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“Stop,” I say, but this time it’s a whisper. Not a command, but a prayer. I’m begging the man, the universe, maybe even God, to make this all stop. To go back to how things were fifteen minutes ago, when my life still made sense and I knew who I was, who my father was.
But he doesn’t stop. And the fear has me again, tightening its jaws around me until I can’t speak or think or breathe. I am completely immobile as he bears down on me.
But… I’m not immobile. Suddenly, I’m grabbed from behind and spun with such dizzying, catastrophic force that my feet leave the ground, my shoes flying off and my gun dropping down to the snow. Two shots ring out, one chasing the other. Whoever’s holding me grunts and grasps me tighter against his broad chest with one arm. For a split second, I wonder if it’s my father, somehow come back to save me. But no, this man is huge, far taller than my father. And there’s no way Dad could have made it all the way back across the lawn by now.
I don’t have time to figure it out, because before I know it, I’m slung over the man’s shoulder and carried back into the house. I wriggle and kick, not knowing what else to do, but it’s useless. The hand on my hip is like iron, holding me in place. I plant my hands on the man’s back and crane my neck to see the other man, the one who was advancing on me, crumpled on the snow, the moonlight shining on a river of blood that streams from his head.
Did I get shot, too? I wonder in a daze, noticing that moisture is soaking the front of my dress, sticky and warm liquid coating my breasts.
The man carries me through the living room, something I only see in bits and pieces through the curtain of my hair hanging down and obscuring my vision. I don’t see Mr. Byrne anymore. I wonder where he’s ended up. And where my father is now.
The man takes me into the kitchen. It’s bright in here, but a moment later we’re plunged into darkness as he flicks his hand over the light switch on the wall. He doesn’t stop walking until we’re swathed in the shadows of the pantry built into the wall. Finally, he puts me down, and I can try to get my bearings on who he is and what the fuck is happening.
I’ve dimly pieced together that it’s probably one of Darragh’s men who’s saved me. Word must have gotten out about the Camorra being here and the reinforcements have come. But I don’t recognize the man before me, and when he tells me not to scream it’s not with the kind of accent I’d expect. It’s a mostly Ontario accent, but there’s something else edging it. Something vaguely Italian.
Oh, God. He’s one of them. One of Severu’s men. Camorra.
“Don’t scream,” he says again just as I open my mouth to do it. He obviously senses I have no plans to obey, so he claps a huge, leather-gloved hand over my mouth, guiding me backwards until my spine hits the pantry’s shelves.
“There might be more of them.”
More of them? More of Severu’s men?
So… he’s not one of them? He did shoot that other guy, after all.
His eyes are so black they obliterate me. It’s a gaze that feels like abyss. My own gaze tracks over his face, my nostrils filled with the scent of leather, blood, and the clean, luxurious spice of cologne. Dark, thick hair is slicked back from his broad forehead. One rebellious piece flops forward, curling, seeming almost boyish in stark contrast to the grim darkness of his face. There’s nothing else boyish about him. About the hard, muscled frame of his body, the commanding grip of his hand on my mouth, the drowning black of those eyes. He has to be at least thirty-four or thirty-five, maybe even older, his bulk packed into a perfectly tailored suit.
As I look at him, my eyes snag on an area of skin at his jaw and neck that looks wrong. Mottled and scarred. Like he’s been burned.
And with sudden, breathless fear, I know exactly who he is. I’ve heard the stories – the stories of the man with the scars who never takes off his leather gloves.
He’s not one of Severu Serpico’s men.
He’s not Camorra at all, but Cosa Nostra. And he’s not a simple henchman, but the underboss of the most ruthless Sicilian family in the country.
Holding me tightly in my own kitchen, blocking me in with his massive body and watching me with an intensity that makes me shiver, is the tyrant of Toronto. A titan of bloodshed and king of crime. Vincenzo Titone’s oldest nephew and heir.
Elio Titone.
The man who rules most of Toronto, of Montreal, and everything in between. The man who almost died in a fire as a boy back in Sicily, but who instead walked right through it, defying nature and death, defying God himself even as the good Lord tried to send him straight back down to hell.
His eyes roam downwards, and his nostrils flare when they get to my chest. I follow his gaze, gasping against his glove at the sight of all the slick red marring the white satin. I felt that blood, knew it was there, but the sight of it is still shocking smeared against the fabric of the dress and my pale skin.
Elio doesn’t move his hand from my mouth. Instead, he shoves his gun lengthwise between his teeth, biting down on it the way an office worker might hold a mundane object like a pen when his hands are full. With his free hand, he pulls the front of my dress so hard it rips. The satin falls downward, the dress’s straps ruined, until my entire front is bared to him.
Humiliation, rage, and fear all churn together, heating my skin and making my stomach clench. His gloved hand skims over my skin, poking, prodding. Pushing on the hand across my mouth, he forces my head back so he can inspect my throat before moving lower. He slides his hand over one breast, then the other, lifting each one and examining my abdomen. When my nipples harden under the hateful, arousing pressure of the leather, I start to squirm. With a grunt, he shoves his thick thigh between my legs, halting my movements. He takes the gun from his mouth and lays it on a shelf above my head.
“Stop moving,” he growls.
His movements are quick but methodical, and I soon understand what he’s doing.
So, he has the same question I did, then. Wondering if I had somehow been shot. But I know by now I haven’t been. His thumb glides across my navel, indicating his inspection might move even lower.
I shake my head rapidly. His gaze narrows. Then he rolls his left shoulder experimentally. His expression tightens.
It’s him. He’s bleeding. The other gunshot…
I don’t see any blood on his front, or a hole in his suit jacket indicating an exit wound, so the bullet must still be in there somewhere. His jaw works, and he looks pissed, but not overwhelmingly so. The guy looks like he just hit a patch of bad traffic on his way to work, like this is an annoying but daily occurrence for him.
