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Her gaze dropped to our joined hands. Could she handle more?

My phone’s walkie-talkie went off.“Boss,”Sticks said.“Gian is here.”

What did he want? He had a lot of balls showing up here.

“Send him away,” I told Sticks.

“I think you really need to hear this.”

There was an ominous tinge to his tone that gave us pause.

“What’s going on?” Bianca asked.

Gian had been blowing up my phone the whole day. Probably anxious about my decision regarding him. Probably wanting to get in on the meet with the Toronto Albanians tomorrow. Well, he was out of luck. I officially announced Tommy as underboss. “I hope it’s to tell us Raffa finally did the right thing and—” I was going to say “ate his gun” but it was too soon to put that image back in Bianca’s mind. “Fled to Siberia.”

“Boss?” Sticks asked again.

“Let him through,” I responded.

“Sorry, baby,” I sighed. “I’ll get rid of him.”

Gian had terrible timing, showing up when I was having breakthrough conversations with Bianca. I wanted to tell her about my mother. After everything we’d been through, I was confident we would be okay. That she wouldn’t care about the depravity that birthed my existence.

When I opened the front door of the house, Sticks was on the walkie-talkie talking to the guard at the front of the property. “Is Tommy with him?”

Sticks asked on the walkie-talkie. “Tommy Scavo with them?”

“Negative.”

Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard from Tommy since I texted him this afternoon confirming our meet-up tomorrow.

Gian’s Escalade rolled down the driveway, and I patiently waited for him to park and get out of the SUV. He was not welcome inside the house.

When he exited the driver’s side, I called out, “That’s as far as you go.”

“For God’s sake, Sandro. We have bigger problems.”

“If Raffa is dead, then good riddance.”

“No, dammit.” He walked around the front of the SUV. “Someone shot up Jabbin’ Java.”

Chapter

Twenty-Two

Sandro

“No!” A scream ripped out from behind me. Bianca. Shit. I was still absorbing Gian’s news when she flew past me, but I hooked her around the waist and held her back.

“It’s you!” she cried. “How dare you hurt my family again!”

“I didn’t do this!” Gian shouted. “Can we please go inside?”

“Baby, please. Let me sort this out.”

She struggled in my arms for a few seconds before my pleas registered with her. My mind went a little crazy that she was wearing a robe in front of my men and Gian. But it rapidly became a secondary concern. She’d just come to grips with yesterday’s events. And now this? I swallowed the roar of frustration. The hits just kept coming. How soon before she realized I was more trouble than I was worth and forced me to return her to the De Luccis?

Darker, malignant thoughts lurked on the fringes of my mind. Of chaining Bianca to the bed. Of making sure she would never leave me. It was the depravity in my blood. I was becominghim.