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I open the door without turning. If I give him my back, he won’t hesitate to shoot me like they did to my mother.
“How about my daughter?” His frail voice causes me to stop.
“Your daughter?” I pretend to be ignorant.
“Stop playing with me. You took my daughter somewhere, where is Georgina?”
He knows.
Well, of course, he knows. After all, he was the reason her mom disguised her as a boy. If my calculations are correct, then he must’ve found her exact location around the time I took her to Sicily.
“I thought you have a son?” I feign surprise.
“I’ll find her and she’ll choose me. You know why, Alessio?” He emphasizes my given name. “For the same reason, you’re doing all this. Family. I’m her only remaining member. Blood runs thicker than water, remember that.”
Fuck him.
He won’t find her so he won’t be able to take her away, and if he somehow ends up in Sicily, his men will be murdered before they can arrive at the Vitallios’ lands. There’s a reason why no Costas come over.
“Keep an eye on Lucio,” I tell him before I leave his mansion as quietly as I got in.
I find Angelo waiting in the car by the back entrance. Now that I started the dent between Paolo and his fucker of a brother, my first mission is done. I should head back to the airport and leave before I catch Lucio’s attention.
But instead of heading to the airport, I ask Angelo to stop in the shitty neighborhood I never wanted to return to again.
And yet here I am.
Angelo waits for me in the car as I take two steps at the time to my little Petal’s old fucking apartment.
Soon enough, the tenant will empty it and put her things up for sale. Not that she has anything to root her to this place. Her new home is Sicily whether she likes it or not.
I use the spare key under the fire escape and open her apartment. Pads of feet run in my direction before the two cats surround me, mewling like fucking crazy.
“Mr. Bingly, Mrs. Hudson,” I greet. “Get your shit, we’re going somewhere.”
They follow me all the way as I grab their things and her laptop and some of her clothes. I was in a hurry the first time so I only brought her mug and a few clothes.
The cats caress my legs, looking up at me with big fucking eyes. Judging from their half-full cans, Dinah and that Russian nurse have fed them, but they must miss my little Petal as much as she misses them.
I caught her playing with Salli’s grandkid’s cat the other day and telling him how much she misses her own cats.
“You owe me,” I tell them as I usher them into their cages. They don’t protest as they go in there.
I throw one last look over at the apartment as I balance a bag on my shoulder and the cages on either of my hands.
This is where my obsession with my little Petal started, where I first watched her, fucked her, tied her up, and made her fantasies — and mine — come true.
Or rather, no, maybe my obsession with her started since she was little Joe, as fucked up as that sounds.
Angelo raises an eyebrow but says nothing as I place the cats and the bag in the back seat.
“Gifts for the woman.”
He merely nods as if saying, Really? This is what we took a detour for?
I close the back door and I’m about to settle beside Angelo when I notice a movement to my right.
A black car passes by and its window rolls down before gunshots shower the street.
I jump inside, firing one of my own and shout at Angelo, “Go! Go!”
Our car revs in the streets as the gunshots echo behind us. I roll my window down and fire at one of its tires, making it swerve to the right.
Fucking Lucio. I knew he’d find me one way or another.
As the car loses our trail, I stare back at the cats. One of them is staring with wide eyes, but the other is sleeping.
Fuck. I can’t believe I’m worried about the cats’ well-being.
“Boss…” Angelo’s frantic eyes study me.
It’s then I see it, the red covering the fucking seats. I follow the trail to find my jacket soaked at the shoulder level and a hole punctures the skin.
Fuck.
At first, I don’t feel it, but then the burn grips me like a son of a bitch. The pain explodes all over my skin and more blood leaves me.
I attempt to squeeze the wound, but that doesn’t stop the bleeding. My vision starts doubling and I breathe through my nose. This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot, but it’s the first time I’ve lost so much blood this quickly.
