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Ralph was deliveredforty-two hours later. I stared down at the broken, bloody mess of a man on the metal table. He had bruises on his cheekbones, one eye swollen closed, and a deep gash on his forehead that would need stitching if he lived.
It wasn’t a possibility.
It was obvious he hadn’t come willingly with Brody and the two other men who had dragged him into the old factory where I liked to tend to business of this nature. His left arm was at an awkward angle, suggesting it was broken in more than one place, and his leg definitely shouldn’t have been bent the way it was unless it had been snapped in half.
I had plans for how I was going to kill him, but first, I wanted answers. The moment Ralph saw me, he began to quiver, his body unable to hide his fear. But his eyes were filled with a hatred I knew all too well. I felt the same for him. This man coveted what was mine, and I was about to show him exactly what happened to anyone who got too close to my Ciana.
“I hear you have been working with my granny,” I said casually as I stepped closer to the table he was strapped to. “When did she first approach you?”
“Go fuck yourself,” Ralph spat before shifting his eyes toward the ceiling.
A smaller table was beside the metal one he was laid out on, a number of toys spread across the surface. Without looking, I grabbed the first thing my hands touched, an ice pick, and stabbed it into his right thigh. His scream echoed off the rafters overhead, making the man beside Brody flinch. He was newer to the crew, younger than the other men in the room, but he didn’t look away as I pulled the pick from Ralph’s leg and slammed it back in again.
“Ouch, that must have hurt,” I said with a sympathetic shake of my head. “When did Sheena first approach you?”
“Fuck,” Ralph groaned. “A-about eighteen months ago.”
For the next few minutes, he told me everything about his agreement with Sheena. I stood there, listening, taking it all in, and I realized just how close to real danger Ciana had been with this idiot’s strings being pulled by Sheena. And the fucking Vituccis hadn’t known about the enemy who was watching over their most precious member.
“But she’s your enemy,” I tutted at him when he drifted into silence after spilling his guts. “Why would you work with her when you’re so in love with Ciana Donati?”
Despite the pain glazing his eyes, rage filled his face. “Ciro made it clear before I could become her bodyguard that there was zero chance of a relationship with his daughter. I didn’t have a problem with it back then. She wasn’t on my radar. But have you seen her in action at work?” His pain level had to have been off the charts, yet there was pure awe in his voice as he spoke of Ciana. “How could anyone possibly not fall for her?”
I gritted my teeth, because I had to agree with him. It was impossible for anyone not to love her. Even I had been too weak of a man not to fall under her spell. And I didn’t regret it. She had changed something in me the moment I’d allowed her into my heart.
But even if she had taught me how to love, I couldn’t share her affections. I was too greedy for her.
“You made an enemy out of the strongest Cosa Nostra family in the country so you could have a chance to be with her?”
“I will do whatever I have to just to be with her,” he rasped. “Even work with Sheena O’Brion.”
“What did she promise you in return for all the secrets you told her about the Vitucci security?”
He actually smirked when he looked at me again. The bastard was bleeding all over the fucking place, but he actually thought he had one up on me? “Sheena promised I could pick up the pieces when you broke Ciana’s heart. But I guess she wasn’t all that brokenhearted over you. Other than wanting to leave that island earlier than expected, she didn’t shed a single tear over you. And when she saw Ryan at the airport? The girl was all smiles and practically dancing, she was so happy to see him.”
He hadn’t seen her break down because she hadn’t allowed anyone to see her tears. I’d held her as she sobbed, her heart broken so badly, my own felt as if it were being torn from my chest. Ciana was strong and refused to allow Sheena to win by letting Ryan see how badly she was hurting. But even now, I could feel her pain. It festered like an infection inside me and would slowly kill me. The only cure was getting her back.
Ignoring the jab Ralph tried to throw at me—even if just picturing how happy Ciana had been seeing Ryan had hit a mark or two—I leaned closer. “Who else have you relayed your information to for Sheena?”
His smirk only grew. “Ah, I see. You’ve been losing ground and want to know how far up the ladder Sheena has gotten.”
I grinned down at him. “No,” I said in a low voice. “I want to know who you have personally spoken to so I can put a bullet in their heads like I’m about to do to you.”
“Go ahead, kill me. But don’t lie to yourself about why you’re doing it,” he said with a skeptical chuckle. “Getting rid of me won’t make Ciana love you, though. You might have been able to win her heart at one point, but when you lost her trust, you lost all hope of getting the real treasure. You can’t have one without the other when it comes to her. She’s an all-or-nothing kind of girl. Special.”
“You don’t tell me how special she is,” I snarled, bending so my face was closer to his, while Brody and the others tried not to gulp in fear. “I know exactly how amazing she is. And she is mine. Even if she never comes back to me—” I forced myself not to flinch at the words while silently praying Please, Christ, let her come back to me “—she never would have loved you. No matter what Sheena promised you, Ciana was never yours.”
“She might not be mine,” he said, no longer able to hide the pain in his voice. “But she won’t ever be yours either.”
“She will be.” I bent so I was right at his ear, knowing whatever I told him now wouldn’t leave this room. “She’s pregnant with my babies.”
His body jerked as if I’d stabbed him again, but when I lifted my head to see his face, his eyes were clenched closed. “And how do you know that?” he asked, his breathing labored. “Did she tell you?”
“I have my ways of finding out what I want to know.”
Ralph’s eyes jerked open. “But you don’t see the most important things right in front of you. Like that your biggest enemy isn’t even the Vitucci family.”
“I know who my enemies are.” Sheena was the biggest of them all.
“I don’t think you do.” The dying man said with an almost sad shake of his head. “The worst part is, you’ve only put Ciana in more danger, and I won’t be here to protect her.”
