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WILLOW
It took skillful maneuvering to find a replacement for Fredo, but the bigger problem was getting rid of him. My new associate, counselor, and advisor, Michael, offered to take care of it, but I turned him down. After Fredo’s years of friendship with my husband, he deserved to hear from me that he was being kicked out of the family once and for all.
But once a hothead, always a hothead.
Fredo walked around the desk and slapped me right across the face. My lip busted open and the taste of blood filled my mouth. He reached out to grab the neckline of my shirt and pulled me out of my chair. “Listen here, you little bitch, I’m not going anywhere. You’ve been acting real funny since you came back from your meeting with Giovanni so I’m going to propose that you knock it the fuck off before I tell everyone what happened.”
I wasn’t afraid of the pain Fredo could inflict upon me, I was more afraid of what he’d do to my reputation with the men. “And what’s that?” I tried to keep my breaths shallow so that he wouldn’t see that my heart rate had spiked and nervousness coursed through my veins.
“That you two made some kind of deal. I had men in the restaurant that evening. They saw the way he touched you on the way out. They could tell that he wasn’t looking at you like a don looks at another don. He looked at you like he was in love. You let that motherfucker have your pussy, didn’t you? Were you so hard up for cock that you had to whore yourself out to the enemy?” His words felt like a shotgun blast to the chest. Not that I’d felt one, but I remember what it was like being thrown to the concrete from the blast of a car bomb.
“Let go of me, Fredo.” If he kept holding onto me like that, I couldn’t be held responsible for what I did next. My fight or flight instincts were threatening to kick in and I’d never been the kind of girl to run away when she could face her problems head-on.
Fredo just laughed in my face, droplets of spittle landing on my cheeks. “Make me, little girl.” His grip on my shirt tightened, stretching the fabric. “You used to put up with a hell of a lot worse from Ricardo. You think you’re in charge now? The men don’t respect you. Hell, they don’t even trust you. You called a ceasefire on the Giovanni family and the next fucking day they kill one of our button men. That doesn’t inspire loyalty.”
I was standing on my tip toes so as to not choke on the collar of my own shirt. The fabric dug into the back of my neck and I was wearing Fredo’s saliva like a perfume. “I’m only going to tell you one more time.” I take a deep breath and try to calm my nerves; it doesn’t help. “Let go of me.”I can’t be held responsible for what I do next. I can’t be held responsible for what I do next.I repeated in my head.
But Fredo’s grip only tore the seams of my shirt until I could feel a breeze on my stomach. A Grinch-like smile curled his lips upward and he laughed in a low, dangerous sort of way. “Or what?”
My fist came out like a Jack-in-the-box with no warning. I caught Fredo in the throat and down I went. His hand released me and I fell back onto the flat of my foot. He doubled over grabbing his neck as his face turned red.
I could tell that the ending wasn’t going to be a good one from the way he snarled when he caught his breath. He raised up in preparation to swing at me and I grabbed the knife on my desk and swung first.
The human body has more blood than I thought. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t to see so much of it stain the carpet of my office. And it definitely wasn’t to find myself coated in spatters of another person’s insides. But that’s what happens when you start stabbing someone, afraid that if you don’t, they’ll get their hands on you first.
I couldn’t kill Ricardo because he was already dead, but I could take out my resentment and anger on his best friend. After the first stab wound, Fredo recoiled in pain, but all I saw was red. I stepped forward as he backed up. I raised my knife as he cowered. I wounded him over and over again until he was crumpled up on the floor bleeding out.
I wasn’t prepared for how warm his blood would be. A knock on the door told me that Michael was outside. He said he’d heard raised voices and asked if I needed help. I thought that I trusted Michael, that’s why I’d chosen him to replace Fredo, but I didn’t trust him that much. “It’s fine, Mike.” And I sent him on an errand. I watched from the window as he drove off, the last possible witness to my crime.
I tried to move Fredo’s body, really I did. But the stab wounds made it impossible for me to hide my crime. There was a trail of blood from where I’d killed Fredo to where I left him three feet away. If I wanted to get rid of him, I had to put my trust in someone.
The silence felt like another weight on my shoulders, threatening to press me to the floor with guilt. But I would not be forced on my knees by this. I would not let this inconvenience my life.
In a drawer’s back corner was a crumpled-up piece of paper from three weeks earlier. The ink was smudged from the sweat of my hand that night, but the numbers were still legible. I don’t know what possessed me to call Alessandro Giovanni, but a little voice in the back of my head said that I could trust him. After all, he’d started a war to win me my freedom. If you can’t trust a man willing to lose everything for you, whocanyou trust?
12
ALESSANDRO
“He’s definitely dead,” I announce as I stare down at the body of Willow’s former bodyguard and counselor. “I can have a clean-up crew here in an hour.”
Willow is sitting at the chair in front of her desk, eyes wide as she stares at the lifeless body of Fredo Genovese. She doesn’t look like she’s in shock, but I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
I pull out my phone and call a number. Someone on the other end picks up with a tentative hello. I give them a few details and the line goes dead. “Are you okay, little love?”
She blinks a few times before adjusting her gaze from Fredo to me. “I killed a man.”
I walk up to the side of her desk, careful to avoid the blood as much as I can. When I’m close enough to her to grab her hand, I hold it firmly in mine. “The role that you’ve adopted comes with unpleasant tasks. This is one of them,” I tell her gently.
A flicker of a frown appears on Willow’s brow. She pulls her hand out of mine but never wavers as she gets to her feet. “I’m not upset that I had to kill someone, Alessandro, I’m upset that I liked it.”
There’s a tingle in my spine that makes my legs feel like jelly. I knew that I’d caught a glimpse of her dark side at dinner. I thought that it might have been a fluke, but I’m glad that I was wrong. “That’s not a bad thing,especiallyin the position you’re in.” Is it me or does she look more alluring with blood splatters on her shirt?
Willow chews on her bottom lip as her eyes drift back to Fredo. It’s like she’s capturing what his dead body looks like so she can think about it again later.
“Would you like to go downstairs while we wait for my men?” I ask, surreptitiously adjusting myself against the press of my cock against my jeans.
She shakes her head no. Her fingers tap against her hardwood desk before she looks at me again. “I want you to fuck me.”
