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He gives her a simple nod as if he played a part in realigning Mafia families all the damn time, as if it’s just another day’s work for him.
I owe the man an apology, but I can’t seem to find the words as I look at him.
As if he understands exactly what I’m trying to say, he nods at me once before taking a step back, his eyes darting to Mads one last time.
She’s the reason I’m forgiven. I don’t know how I know, but Lauren had her own hand in this. His woman’s uncanny ability to read people is why he’s here. This is as much for me as it is for Mads, and that gives me hope that I won’t be leaving here alone tonight. It didn’t even take getting knocked over the fucking head like it did for Liam for me to know the value of the woman standing in front of me.
“I missed you,” Mads says, and I lean forward, swallowing whatever else she might feel she needs to say.
Her fingers curl into my arms, fire shooting from our connection to every fucking part of my body. It’s our first kiss, one that should’ve happened at the end of a first date or possibly the second if she was feeling shy. It shouldn’t have come after eating her pussy and nearly taking her virginity on the fucking floor of a goddamned safe house with barely enough furniture to be considered civil.
“Fuck, you’re pretty.”
I turn my head to glare at Nash, thinking it’s finally time for the man to cash the fucking check his annoying mouth has been writing all damned day, but the man’s attention isn’t on me. He’s watching Alessia walk back into the room.
I take a step in front of Mads, untrusting of any woman who would so easily kill anyone in her own family. She didn’t plead with Alessio before pulling the trigger. She didn’t let him make promises no one would believe about changing his ways. She shot him mid-sentence like he never mattered to her. If she could do that to someone she shared a womb with, then I don’t want her even looking in Mads’ direction.
“I thought Alessio was crazy,” the remaining Severino says, pointing at the dead men around the room. “You two look like you’re about to go at it surrounded by bodies.”
A second look at her reveals her swollen eyes, red-rimmed and puffy from crying. She had balls of steel to do what she felt needed to be done, but it did affect her. I doubt she was crying for the family she lost but rather the one she wishes she always had. Not one that would force her to annihilate them because of how toxic and deadly they were. She saw no other way, and she was right. I don’t know if this woman is the answer, but it will take a true psycho to be any worse than what her father and brothers were.
“I want assurances that she’s safe,” I tell Alessia, unarmed yet still making demands.
She doesn’t look at me with challenge. If anything, she looks a little offended that I feel the need to even ask.
“I have no use for the Lombardi family,” Alessia says, holding her hand up and shaking her head when I take a step forward to argue the threat. “I don’t mean to sound like I’ll harm her. Neither Madelene nor Elio Lombardi have a role of any kind with the Severino family. The vow that promised her to my family was made by two dead men. It dies with them.”
I nod, feeling Mads’ hand squeeze my arm with Alessia’s declaration.
“I will, however, urge her to take care of her family’s business quickly and leave Chicago.”
It gets my hackles up, but Alessia seems even less impressed when I step forward again.
“You’re going to blame her for Lucian and Alessio’s deaths?” I growl, feeling the warmth of another body near me.
Fox, Angel, and Nash all seem very interested in her response, but the woman is no more intimidated by the four of us than she was before killing her own brother.
“Everyone will know I’m responsible. How else will I keep them afraid?” A slow sinister smile tugs up the corners of her mouth, the smile similar to many serial killers’ mug shots I’ve seen online. “If they know what I’m capable of, they’ll be less likely to cross me.”
Chapter 36
Madelene
Water pounds down on my shoulders, the warmth of it already having time to settle in my bones.
I fully expected Hollis to join me, but I feel like I’ve been in here forever and he hasn’t even darkened the open doorway.
This bathroom is more what I’m used to, a hundred levels above what he had back in McAllen, Texas, but I find myself missing the confined space. It’s as if all the room here makes me feel like I’m missing something and can’t put it into words. I know it has to do with everything that happened.
