By Blade, I Love (By Blade #3)

Wolfe

She cried on and off during the drive. Sometimes she would be silent with her arms crossed over her chest, and then at other moments, her head would rest against the window and she would cry as quietly as possible, like she didn’t want me to hear.

The blood had dried on her skin and clothing, and she smelled like vomit because either she’d hurled or someone else had.

I didn’t notice the smell as much as I normally would have, not when my adrenaline was still through the roof. Two different instincts gnawed at me. The first was to drive to the vineyard and annihilate everyone who was there. And the other was to care for Francesca.

Francesca was obviously the priority.

My hand remained on her thigh, but I didn’t caress her gently like I normally would.

I didn’t comfort her with words. My vision was tinted red, and I was just fucking mad.

Mad that someone had touched her. Mad that her brother was so fucking stupid.

Mad that Don Mancini was dead, a man I didn’t necessarily like but always respected.

He didn’t deserve to die like that.

My woman didn’t deserve to lose her father right in front of her eyes.

It was normally an hour-and-a-half drive, but I got there in fifty minutes, breaking the speed limit and navigating between cars and traffic to get there as fast as possible, to put as much distance between us and Warren’s crew so we wouldn’t be followed.

After he ransacked my house in Caltanissetta and found I wasn’t there, he would check Palermo next, but finding me in a big city like this would be a challenge.

I pulled onto my property and parked the Range Rover in the small parking garage underground. It could only fit two cars. The place had cost me almost thirty million because of its proximity to the sea, but it felt cramped compared to the other homes I had.

After I parked the car, she continued to lean against the window like she couldn’t move.

She was fucking devastated. Her eyes were open and emotionless, like her tear ducts had run dry.

It was one of those situations where there was literally nothing I could say to make it better.

I could relate to her because I’d watched my own father die, but that would only make her feel worse, not better.

I could get angry and vent and seethe, but that wasn’t helpful.

I could only offer one thing—revenge. “I’ll make them pay for this, Francesca.

All of them. Every single last one—especially Leo. ”

She continued to stare out the window at the concrete wall of the garage.

“I can’t believe he’s gone.” Her eyes started to water again, but she blinked back the tears. “All this time, he thought it was you…because Leo wanted him to believe that. Kept whispering in his ear, I’m sure. Undermined my personal relationship with you for his own gain. It’s unforgivable.”

Absolutely fucking unforgivable.

“I just… I don’t know how to process this.”

I knew exactly what she’d seen because I’d seen something similar myself. “It’ll take your entire life to process it.”

The tears welled up in her eyes until they formed drops and streaked down her cheeks. “When Warren shot up my house, Leo cried. He held me and literally cried. How…how can he do that and then, just a few weeks later, stab me in the back?”

It took me a second to figure that out. “That probably wasn’t in the plan.”

“If he’d just told me I better step aside or there would be hell to pay, I would have just…” Her voice cracked. “I would have just given him the damn thing.” She started to cry again, her little body trembling from the weight of guilt that she shouldn’t carry.

I didn’t want to continue this conversation in the car where I couldn’t hold her, where only my hand could reach her. “Let’s get inside and get you cleaned up.”

As if she’d forgotten how she looked, she dropped her chin, looking at all the blood and vomit that had soaked into her hair and clothing. She touched her shirt with her fingertips then stared at the blood on her hands. “I—I threw up. They shot him in the head, and I threw up.”

“A common reaction.”

“Have you ever done that?” She continued to stare out the window.

I gave a nod that she couldn’t see. “Yeah, when my mom was shot right in front of me.”

Her eyes started to water again. “I hate that we have this in common.”

I gave her thigh a gentle squeeze. “Come on, baby.”

We left the Range Rover and headed inside.

The house was full of light because the sun didn’t set until eight in the evening in the summer.

Francesca moved slowly, at a snail’s pace, and it took her a while to get to the top floor.

Instead of dropping all her clothes and getting into the shower, she headed into the kitchen to pour a glass of water.

She drank the entire thing in one go before she left the empty glass on the counter.

I turned on the water in the shower to let it warm up and helped her take off her clothes, shoving them into a trash bag since they were ruined. I ushered her into the shower, and the second she was under the water, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the walls.

I joined her a moment later, the two of us able to fit under both shower heads easily. I gently turned her and guided her into me, where her face sank into my chest. I circled her with my arms, and I held her under the flow of water, the blood turning the bottom of the shower bright red.

She started to cry…and then she started to sob.

I helped her dry off and get dressed in clean clothes—one of my t-shirts and a pair of her pajama bottoms. Her hair remained damp and she didn’t seem interested in blow-drying it, so I let it be.

She moved to the couch and took a seat, pulling her knees to her chest as her eyes remained both empty and full of despair. Once the adrenaline had passed, she must have been exhausted, but the sadness was so potent that it had a choke hold on her.

I’d never seen her like this. It was hard to watch.

I wanted to know exactly what had happened, but I didn’t want to make her relive everything when she was so delicate.

She and I were very different people. I’d watched my mother get her brains blown out when I was a kid, and while I was sad, I’d bounced back pretty quickly.

The rage took over and became a permanent part of my character.

Even once I got my revenge, I still carried that anger with me every day.

But Francesca processed it differently, probably because the person who had betrayed her was her own family. “Baby?”

Her meek eyes shifted to me.

“What happened with the men in the car?” I’d followed her tracker as I’d headed down the road, knowing Warren was attempting to relocate her because of the way the dot moved away from the vineyard.

When it came to a stop, I thought they knew I was ahead and had laid down spikes or grenades, but then I saw Francesca dragging a man twice her size out of the car.

She stared at me for several seconds, like it took her a moment to recall, like it was ancient history at this point. “They—they were supposed to take me to Warren’s. But I cut through my ropes and sliced their throats.”

“You had a knife on you?”

Her eyes flicked away momentarily. “Um, Leo gave it to me.”

Leo had betrayed her and then gave her a blade to escape? “Good job.” Despite my confusion, I was proud of her. She took out the guys but didn’t crash over a cliff or into a rock.

She swallowed as her eyes shifted away. “My father and I were both in the villa when they came. When I heard the gunshots, I ran upstairs to his office, and he already had the guns out of the safe. He wore a vest and asked me to put one on myself. At the time, we didn’t know who had come to kill us.

” She crossed her arms over her chest like she was cold, her damp hair hanging around her face.

“When they started to come up the stairs, we knew we were outnumbered. He—he told me to run…” Her eyes started to fill with tears.

“He rained gunfire down on them from the top of the stairs and told me to climb on the roof and hide.” She suddenly sniffed and closed her eyes, squeezing the tears out before they streaked down her cheeks.

“I said no, but he made me.” She took a breath and tried to steady herself.

“I told him I loved him, and I left. But I couldn’t get on the roof and I couldn’t hide, so I took out as many as I could.

My dad would shout down the hallway and tell me how many were outside the door and then get a beating for it.

I was eventually overrun, and they dragged me to Warren. ”

Leo had fucking lied to me. I’d asked him for an update on Warren, and he’d fucking lied to me. I silently berated myself for taking his word. I should have demanded to see Warren’s body with my own eyes. All of this would have been avoided if I’d taken matters into my own hands.

“If my arms hadn’t been tied behind my back…

” She shook her head. “I would have killed my brother with my bare hands.” The sadness was slowly replaced by a blood-red rage that flushed her cheeks and sharpened her gaze.

“My father wouldn’t look at him, because he was ashamed that Leo was his son.

It was so obvious to both of us that Warren used Leo to get what he wanted, and he was dumb enough to fall for it.

Then Warren put the gun to my father’s head…

” She didn’t finish the ending to that story.

“Leo protested, said Warren had agreed not to kill us, and Warren laughed.” Her eyes remained elsewhere instead of meeting my gaze.

“My father didn’t react. Didn’t blink. Didn’t look scared.

Just stared my brother down like the filth he was…

then he was gone.” She inhaled a deep breath as the tears started in her chest once again.

“I watched the whole thing. Felt his blood splash all over me. My ears rang, and I suddenly felt sick…and I hurled into the pool of blood.”

I could visualize all of this without being troubled because violence was a part of my daily life, but seeing it from her perspective made it far more emotional.

I wished she hadn’t been there to see it.

She was tough, but that was just traumatizing.

I wouldn’t wish that kind of suffering on anyone, especially the woman I loved.

“Then Warren said he would make me his plaything, and Leo said they’d agreed to let me go.”

I knew Leo wasn’t the brightest, but Cristo, he was na?ve as hell.

“Leo followed me to the car and said he was sorry a bunch of times, and I spat on his face. He kinda tripped and fell into me, and that was when I felt the knife he slipped into my hands.”

If he hadn’t done that, it wouldn’t have mattered—because I would have taken them out on the road and gotten her out of there. But I supposed it was better than being a coward and doing nothing.

“I can’t believe I just said all that.” She dropped her voice to a sort of whisper.

“I keep waiting to wake up from this horrible dream.” Her eyes welled up with tears.

“But it’s not a dream. My dad is dead and my brother is a traitor and I have nothing.

” She sucked in a deep breath and then started to cry in earnest, her bottom lip quivering as she came undone.

I watched her cry, watched this strong woman shatter into too many pieces for me to glue back together. “You don’t have nothing, baby. You have me.”

There was a pause in her tears as her eyes moved back to mine.

“And I’ll make them all pay for what they’ve done to you.

I can’t bring your father back, but I can make them all regret the day they crossed you.

” I would torture them all to the brink of insanity, and even when they begged for death, I wouldn’t give it to them.

Make it slow and painful, give them plenty of time to think about their actions. “And I’ll get your vineyard back.”

She brought herself to calm, like my words made her feel somewhat better. “But how? It’s just you and me now.”

I didn’t want a partnership, but there was nothing I was unwilling to do to make this right. “Cosa Nostra.”