AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Maybe I was right.
Maybe he’s going to kill me.
“Drop that look, baby.”
“What do you want from me?” I ask with a whisper.
“I want that scared look off your face. I want my sweet, strong girl.” I don’t respond.
I stare into his eyes, hard and soft at the same time, the brown that I could stare at for days no longer just that sweet, comforting shade.
“You’re here to take us down. And you’re doing it not just to get revenge, but so you can head your own family.”
The words spin in my mind, circling around me.
I don’t dare open my mouth, gnawing on the inside of my lip.
My mind reels as I try to think of a way to spin this, how to save myself, save my mission.
But Dante already knows what he wants to say.
“You told me in your apartment you want to take your throne. You want to become head of the Russos?” I lick my lips. “But you need to prove yourself first, yeah?” The fingers in my hair loosen then gently scrape against my scalp, a slow, pleasurable movement that you do to someone you’re just lying in bed with. A comfort, a casual, easy move when there’s nothing crazy happening.
Not something you do to someone you’ve been fucking, knowing they want to take down your family and are the enemy.
“Johnny killed your father. Tony made the call, told him to do it. Fucking idiot, so caught up in his own shit, his ego too big, wanted your mother too bad. Years later, my family let your father get in deep and then went after your sister. You want revenge.”
Breathing is impossible.
“Your mother wasn’t able to follow her heart. She couldn’t marry Arturo because she was supposed to marry my brother.”
How does he know so fucking much?
“You didn’t know until recently. Until that strunzo Johnny Vitale tried to kidnap your sister, make you his bride, rise to power.”
“How do you—"
“You’ll learn soon, fiorella, that if you ask the right people, pay the right people, there is not a single piece of information on this earth that can’t be yours. You just have to know who to ask and what they need in exchange to give it.”
I don’t speak.
Dante doesn’t speak.
So many sentences start and stop in my mind. Conversations, roads to take, denials.
But what’s the point? Eventually, the truth will come out.
But why now?
And why hasn’t he exposed me sooner?
“Okay, so you know who I am. Why haven’t you told Paulie?”
“Because if Paulie finds out who you are, he’ll want you for himself. And if Paulie knows who you are, my plan will be useless.”
He runs a single, thick finger down my chin, pressing at the spot where it meets my neck, where a small nick could kill me in mere moments.
He thrills me.
