AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He knew Francis was hurting. It felt good to hurt him, because the hole in Vitari’s chest where Francis had torn out his heart wasn’t going away anytime soon.
Even the best case, if Giancarlo was everything Francis believed, and he was trying to bring down Sasha, it didn’t change the fact his own fucking son had betrayed him to his enemy. His father had no choice but to kill him. The capos would demand it. Little Toni would demand it. The whole Battaglia would be baying for his blood.
At least Giancarlo wouldn’t be in Cartagena. Out on bail, he couldn’t leave Italy. But that just meant he’d have someone else deal out the punishment, someone like Vitari had been. Someone like L’ Angelo della Morte.
They cruised into Club de Pesca marina early in the evening and moored alongside other enormous yachts. Vitari was unceremoniously marched off the deck, with Francis bullied along behind him, to a waiting car, its back windows blacked out.
“Where are they taking us?” Francis asked once they were underway. He’d gone pale.
Vitari tried asking the two bastards in the front, but they ignored him. “Best guess, to a private airfield.”
“We’re going back to Italy?”
“I’m sure my father can’t wait to see you, now you’re friends.”
Francis’s face fell. “Vitari?—”
He glared out of the window at the ancient city of Cartagena passing by. Vitari hated hurting him, hated how his words cut him, but it felt good too, because every cut he dealt came back on him, and Vitari deserved the pain. They both did. They could have fucking had something. Vitari might have been coming around to the idea of a normal life. But how could he ever trust Francis again?
Vitari snuck a look over. Francis’s pale reflection hovered in the privacy glass, his face turned away, watching the world go by, probably wondering how he was going to survive it all. Since he had been in contact with Giancarlo there was a chance he might let Francis go after all this, but not Vitari.
He’d killed Battaglia betrayers for lesser indiscretions against the family.
“We could have had something,” Francis whispered, so quietly he probably hadn’t intended Vitari to hear.
“No, we couldn’t,” Vitari snarled, denying it even though he’d thought the same. Francis turned his head and met Vitari’s glare. He looked ruined, looked fucking gutted. Good. “You fucked us over before we’d begun.”
The pain on his face crushed Vitari’s heart and he hated himself all over again. He almost apologized, almost took the words back, but Francis’s shock turned to a sneer.
“If you hadn’t sold those guns we’d have been fine!” Francis seethed, searing hatred back in his eyes, just like when they’d met, when Francis had thought Vitari no better than the dirt on his shoe.
“Right. Because your waiting tables at the resort was going to save us? Be real, Francis.”
“At least it was honest.”
“Fucking honest?” Vitari laughed. “If you wanted honest and wholesome, what the fuck were you doing with me?”
“I’m beginning to wonder that myself,” he snapped back.
“I know why. You thought you could save me, like a charity case. Make up for all that sinning you did? It was never going to happen, Padre.”
Francis gazed down at his cupped hands in his lap and the scar given to him by Giancarlo. “I see that now.”
Vitari cast his gaze out of the window again, hiding the hurt like he always did. He squeezed his eyes closed, forcing their burn away. Why had he fooled himself into thinking he could have Francis? It was a stupid dream. Dirty secrets like him didn’t deserve love—not a father’s love, not the love of a good man. Stanmore broke him. It would be better, from now on, if he went back to not caring and back to being L’ Angelo della Morte.
It was the only damn way his heart might survive.
The Battaglia men ushered him and Francis into an empty warehouse with holes in its tin roof, flapping plastic sheeting, and broken windows. They were far outside the city, in an industrial area that had ceased any trading long ago, where it would be easy to disappear a person. Or two.
Three more men awaited their arrival. Two armed guards, and between them, Neo.
Vitari bucked against the hands holding him. “You fuck!” He’d been right, Giancarlo had sent Vitari’s replacement. Fucking Neo. “He’s DeSica!” he told the men, bucking in their grip again, but the guard’s didn’t let up. “You all know that, right? He’s a fucking traitor!”
Neo smiled, so calm, so confident. He even looked like Vitari, well-dressed, casually classy, not a speck of dust on his black shoes. He’d climbed the ranks and taken Vitari’s place in the Battaglia, right where Luca Espinosa had once dreamed he’d be.
Neo tugged on his shirt cuffs and rolled his shoulders. “That’s rich, coming from you, Angel.” He arched an eyebrow, and his pointed stare placed all the blame at Vitari’s feet.
Hate scorched Vitari’s soul and made him sick. He twisted, almost writhing free, but one of the guards kicked his leg out. He dropped, pain cracked up his knee, and then Neo loomed. The punch swung in too fast to block and landed hard, whipping his head around. Coppery blood filled his mouth and dribbled between his lips. He spat.
