Page 2 of The Beast Who Begged Me

Caligula.

I kick Meatball’s just-about corpse aside and jerk my weight forward, working the chair against the bolts holding it to the floor. One shears loose. The rest of Pardini’s crew is closing in now, all of them too stupid to realize the smart play would be to shoot me from across the room. But they want to brag about sending Damiano Orsini to hell with their own hands.

Every one of these men is standing between me and my house, between me and a golden-eyed Clemenza who could be calling out for me right now…

Which makes everything real simple. They’re in the way. So they get removed.

But before the first one reaches me, the door slams open.

One figure comes through it, fast and low. Shots crack out and something warm and chunky sprays across my face, adding to the mess of Meatball’s red sauce already covering me. The light’s still shining straight into my eyes, so I can’t make out who my new best friend is.

I don’t stop to wonder. The next asshole is in reach, so I get my hand around his throat. It’s the one from Pep’s crew who was asking about Seb Conti a few days back, and that memory puts all the strength back into my grip. He claws at my wrist, eyes bulging.

Another guy spins toward the door and takes a bullet in the face for his trouble.

Paulie finally hauls his gun free of his pants. He gets it level before he takes two rounds in his wide chest and sits down hard, dying with a look of confusion on that doughy face.

The fucker in my hand goes limp. I hold on another few seconds, because I’ve been fooled before, then throw him aside.

“No!” I shout, because the gunman has turned toward Pardini, who’s dragged himself up against the wall with his legs straight out in front of him, hands cupped around his broken face, wheezing in pain. “He’s mine.”

The man crosses to me instead and presses a switchblade into my bloody palm, keeping his sights on Pardini the whole time, easy and unhurried. There’s blood in my eyes. I blink through the red until the picture comes into focus: silver hair and a pleasant smile.

Tiberius Vicario’s shadow. What was his name?

Marcello.

“The hell are you doing here?” I cut my other hand free, barely feeling the pain anymore through all the adrenaline. The “G” is half-flayed away, the skin a raw and bleeding flap. I use the chair arm to push my other thumb back into place and flex both hands.

“My master sent me to help,” Marcello says, offering me his goddamn handkerchief for my hand.

“Your master?”

He gives a little shrug, gun never wavering from Pardini as I wrap up my hand. “I may have the English wrong.”

I don’t think he does. But whatever crazy arrangement he’s got going with Caligula’s lunatic cousin is a problem for another time.

I stand. Every part of my body protests, and I have to wait for the room to settle around me. Then I bring the blade to the zip tie holding the sandwich bag to me, and cut Seb loose—careful, quick, like he can still feel it. I pick up my jacket from where Pardini put it aside, telling me he liked it enough to keep it for himself. With a grimace at the scream in my shoulder, I pull on the jacket and slide Seb’s flesh into the inside pocket.

Three hundred pounds of hugs and rules and honor in a Family that didn’t deserve him. He weighs only a few ounces now. But he’ll ride with me until I find a better place to put him, or until I find the other pieces.

I crouch in front of Pardini. “Where’s the rest of him? Give me a direction. Fucking point if you have to. I’ll make it easy on you if you do.”

Something shifts in his eyes, some last piece of swagger, and he makes a sound, wet and hitching.

He’s laughing.

I could torture an answer out of him, but there’s no time. The Bratva are at my house and this piece of shit is laughing in my face.

I stand, grab his ankle, and yank him flat on the floor. He gets his hands up, but it doesn’t help any. I stamp down on his face, and then I keep stamping until the job is done.

I’m out of time. I have people counting on me. At thirteen years old, I watched everything I had bleed out in front of me, and I ran and hid. I won’t hide this time.

Marcello waits at the door, keeping lookout. “We should go, yes?” he says politely, as I clean off my sole on Pep’s pant leg.

I lean down to take Paulie’s gun from his slack hand. “Yeah. We need to get to⁠—”

“Your house,” Marcello agrees, already moving. “It is on fire.”