” she said.
“Who’s there?”
“Carrie,” she murmured.
I crouched before her. “Carrie who?”
“Carrie me home, I’m scared.”
“Oh, sweetheart, it’s going to be okay. You’re safe now,” Vittorio said comfortingly.
He was a man suited to comfort. I wasn’t.
I never had been, with my bloodstained hands and black soul.
Yet, it was me who Tatiana pressed her little body against. I opened my arms, and she stepped into my embrace.
Something fragile and too big to hold stirred in my chest. I caught Katarina’s eye.
She watched me carefully, her thoughts hidden from me.
Fuck, I’d missed her. I never wanted to be apart from her again.
I wanted a big house ringing with the sound of her laughter.
I wanted to fill it with little baby girls who looked just like her to light up the world, and keep safe and cherish.
I straightened up slowly, and Tatiana went to Vittorio.
“Take them out to the townhouse. Wait for me and Elio there. We’ll wait for Sergei to get home.”
“No,” Katarina’s voice struck out.
“No?” I repeated, and turned to arch an eyebrow at her.
“I said no,” she stated, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Not happening.”
Before I could argue, she poked a finger into my chest. “If you’re about to come up with some bullshit about keeping me safe and in the dark—I told you no. Sergei is my father. This is my business. I’m staying. You won’t tell me what to do. You won’t control me or make my decisions for me.”
I stared at her, my need to keep her safe warring with my gut-deep knowledge that she needed this. She needed me to show her I could listen. I could understand her. Despite every tactical instinct I had in me screaming at me to refuse, I nodded.
“Very well. Vittorio, take Tatiana out of here. Elio, Katarina, and I will finish this.”
“Oh, you’ve got it bad,” Elio murmured in my ear with amusement. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Shut it,” I said to him, taking Katarina’s hand in mine.
“While I hate to interrupt you getting put in your place, Sergei is home.”
“Finally,” I said, anticipation roaring through my veins.
Katarina glanced around, clearly wondering whom I was speaking to.
I grinned at her. “Today, I’m the one with the voices in my head. Let’s go, little stray. Time to introduce me to Daddy Dearest.”