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than I was. I stared directly in my eye line, noting the three top buttons of his shirt that were undone.
“My name is Lorenzo.” He paused, and I looked up into his eyes. “Lorenzo Beretta.”
Beretta. The B’s on the gate.
I felt the color drain from my face as everything clicked into place. It didn’t matter where you lived in the country, you were aware of the Mafia families. They were celebrities to some, but those who knew the streets knew they were anything but that. The stories of their brutalities were both legends and warnings.
And now here I was, standing in front of the boss of the family.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I really wasn’t going to make it out of this basement.
“I didn’t mean to take it,” I rushed out, holding my hands up in front of me. Romeo was quick to react, grabbing my biceps, and snapping my arms behind my back. My shoulders screamed in pain, but I didn’t vocalize it.
“You didn’t mean to steal from me?” Lorenzo asked, reaching down to his ankle and swiping something from underneath his pants. My heart raced as he flipped it open and the metal glinted off the single light.
“No. I…” I trailed off. I couldn’t tell him why I’d taken it. If I told him about Stan, he’d go back to my parents and then…no, I couldn’t think about what he would do to them. I’d done this to keep them safe. I couldn’t fall at the last hurdle.
My shoulders drooped as acceptance washed through me. I was going to have to take whatever this Mafia boss would dish out. I didn’t have a choice, not if I wanted to keep my mom and dad safe.
This was the only way.
“Hold her hands out,” Lorenzo ordered. I blinked, tears streaming down my face as I remembered the myth that had been told in my old neighborhood. The Beretta Mafia believed in capital punishment. If you took something of theirs, they’d take something of yours.
Romeo maneuvered me so that my hands were in front of me instead of behind. I didn’t make a move to get out of his grip. I’d take this and I’d live with the consequences. If I made it out alive, I’d get away from the apartment. I’d start over on my own. This was the wake up call I needed.
How had it come down to this?
“Stop,” a new frantic voice said.
I snapped my head up, staring behind Lorenzo as a man walked closer. I was seeing things. I had to be. “Mateo?” I whispered. Was I dreaming? I had to be dreaming.
“Stop,” he repeated, moving closer. He halted next to Lorenzo, his gaze boring into mine. His eyes swirled with so many emotions that I couldn’t keep up, but the one at the forefront was rage.
“What?” Lorenzo asked, turning his head to face Mateo. “Know your place, Mateo,” he ground out. “You may be a captain, but that doesn’t mean you make the decisions here.” His voice was as rough as sandpaper, the warning in his eyes so much louder than the words he’d spoken.
Captain? He was a captain?
“I need to talk to you,” Mateo said, turning his attention to Lorenzo.
Lorenzo raised a brow. “Then talk.”
Mateo’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his gaze flicking between me and Lorenzo, but it also paused on where Romeo was holding me. “I…” His nostrils flares when his gaze paused on my forehead, probably noticing the blood there, and it took me right back to his apartment the day he’d cleaned up the cut on the other side of my head. And what had happened afterward…
My heart raced for a different reason, and when his eyes met mine, I knew he could see it—sense it.
“She’s…” He pushed his hand through his hair, messing it up, but I kind of preferred it that way. “Fuck.” He stretched his hands out beside him then curled them into fists. “She’s mine.”
My eyes widened, and I blinked rapidly. Did he just…
“Yours?” Lorenzo murmured, the knife still firmly in his grasp and only inches from my arm. The atmosphere in the room plunged to ice-cold levels. I shivered.
“Yeah. Mine.” Mateo took a step closer to me. His eyes locked with mine, everything now shuttered down so I couldn’t see what he was thinking. But he was searching, looking for what, I had no idea, but that didn’t stop him. He didn’t look away, frowning at me, or was that at himself? I couldn’t understand what was happening, all I knew was he was here. And he wouldn’t let them hurt me…would he?
* * *
MATEO
