Chapter 28 #2
The one I saw outside the elevator doesn’t lift his glare from me once, making nerves skitter down my spine as I approach the table.
The youngest, Brando, the one who helped me patch up his older brother, doesn’t pay anyone much attention.
He just sits still, quietly turning a blade over in his fingers.
A vision of the blade Fiero used on my uncle flashes across my lids, momentarily stealing my breath.
When I glance to his side to see Fiero, he’s watching me. As if he can read my mind, he uncurls his fist on the table, giving me a glimpse of the deep cut across his palm he got from the blade when he fucked me with it.
When I audibly suck in a breath, he closes his fist again, leaving my gaze to slide left to the third brother, Cassio.
He’s looking over at me with an unreadable expression. It could be contempt or it could be pity. Maybe it’s both. Either way, it makes me feel restless and uneasy.
One of the Di Santo’s spots me hovering and beckons me over.
“What can I get for you, sir?”
“We’ll have a round of your finest whisky. In fact, just bring the bottle and some lowballs.”
I nod and turn to leave but another voice halts me.
“And a vodka on the rocks for me. Double.”
I glance over at the man who made the additional request. He’s grinning almost lecherously at me, his greedy gaze moving over my curves like they’re made of caviar.
It’s only now that I notice he doesn’t look as sharp and formidable as the others. His suit looks cheap over his slight frame and his watch looks definitively mass market, not subtly extravagant like the others’.
“Coming right up.”
I feel a heated gaze on my back as I leave. It belongs to Fiero. I would recognize that sensation in a crowded room—and have, as Hallie so astutely pointed out.
When Dante lets me back into the main lounge I feel like I can finally breathe.
The tray trembles faintly in my hands as José pours the whisky and sets the bottle beside the glasses. He gives me a questioning look when he notices my expression.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” I reply, pinning my lips together.
“You look pale.”
“I’m fine. Honestly.” I lift the tray before he can question me further.
The second I’m let through the ropes, the tension slams into me again.
I make my way toward the table carefully, feeling the greedy-eyed man watching me approach like a starving dog.
Fiero’s presence vibrates across the room but even in my periphery I notice his shoulders go unnaturally still.
I place the lowball glasses down one by one. Then I reach the man at the end—the one who ordered the vodka.
Before I can straighten fully, his hand clamps around my wrist.
“Jesus Christ,” he says with a sloppy grin. “She’s even prettier up close.”
My stomach twists.
“Sir—”
In one sharp movement, he yanks me sideways onto his lap. The tray slips from my fingers and clatters onto the table.
No one laughs. No one moves. The tension in the air feels brittle. I wonder why no one is helping me—are they reveling in my discomfort? Is Fiero happy with this?
“Let me go please,” I say politely, forcing a smile onto my face.
I try to stand but his arm vines tighter around my waist.
“Nah.” His breath already reeks of alcohol. “Stay awhile. Warm my lap, gorgeous.”
Every muscle in my body locks. I glance instinctively toward Fiero—he hasn’t moved. His eyes are fixed on the man holding me to his lap, and beneath them is an emotion that terrifies me.
Rage.
Pure, violent, boiling rage.
It’s burning so hot it practically distorts the air around him.
Remo and Cassio exchange a look but it’s so fleeting I can’t read it, and besides, my awareness is tunneled into the movement of the man’s hands.
Brando’s gaze settles on me and the blade in his fingers stops turning.
It’s as though the three brothers are waiting—watching—to see what Fiero does.
Finally, Cristiano barks an order across the table.
“Leave her the fuck alone, Val.”
The man beneath me laughs. “What?” He squeezes my waist tighter. “I’m just appreciating the scenery.”
Cristiano’s expression hardens. “Were you raised in a fucking barn?”
A few uncomfortable chuckles ripple through the room, but nobody actually intervenes.
I try to stand again.
“Please let go.”
The man ignores me completely and instead places a hand on the bare skin of my right thigh.
My entire body reacts in an instant. Every nerve ending lights up with panic and I stop breathing. My skin crawls, images of my dead uncle in blood and bits drawing the nausea up my throat. I feel like I’m in a cage of vipers—saved from one dangerous man, thrown into a room full of others.
His palm smooths down my thigh, dipping inwards, just inches from my apex. Sweat leaches from my pores and I struggle to get out of his grip.
The room spins, black suits and dark eyes all blurring into one.
Then a deafening crack explodes beside my ear.
For a split second I think someone punctured my ear drum, but then warmth splashes across my cheek.
The man beneath me jerks violently and his grip loosens. And suddenly we’re falling.
His body slides bonelessly off the chair, dragging me down with him to the floor.
A scream tears through the air—I can’t tell if it’s mine—then a hundred things seem to happen at once.
Chairs scrape backward, men shout, security floods the room. All the while, I stare numbly at the blood soaking into the collar of the dead man beneath me. A dark hole sits neatly between his eyes.
My ears ring violently as someone shakes my shoulders. I look around in a daze, piecing together what just happened.
The man who’d pulled me onto his lap is dead.
Someone in this room shot him between the eyes.
My gaze lifts to Fiero like it always does, like a magnet. He’s still positioned calmly at the end of the table but there’s a gun in his hand and it’s pointing right at the man on the floor.
His expression is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t look at all moved by the fact he just killed someone for touching me. He looks alarmingly controlled.
Then his gaze lifts to someone behind me and he coldly barks an order.
“Get her out of here.”
Someone speaks—a woman—but I can’t make out the words. I just see Fiero pocket the gun and remove his gaze completely.
A jacket is folded over my shoulders and someone grips my arms through it, pulling me to my feet. I come face-to-face with Vivienne who peers back at me with a surprisingly concerned look on her face.
“Come on, Pfeiffer. Walk with me.”
I let her guide me firmly through a different exit concealed behind yet another heavy velvet curtain.
“W-where are we going?” My voice is quiet—meek. It terrifies me.
“Upstairs, to the penthouse.”
Even in my shocked daze my heartbeat jumps. But the look on Fiero’s face just now did not convey he wanted me in his apartment.
“Why?”
“That’s where he wants you.”
But, I… I don’t understand.”
We reach the elevator and she steers me inside. When the doors hiss shut, she turns me to face her.
“After the shooting in the lounge, Il Diavolo gave me strict orders to make sure you were safe, no matter what.”
My mouth drops open.
“He wants you where no one can hurt you, Pfeiffer.”
I stare at her, even as the doors hiss open on the very top floor. She steps out of the elevator first but glances over her shoulder, her brows arched. “Make of that what you will.”