AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Salvatore grabs my chin and shakes it. “Look at me.”
I do as he asks.
“Hit me.”
I frown. “What? No.”
“Alessia,” he pushes. “Hit me. It needs to look believable. There is no way Dad wouldn’t have fought me.”
I shake my head.
“Hit. Me.”
“No.”
“You will die.”
I shrug. I don’t care. Honestly, I don’t. As long as my brother is safe and unharmed, I can die peacefully.
“They will kill me too.”
I reject his declaration with a shake of my head.
He laughs. “Alessia. As a pair, we’re formidable. I have no one else in this family. Our mother would sell us out the first chance she got. Our father is dead, not that he would’ve offered us a haven anyway. We’re powerful together. Hit me.”
“I don’t want to.”
He smirks. “Sure, you do. Think about all the times I’ve annoyed you. Every time you’ve lost a friend because I fucked them and never called them. It’s a few free punches. You likely won’t even bruise me.”
That makes me scowl, and he laughs.
I pull back my fist and slam it against his nose.
“Fuck, Alessia. I didn’t say break my nose. I said bruise my face.”
I punch him again, in his right eye this time.
“More?”
He wipes blood away from his nose, his glower coming on darker and darker as the blood continues to fall. “That’ll do.”
Silence falls between us, and our stares clash.
“Will we die?”
He shakes his head. “I’ll do whatever we need to make sure we survive.”
“Smart.” Uncle Dino steps into the room, our mother on his heels.
Salvatore, like before, steps in front of me.
Dino, our father’s second-in-command, holds his hands up in surrender. “I come with no ill will toward either of you. I think we can make this work for all of us.”
“What?” my mother screeches.
“Giuliana, leave us, please. Your children and I have business to discuss.”
CHAPTERTEN
