10. Sicily #2
“I hope he feels better soon,” the second said as he cleared the path of the opening gate just in time for me to release the brake, slam the accelerator, and tear through the streets of New York.
The Gioffres’ penthouse was nothing like what Francesco’s was. This building felt old and retired with cracking paint and slightly musty windows, but with the music blasting from the top floor and the neon lights pulsing, I couldn’t blame the walls for wanting to give up.
Sighing deeply, I locked the car and pushed open the front door, and was immediately greeted with the scent of booze, sex, and the unfortunate sight too. It was like an orgy in the stairwell; at least six couples were screwing, right in front of me and each other, all either wasted, high, or both.
I had no doubt that Fiore had attended a thousand parties like this; she was reckless and enjoyed the thrill of knowing that what she was doing was wrong.
I’d rescued her too many times from parties in dilapidated houses, construction sites, and houses of men who were too old to be in her company, but I’d still end her life tonight if I saw her like that.
The staircase was endless as I climbed it, but I was glad I chose the extra effort over deciding to see if there was a porno being filmed in the elevator.
I could barely see through the thick, muggy darkness that shrouded the inner hallways. It was pitch-black, the only light coming from the moon outside the tall windows and the strobe lighting that I was certain would cause me a seizure if I stayed too long.
It was little relief when I found the main floor of the party.
Drunken, near-naked bodies, red plastic cups, empty condom packets, and bottles of booze were littered everywhere from the kitchen counters to the pool. The house seemed cluttered without the thousands of teenagers here, and it all felt too close, too busy, too overwhelming.
My breath panted as I shoved through the crowd of dancers, though dancing was a strong word to describe what was occurring there, and it only halted when I caught sight of my sister, my little sister, sandwiched between two identical boys beside the penthouse’s internal staircase.
My mouth gaped open when the first shoved his tongue down her throat, and the other, taller, pierced one, held her steady against his chest.
I wanted to vomit, die, and go the hell home, but I stepped closer, ready to snatch her out of there, and quickly stopped dead in my tracks.
A dark figure slunk in the corner of the upper landing, watching my sister with calculation and…
anger? The shadow’s figure was big, broad, muscled, a lot like Milan, but in the light, his eyes shone blue.
Recognition smacked me like a palm to the face, and my veins ran cold as the shadow found my eyes and disappeared into the first room he could find.
I ran, not thinking about the consequences of coming face-to-face with this man, and darted into the room where Brenno Fera, Milan’s brother that I’d met at our wedding, stood by the open window with the moonlight painting his strong jaw and darkening eyes in silver.
This room was someone’s bedroom, one of the twins’ presumably. It was dark with blue wallpaper, gray bedsheets, but not overly depressing with the photographs of the twins throughout their lives dotted around the space.
I forgot sometimes that Made Men were capable of caring about people.
“What are you doing here?” he snapped, frowning at me like I was a puzzle to solve.
I crossed my arms. “What are you doing here? I doubt you enjoy partying with teenagers, or maybe you do, you crazy pervert.”
Brenno slipped a small pocketknife with deep serrated edges from the pocket of his dark pants, holding it up to the moonlight.
It was sleek and clean with an engraved handle full of elaborately carved roses.
It was beautiful, if a weapon could be considered such a thing.
Brenno was looking at it with reverence, like it was a living being, a part of him.
I took a step back and hit the door with a dull thump.
“Does my knife scare you, Sicily?” the insane motherfucker asked with a tilt of his head.
This one was definitely a psychopath.
Why couldn’t Milan and his family have been just ordinary, boring people?
I scoffed and tried to pretend that my bones weren’t shivering. “Depends. Why did you bring it here to watch my sister?”
“I wasn’t watching your sister,” Brenno countered instantly, like someone who was doing exactly that. “My mother hand carved this knife to gift me on my tenth birthday. Somehow, she found time when she wasn’t knocked up or beaten unconscious.”
His voice was cold and stiff, but his face couldn’t help but display flickers of emotion that broke through his mask of indifference.
If the knife meant a lot to him and he’d kept it so pristine for so many years, that could only mean that his mother meant a lot to him too.
If Milan had truly killed her, was that why Brenno hated him so much?
Brenno’s focus turned back to me, and he held the knife between us, the tip pointing toward me. “I killed my father with this knife. Did you know that? Did Milano tell you that?”
Milano again.
“No, he didn’t,” I answered honestly.
Brenno chuckled darkly. “Of course he didn’t.”
For a brief moment, I contemplated the meaning between his words. I hardly knew the man I was living with, and I needed to know what he had done, why his brothers hated him so much. I needed to know how much danger I was in, even if it came from the mouth of a psycho.
“Did he kill her?” I blurted, the words falling from my tongue.
The Capo looked stunned, his neck even jolting backward slightly, but his face quickly morphed into something darker and more sinister, and he threw the knife straight at my head. It speared the wooden door like a dart, and he grinned.
Brenno suddenly darted forward, ripping the blade from the wall and running the tip along my collarbone. “Milano ruined my brothers’ lives. I want to ruin him.”
I stared at his wrist, at the slight inch of tattooed skin that peeked out from beneath his shirt sleeve.
I gripped a hold of him to steady myself from shaking, but also to stop him from slitting my throat, though I suspected that if he wanted to, he could do it regardless. “And you were gonna do that here?”
Brenno leaned forward slowly, his hot breath skating over my skin. He smelled faintly of cigarettes, felt of a warmth similar to smoke and fog, and it was suffocating worse than Milan was. His lips pressed to my ear gently, dotting kisses down the arch before biting carefully on my earlobe.
Bile rose in my throat as he whispered, “I was going to slit your pretty sister’s throat, but now that you’re here…”
I forced a laugh. “He doesn’t care about me or my sister. Do it, seriously. He’ll probably thank you."
“Milan is incapable of not caring about girls in his care.” He dug the knife in deeper, enough to threaten but not enough to break the skin. My spine stiffened at the pressure, my teeth finding my lip to bite down on. “I would’ve settled for sweet Fiore’s death, but yours is even better.”
Just as Brenno withdrew the knife to plunge it into my stomach, the door jolted, banging against my spine. I squealed accidentally and he stilled, pressing a finger to his lips. He didn’t want to be seen, and I wondered if he was even allowed in New York.
“Sicily?” a familiar voice called. “Are you in here?”
“Yes!” I called back instantly. If Brenno did end my life, at least Matteo would find my body. “Yes, Matt, I’m here!”
Relief warmed the ice Brenno had turned my blood into, and I sagged against his hold on the door. Brenno let go instantly as Matteo rattled the lock, backing away toward the open window. His eyes pierced mine as he growled, “Wrong move, Mrs. Lucca.”
The door jolted again, the lock splintering to the floor with a clink, and Brenno used his final second with me to launch forward again. He slit the front of my bodysuit with the knife’s serrated edge, creating a channel that exposed my breasts and stomach beneath.
Matteo kicked the door, almost sending me flying, as Brenno rushed to the windowsill, grabbing onto the window frame as he threw himself out, just in time to not be seen. I scurried to it, watching him jump from balcony to balcony until he reached the ground and scuttled into the darkness.
“What the hell happened to your shirt?” Matteo frowned deeply, immediately shrugging off his gray sweater. “I couldn’t find your fucking sister.”
I thought about outing Brenno to Matteo, but Matteo would tell Milan—he would have to—and there was more that I needed to discover about the Luccas’ past. A war between Philly and New York was unlikely to shed any of the information I needed.
“I’ll find her.” I took Matteo’s sweater in my shuddering fingers. “Thank you for coming, Matt, really, I—”
The floorboard creaked, and my head snapped to the doorway.
The doorway where my husband stood.