Page 17 of Betrayal of the Mafia Rebel
The broken timing screams at me. It's a wound in the system. I stare at the screen. The numbers do not change. They refuse to align with the laws of physics and time.
I don't know what it means. I can't make it make sense. The tactical side of my brain tries to put it together. It fails. Something's missing.
I file it away. I shove the broken timing to the back of my mind for later. It's a single unresolved thread. I can't afford to pull it right now. The immediate threat is the broadcast itself. The message it carries.
If this broadcast is in the Costa stream, Dominic has seen it. Matteo has seen it. Santi has seen it.
My family thinks the woman sleeping a few feet from me is a Trojan horse. They think she is an assassin.
They'll demand her head. In my mind, I see it already. A strike team rolling on this speakeasy. The expectation that I step aside and let them put a bullet in her brain.
A low sound tears out of my throat. It's the sound of something snapping inside me.
I toss the phone onto the wooden crate. It clatters. I don't care about the noise.
I begin to pace.
I cannot stay still. The violence in my body demands an outlet. The damp tunnel is too small for the violence boiling in my veins. My bare feet thud against the rough stone.. The sound echoes off the rusted iron door.
I keep my distance from the cot. I won't risk getting close to her right now.
I'm volatile. A lion pacing a perimeter that's too small to hold me. The muscles in my forearms bunch every time my fists clench.
I don't reach for her. I can't touch her right now.
If I put my hands on her soft skin while this rage is tearing me apart, I will break something. I'm built for war. Dominic kept me on a tight leash for years, even when I was at the front. He knew the grief in me had never burned itself out. It only sharpened into a need to retaliate.
Now there's nothing holding me back. The target is painted on the back of the woman I claim as mine.
The urge to hunt is overwhelming. I want to walk out of this tunnel, cross the Chicago River, and slaughter every Bellanti breathing air. I want to burn their warehouses to ash. I want to sever the heads of anyone who dared type her name into that broadcast.
I pivot sharply at the far wall. The stone is slick with condensation. I drag my knuckles against the rough surface. The pain grounds me for a fraction of a second.
I turn back toward the center of the room.
Catalina is awake.
She's sitting up on the narrow cot. The rough woolen blanket is clutched to her chest. Her dark hair is a wild mess around her shoulders. Her lips are still swollen from mine. The room thickens with her.
She doesn't speak. Doesn't scream. Doesn't shrink away from me.
She watches me pace. Her eyes track my movements. She sees the violence coming off me in waves. She sees the monster the Costa family uses to terrorize the Chicago underworld.
She does not run.
I know what she's been taught. To fear men who can't keep their violence on a leash. Her own aunt was executed for stepping out of line. She knows what men like me are capable of when the rage takes over.
Yet she sits still. She anchors herself to the mattress. She holds her ground inside the radius of my anger and waits.
Her bravery hits me square in the chest. It quiets something raging under my skin.
I stop pacing. I stand rigid in the center of the room. The space heater hums loudly in the silence. The orange coils cast a demonic glow across the lower half of my body.
My breathing is ragged. Each pull of air burns going down.
"What happened?" Her voice is steady. The sharp tone she usually wears is gone. There's nothing between us now but what's real.
I stare at her. I catalog every curve hidden beneath the blanket. I memorize the shade of her eyes. I am burning her image into my brain because the entire city is about to try and erase her from existence.
