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Only, I had no idea that that girl was Amelia Amato, Enzo’s only daughter. She was killed with my gun, on my watch, in my fucking territory.
The whole robbery was a stunt the owner pulled, trying to lower the price he paid us for our services. All the security cameras had miraculously malfunctioned at that time, leaving me without proof of what actually happened.
The Amato family blamed me. I would, too. In fact, I did and still do blame myself.
They thought I was the one who killed her.
Thankfully, my grandfather is an old shark, a respected Don in the Mafia’s extended famiglia, and before the Amatos could finish me off, he decided to convey The Commission and have them rule over my fate.
This consortium of mafiosos, called The Commission, was composed of the five most influential Dons on this side of the pond, who regulated the Italian underworld. Both my grandfather and Enzo Amato were on it, which somehow ended up playing in my favor for at least some time.
That is how peace was kept between the different Coscas in the Cosa Nostra. Five old men dealing the cards as if they were either light bringers or the damn Grim Reaper.
Rules didn’t matter when you were the Lord of the fucking food chain. They can flip it with less than a snap of their fingers. Kings to peasants in nothing but a blink.
The rules are theirs to make and theirs to break. That’s what power means.
Lords of the Commission.
That was what we called them.
My life was ripped from my bare hands that day, and now they have come to take the little that was left. They were taking the best part of it.
My Jamie.
It took a moment for Matt’s words to truly sink in, but when they did, I was far gone, beyond feral, beyond fucking insane. I had just barely tasted the sweetness of happiness with Jamie, only to be left with a sour taste in my mouth.
In the space of a sentence, I had gone from thoughts of forever with the woman I love, to being certain she would never be mine.
A switch inside my mind had flipped. In the midst and havoc of my rage, I hadn’t even noticed the destruction I’d already bestowed upon Matt’s office until he grabbed me from behind and shouted into my ear.
“There’s nothing we can do about it.” He repeated as Mike and Jimmy helped him pin me back onto the couch. “Breathe, Liam.”
I did as he said.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Repeat.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
The fog in my mind was far from clearing, but the killer in me was fighting for the front row in my mind, and he always came with a bone-chilling coldness.
There was a part of me that I always fought, the part that eclipsed all light still left inside me, but right now, my light had been threatened to be put out forever.
My hands were drenched in sin, to the point of no return, each body piling higher on my unaffected conscience, but hers weighed like a fucking cinder block.
I willed my rage to simmer down to just below the surface, underlining my thin skin. I needed it to consume me, burn me like wildfire so that I could find a fucking solution as soon as possible.
I didn’t feel guilty for those five pricks I sent six feet under only a week after it all happened. I only felt guilty for the pieces of my soul that died along with them.
Those feelings, that dark place, my own personal inferno was where I needed to be right now. My head deeply focused and in the game.
“They can’t do this,” I growled back, my demeanor changing to an unsettling calmness while my heart broke to never be mended.
“They already have. The Commission has agreed. You’ll marry in a couple of months. That’s how long you have with Jamie. You know it has to end once you marry Francesca.”
I pulled my arms free from Mike and Jimmy’s grasp, folding over myself and holding my head in my hands in total despair. How was I going to tell Jamie? How was she not going to hate me after this?
