19. Too Soft
CHAPTER 19
TOO SOFT
A ntonio
Serena’s scream echoes across the villa as I step into the foyer. My heart catapults up my throat, and sheer terror rushes my veins. My feet are moving before I can stop them, sprinting up the stairs toward that panicked cry.
“Serena!” I howl.
Mariuccia races in behind me, but I’m barely aware of her shouts.
Who could have possibly gotten to her? A thousand questions swirl through my mind as I turn corridor after corridor in a mad dash to reach her room. When I see her doorway at the end of the hall, I pump my arms faster, desperate to reach her. I’m torn between wanting to shout to her, to tell her I’m coming and keeping my mouth shut to get the drop on her attacker.
I’m going to tear the bastardo limb from limb.
I reach the doorway, and red-hot fury burns through my veins. Ottavio pins Serena to the bed, her long legs kicking and writhing beneath him. Otto? Crimson bleeds through my vision, a blinding rage like I’ve never felt before flooding my system. I trusted that pezzo di merda implicitly. I lunge, grabbing the traitor by the back of the neck.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I howl as I yank him off.
The anger only intensifies when I see his cock out and Serena’s torn panties. Then my furious gaze lands on the angry red mark across her cheek, and all I see is crimson. He stands at the foot of her bed, hunger in his eyes. A whirlwind of Italian curses explodes from my mouth as I start to process what’s happening.
Otto flashes the knife at me, a smattering of blood on the blade, and the monster I keep buried inside surges to the surface. Jagged claws tear at my insides, desperate to shred everything in its path. “How dare you touch what’s mine?” I roar and twist his wrist until I hear the satisfying snap of bone, and he drops the blade with a scream. It falls to the tile with a clang.
He stuffs his dick in his pants with his good hand and lowers his gaze to the floor between us. “You said you would kill her?—”
“How the fuck do you know what I said? Are you eavesdropping on my conversations?” There’s a tremor in my voice, a rage I don’t recognize torching through my veins like wildfire.
“I didn’t mean to, I just heard, and I thought?—”
“I don’t pay you to think, testa di cazzo !” I lunge again, unable to keep my twitching hands from around his neck. “I pay you to obey my every word, and I told you never to touch her again.” I eye the fireplace tool set, desperate to bash his head in with that bronze poker.
He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing beneath my thumbs. I press harder and his eyes bulge, two wild, dark orbs of pure fear. His gaze flickers to the discarded knife, but I kick it out of his reach, burying it beneath the bed. Behind me, a faint whimper escapes Serena’s lips and darkness encroaches my vision. “Not only did you touch her, you tried to rape her?” I snarl. “Since when do we do that?”
I slightly release the pressure on his throat so he can speak.
“I don’t know, capo . Everything’s been different with her,” he pants, cradling his likely broken wrist. “From the moment you saw her all those months ago outside the club, you haven’t been acting right.”
“I haven’t been acting right?” I barely recognize my own voice. It has a deep, sinister quality unlike my own.
“Yeah. For months, you knew it was Dante pulling the strings in Rome, but you were so fixated on Raf’s girl, Isabella, instead of facing the real problem head on. You should have gone for Serena from the start.”
“So now you’re giving me advice on how to run my organization?”
“Yes,” he rasps out. “Your father would have killed her by now or at least tortured her to show Dante he meant business. Instead, you coddle her, buy her nice clothes, bring her dinner in bed. I’m only trying to help you, capo .”
“Help me? Because I need your help?” My fingers clamp down tighter from the rage polluting my veins.
“All the heads of households in Rome are just waiting for the Ferraras to crumble to pick off the pieces. The Salernos, Sartoris, they’re only the beginning. The rest of your men are too scared to say it. Even Pietro agrees. Your Papà was a hard man, a man who knew what he had to do to run an organization like this. You?—”
“I what?” I glare at the piece of shit, waiting for him to dare speak the word. I know it’s coming. Even Mariuccia who snuck into the room a few minutes ago and lingers at the door knows exactly what this figlio di puttana is about to say.
“You’re too soft,” he spits.
Wrath uncoils in my gut, potent and poisonous as my eyes narrow, drilling into a man who had faithfully served my family for years. “Maybe you’re right, Otto.” I force my lips to curve into a smile. “Maybe I have been too lenient since taking control of the Ferrara territory. But that changes tonight.” I release my hold and take a measured step back, grinning like a psychopath, the smile much too wide considering the rage twisting my insides. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”
Relief softens his pinched features, and he heaves out a breath. “You’re wel?—”
Before he can finish, I jab the side of my hand into his throat, cutting off his air supply. Then I kick his leg out from under him, and the big guy hits the floor with a thud, rasping for oxygen.
He lets out a shriek as he slams into the tile, panting and dazed. Muttered gasps echo around me, but I ignore them, focusing only on the imbecille who dared lay hands on Serena then had the balls to question me. Dropping over him so he thrashes beneath me, I pull my arm back and let my fist loose. The crunch of bone breaking bone begins to satisfy the thirst for vengeance eating at me. Lex talionis. An eye for an eye . I hit him again and again. That darkness sweeps in, blotting out the screaming women and the writhing man beneath me.
Pressing all my weight down on him, my thighs straddling his midsection, I’m an unmovable force. I’m fairly certain he snapped something in his back when he fell because he’s not putting up as much of a fight as I’d expected. Soon it’s not only the lack of air that’s a problem. He’s choking on his own damned blood. I finally pause, my knuckles torn and bloodied, and loom over him.
“You think anyone will think I’m soft now, Ottavio?”
His lips are so swollen he doesn’t utter a sound. Instead, his head barely turns to the side.
“What do you say I display your head on a pike outside the gates of the villa? Do you think then the others will stop saying I’ve gone soft, coglione ?”
Fear sparks across his bloodied, bruised eyes. They’re barely open now.
“And then what if I drag your eviscerated entrails across the center of Roma for your betrayal? Do you think then they’ll believe I’m just as savage as my father?”
His head slowly dips.
“Good. Then that’s exactly what I’ll do.” I reach for the metal poker by the hearth and hold it high over my head.
A tear streaks down his cheek, clearing a path through the crimson painting his face. “No, please,” he murmurs.
“Did Serena beg? Did she ask you not to defile her with your filthy cock?”
His lips go still.
“But you were going to do it anyway. You dared to touch my property, my tesoro , not only with your hands but with your fucking cock! Serena is mine, and I will use your gutted, mangled body as a warning for anyone who ever tries to take her away from me again.”
Before he can utter another lying, traitorous word, I bring the poker down with all my strength burying the pointed end into his good eye. Screams fill the chamber as he thrashes beneath me for only a second before I drive it in deeper, piercing his skull and reaching the soft, delicate brain tissue.
His muscles tense for an instant before his entire body relaxes beneath me, mouth falling open.
A sudden stillness blankets the room.
I sit there, straddling the dead bastardo, my nostrils flaring as I attempt to reel in the rage. The pungent, metallic scent of blood permeates the air, and crimson stains my vision. For an instant, I’m transported back in time to another villa, this one consumed in smoke instead of blood.
Fire licks up my back as I carry Papà ’s body through the blazing inferno. All I see, all I feel is scorching pain. The flames race across my shirt, then devour my skin, destroying everything in its path. It’s a miracle I survive… or at least that’s what the doctor says when I emerge from the wreckage.
“Tonio!”
I blink quickly, banishing the grisly thoughts of the past and meet pale gray eyes. Mariuccia stands over me, horror written across her features as her gaze pivots between my own and the poker protruding from Otto’s face. It seems as if she’s moving and speaking in slow motion. “Tonio, you must get up. I will call Pietro and have him send someone.”
She helps me stand and the scene coalesces around me, back to normal speed. I nod slowly at Mariuccia, then watch as she marches out of the room. I finally hazard a glance over my shoulder to face her . I promised she’d be okay, told her she would be safe as long as Dante came through. Now her father is MIA and one of my own damned men had tried to rape her.
Her eyes meet mine, the range of emotions streaking through the brilliant sky blue indecipherable. A spiral of rage, fear and something else… something I can’t quite pin down surges to the surface. She jerks her shirt down—no, my shirt, she’s still sleeping in my shirt, stretching it until it covers her legs.
That bastardo tried to rape her while she wore my shirt. How the fuck dare he? I wish he was still alive so I could kill him again, more slowly this time so I could savor every second of his agony.
I open my mouth to speak, to say what I have no idea. To apologize?
Cazzo , maybe.
But my phone rings and I jerk it out of my pocket. I don’t recognize the number on the screen, but I sure as hell recognize that country code. My eyes flicker to Serena’s for an instant before I press the call answer button.
“ Pronto ?”
“Release my daughter immediately, Antonio, or I will rain hell on you and everyone you’ve ever met. The streets of Rome will run crimson with the blood of the Ferraras, and I will let you live until the end, so that you can watch as I tear you apart limb from limb then beat you to death with your own fucking bones.”