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“She is mine, Frederico,” Vicente states, roughly shoving his head before releasing his hair. “You don’t have the right to call her a whore or touch what belongs to me.”
He brings the tip of the knife to his chest, slowly dragging it down to Fred’s lap. He squirms and wriggles, but Vicente pushes down just enough to keep him still.
“Okay, okay,” Fred says, staring at the knife.
Before it can go any farther, Donati, flanked by two other men, walks in.
“What’s going on?” he asks, eyeing Vicente before coming around to study Fred.
“Your guy here was just admitting to assaulting Mariella.”
Donati’s eyes find me clutching Vicente’s shirt.
“What the fuck is she doing here? She doesn’t need to see this shit, Moreno.”
“I gave her a choice,” he replies.
“I’m not going to say anything,” I say.
His lips flatten, down turning on one end.
“That’s not—” He cuts himself off, tearing his eyes away from me.
“Ask him your questions now, because he doesn’t have much longer,” Vicente says, taking a step back.
“What the hell are you doing, Frederico? What got into you, huh?”
Fred spits on the floor, a mixture of blood and saliva. “Fuck you, Donati. What areyoudoing? You let this guy kill Alberto. You told him how to find him. I know you did! What kind of boss does that? You don’t deserve that title.”
“You little shit,” Donati says, landing a punch across Fred’s face. “You think you can tell me what I can and cannot do? I’m the boss of this family whether you like it or not. You were going to go to who? Rossi? Messina?”
“I deserve to be a capo!” Fred yells.
Donati laughs. “Oh. I see what’s going on. All this”— he says, gesturing around the room—“to try to get what you think you deserve.” He gets in his face. “You can’t go over my head when I’m the fucking boss!” he yells. “I’m at the top!”
“I’m gonna kill him,” Vicente says easily. “I don’t know what you wanna tell your people. You can tell them you did it, for all I care, but I’m going to be the one to take his life.”
Donati turns around and faces him. He looks at the men he came in with. “You heard what Frederico admitted to, yes? He betrayed this family for his own selfish reasons.”
The two men nod, looking as stoic as ever.
“We’ll need to talk after this,” Donati tells Vicente, his eyes briefly flashing to me.
“We will.”
“I’ll have my people come clean the house later,” he says. Before leaving the room, Donati stops in front of me. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
My eyes ping-pong around the room, wondering why he’d care at all. Does he feel bad it was his guy who did this?
Once he leaves, Vicente steps forward and continues as if there was never an intermission. His knife plunges into Fred’s lap, a scream ripping through the room. Vicente loses himself in what he’s doing. His arm goes up and down and side-to-side. He looks like an artist, except his tool is a knife and he paints in only one color. Crimson.
Blood splatters the floor and across Vicente’s naked chest, his tattoos freckled with ruby red droplets.
“El principe de las tinieblas,” I say softly, sounding out the words on his skin.
Jian leans down. “The Prince of Darkness.”
Vicente stands up straight, his chest heaving with deep breaths, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. This is who he is. Unadulterated and a hundred percent authentic. He’s given me a look behind the curtain, and now he waits for me to run away.
