Page 57 of Revenge on the Mafia

“Please. I swear. I thought she was just your maid.”

Those fucking words again. My hands curled on the shift.

Stefano turned to Ludano from the passenger seat. “I’d be smart and shut up. More words, more pain.”

He shut up. All the way to one of our warehouses. It wasn’t just that he’d sniffed her. A sixty-fucking-year-old asshole had thought it would be acceptable to stuff his nose in her hair. How many times had men tried to overpower her while she’d worked in that hotel? With Juan gone, she would have had no one to protect her. What if he had tried to force her?

We couldn’t reach the warehouse soon enough. When we did, I yanked him inside. When he dropped to his knees, I dragged him along the floor and put the razor-sharp blade Stefano handed me to his nose. “Did you like my wife’s scent?”

“No,” he screamed.

What the fuck was wrong with this fucker? I put my face in his and growled. “Are you telling me my wife stinks?”

“What? No.” He swiped at my hand and tried to crawl away. We watched him struggle like a fish out of water.

“I think he’s got a problem with his senses.”

Stefano stepped in, gaze thoughtful. “We should treat him.”

“No.” Ludano screamed. “I’ll go to the doctor. I’ll cut off my nose—”

“Excellent idea,” I agreed before cuffing his leg and pulling him to me.

“No,” he screamed.

“Yes,” I breathed. Gripping his head, I sliced the blade down in one smooth move. One audible snick later, the cartilage and skin of his nose came off his face. Blood sprayed from it. The empty warehouse instantly filled with his howls. He staggered off, hand reaching for his face, trying to stop the gush of blood. The whistling, wet sound of his breathing filled the warehouse.

“Jesus, you sound like a dying pig.” Stefano, as usual, was altogether too invested in it.

I pushed Ludano onto his back. “No,” he screamed. “You took my nose. I understand. I won’t do it again. Let me live, please.”

“You think I’ll allow you to live after sniffing my wife?”

“She’s not your wife yet,” Stefano chimed in.

I ignored him. Shoved my foot on Ludano’s chest. He choked immediately from the blood running down his throat. I didn’t help by knocking his head down with my other foot every time he tried to lift it up.

“This is going to be a mess to clean up,” Stefano observed dryly.

My phone pinged, and I took it out of my pocket. A message from Enzo. Three words.

About fucking time!

I glanced at my brother. “You told him already?”

He shrugged. “I talked him out of it the last time he tried to shake Daria’s hand.”

I shook my head. He’d talked Enzo down. How eager I’d been to go through with it spoke volumes in the hollowness of the room.

“Why the fuck didn’t you stop me?”

Fuck. I wasn’t sane to be let loose among mankind.

Stefano shrugged. “Would you have?”

“He had his fucking nose in her hair.” In her soft spirals that felt like silk and sin.

“Exactly.”