Page 93 of Brutal Revenge

Waiting.

Burning holes through the glass with a narrowed gaze.

“Azra,” Antonio says, endeavoring to secure my attention. “Did you hear what I said? I want you back.”

Slowly, painfully so, I drift my eyes back to Antonio. “What?”

His smirk is seedy. “I want you back.” He slides his hand across the table, stopping just short of the finger he ripped a six-carat diamond ring from only days ago. “Do you want that, too? Do you still want to be Azra Adami?”

My heart screams at me to say no, to shake my head, to reject his offer, but all that comes out is a squeaked, “Yes.”

Before I can blink, the bright eye of a motorcycle headlight whizzes past the pastry shop’s window with a familiar growl that vibrates through my bones.

Chapter 28

Matteo

Acold, damp room in the basement of my family’s home has always been my refuge. It’s the only place where the noise of the world fades to a level where I can think.

Or at least, pretend I’m thinking.

Tonight, the silence feels louder than any explosion I’ve ever heard, and the walls echo with every thought I’m trying to outrun.

Trophies I collected before my life got complicated clutter my man cave, though I’ve never liked calling it that. The centerpiece is the only one I’ve earned since a woman with fire in her eyes and a plan in her pocket walked into my world and rearranged the furniture in my mind. It is Don Adami’s hand.

With my veins flooded with enough alcohol and cocaine to take down King Kong, I rearrange my trophy shelf, searching for a place to put the trophies I plan to collect from Antonio the instant he’s out of Azra’s orbit.

He would have already been dead if it weren’t for my older brothers. It took both Giovanni and Dante to hold me back when they saw me storming down the stairwell. They said Henry Gottle Sr. would throw the book at me, that Antonio is protected by the same rules thatwill protect Azra if she goes back to him, and if I cared about her at all, I’d understand their importance.

I understood what they meant. Full-heartedly. But I was so angry that she had played me, I needed to disperse that fury on something.

Antonio’s face seemed like a good starting point.

Although I postponed my plan for another day, I still kept it on the agenda, which is why I am finding the perfect spot for Antonio’s hands on my trophy shelf.

I’m so focused on the pain he’ll display when I remove his sleezy hands that I don’t hear Giovanni until he’s already halfway down the stairs.

“I thought the agreement was that he had to touch her…” His voice drifts into the room before he does.

When he steps inside, he observes the space as he always does. He scans the trophies with a mix of amusement and nostalgia. More than half of them I collected while he was by my side, torturing the fool with me.

I don’t acknowledge his presence until he says, “From what I saw, he didn’t do that.”

Dizzy, I balance my thigh against the pool table, feeling unsteady on my feet.

The Carusos truly do sell the best drugs on the market.

“But he wants to.”

And that right there is where my anger stems. It’s hot in my chest and makes my hands curl into fists even when I’ve snorted enough drugs to flatline both me and my pulse.

Antonio wants Azra, and worse than that, she wants him too. Not me. Never me. I was the placeholder, a distraction. I was the man she used to get to the man she wants.

Working my jaw side to side, I stare at the space on the shelf where I’ll put Antonio’s hands. “He wants her,” I say more to myself than to Giovanni. “And she wants him too.”

My eldest brother’s eyes burn a hole in the back of my head as the mounting tension between us makes me want to smash something.

Antonio has never been more enticing.