She was now unrecognizable.
Good.
She had drugged my wife. Allowed her to be taken from me. My angel who had simply wanted to buy a school.
“God, you freaked me the hell out.” Francesco exhaled.
I sighed the tension out of my body, shrugging out of his grip. “Why? You have seen worse in your life as Capo; I am certain of that.”
“You’re the freakiest looking guy I’ve ever met.” Francesco gestured to my blood-soaked body.
“That is rude. I am in peak physical condition.” I lifted my uncomfortably wet shirt to display the muscle that I had been complimented on many times by my wife. “You should be attracted to me.”
“What?”
“Are you attracted to me? Do you find my body attractive?”
Francesco jolted backward as though I had struck him with the knife. “What the fuck is happening right now?”
“I am sure Sicily does not find me ugly.” I frowned, that thought sticking in my mind. “Do you think she?—”
“I never said you were ugly!” He screwed up his nose. “I just meant, covered in blood, with your face all pissed off and shit, you’re scary as hell. Whether or not I’m attracted to you is?—”
“Excuse me?”
Our heads turned instantly to find Adriano with printed gray and white papers in his hands, his brow furrowed. When neither of us spoke, his eyes flickered to the blood and body partsscattered around the garage. “What the hell happened here? I saiddon’tkill her, for fuck’s sake.”
“Sorry,” Francesco said like a child being scolded.
“I apologize, Adrian.” I followed.
Adriano sighed, still frowning at Francesco as he splayed printed photographs along the table. “Cesare’s taken her to a heavily guarded house in Philadelphia, probably theirs… We also have another problem.” Adriano was skilled with technology and had found camera footage of Cesare’s large black car entering Philadelphia.
I looked down to the table as he tapped another frame that distinctly showed a head of blonde curls in the passenger seat of another car entering the private black gates. My eyes blinked, trying to work out if that was my wife or not, but then came to the realization that this could not be—judging by the timestamp— and the only person who looked this closely to her was…
Adriano pressed his weight into his palms, leaning over the workbench, shaking his head. “That’s Fiorella fucking Bianchi.”
“What in the shittingshit?” Francesco practically yelled, and though I did not appreciate his language, his sentiment was entirely correct. “Why would she be hanging out withthem?”
I felt my wife’s betrayal deep inside, perhaps more deeply than Cesare’s because it washers.As the uncomfortable sensation sat in my chest, it hit me why Fiorella would have felt the need to betray me, not Sicily.
I cleared my throat before I announced, “I arranged her marriage to one of the Gioffre twins.”
“What?” Both Adrian and Francesco exclaimed simultaneously.
“She was having sex with them. It was a logical decision to protect her, one that I promised Sicily I would amend anyway, so it does not matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” Adriano seethed, slamming his palm onto the table. “She probably helped kidnap your wife!”
“I am becoming aware of this, Adriano!” I shouted, shoving my palm into his chest when he stood tall and marched toward me. “She ismywife!”
“Okay, guys,” Francesco said, drawing his words out as he pulled us apart by the shoulders. “Can we focus and go get our missus please? Stop with this bullshit. You love each other really. Don’t kill the bromance because you’re feeling sad.”
The pain in my body was burning, evidently enough for me to place my hands on my truest brother. The aches and tremors in my limbs were not caused by a physical ailment, simply the absence of my wife and the thought of her terror. It forced me to do things I would not ordinarily condone of myself. I needed to return her home, and fighting Adriano would not achieve that.
I opened my arms.
Adriano frowned. “You want me to…”
