“Unfortunately for you, coercion and battery aren’t things we tolerate in the Guild.”
Claudio blinks away the sticky alcohol and looks up at me. “Battery?”
“You might think you’re untouchable, but mark my words: you’re a dead man walking if you don’t clean up your act.” I spit on him for good measure. “Do I make myself clear?”
He wipes at his face as he tries to sit up. “I didn’t…coerce her.”
“You may want to choose your next words very carefully.”
“Danny,” he pleads with the woman in the corner, who is still seemingly in a catatonic state. “Danny, tell him.”
But Danny doesn’t even raise her head from where she’s been staring at the floor.
Claudio turns back to me. “We’ve been together for months. I…thought you knew, man.”
Months. The word drops into the endless pit of my stomach like a stone. The entire time we’d been together…
A voice that sounds eerily like my father’s echoes through my mind.A real don wouldn’t stand for this.
It doesn’t matter whether I can muster up any kind of jealousy about Danny. Now this was a slight against my name. Against my leadership.
I kick him in the ribs. “I demand satisfaction.”
Kill him.
I could. It would be so easy. I’d probably enjoy it, even savor it. But…
But. Five years of torment and negotiations would crumble over something like this.
You spent so long wanting to play this part, but now you’re on the world stage, you don’t have the balls to do what needs to be done. You’re weak, Rocco.
I shake away my father’s voice. I can’t focus with him in my head like this.
“C-Claudio?”
My heart stops as I turn to see a figure at the door. Somehow, she’s even more beautiful than I remembered, despite the fact she’s swapped out the devastating black dress for sweats.
I harden my heart as I look away from her. “This does not concern you, Miss Cassandra. Walk away.”
“You’ve hurt him.”
I can’t bear how startled and disappointed she sounds, as if she might have once thought better of me.
Well, it's better to rip that BandAid off now. I suppose it was only a matter of time before she ran away screaming.
“Wait, wait!” Claudio croaks from the floor. “You…you want satisfaction? Take her. Take her for the night.”
6
CASSANDRA
“You offer your girlfriend up to me on your behalf? You spineless fucking coward.”
My mind reels at the scene before me. A man the size of a damn house is blocking the back exit. Danny and Teresa are cowering in the corner. Claudio is on the floor, half-undressed, clutching his disfigured hand to his chest.
And Rocco…
Any doubts I had about Mia’s claims vanished at the sight of the man before me. Gone was the charming billionaire that I drank whiskey with earlier.
