Page 36 of Brutal Crown

I touch myself to the memory of his kiss, the taste of him, the feel of his hands on my skin.

Wet sounds fill the small room as I thrust my hips forward, pumping my fingers faster and harder, desperate to get a release.

It doesn’t take long before I buck against the sheets. And when I ride out my orgasm, breathless and trembling, it’shisname that escapes my lips, like it always seems to be.

10

FRANCESCO

The old wine factory creaks under the weight of winter. Frigid air seeps in through the broken stained glass windows above, turning my breath visible.

Everything about this place smells like mold, copper, and old secrets. No one comes here anymore. That’s why I turned it into my personal torture house.

The walls are stone, the floors are concrete, and the ceiling arches like an old cathedral, stained with decades of cobwebs and dust. Long-abandoned bottling machines rust in the corners like decaying skeletons. Wine barrels line one side, all empty.

I shut the thick stone door behind me with a heavy thud. The sound echoes through the empty, hollow space. Well, empty except for the iron chair in the center of the room, groaning under the weight of the man tied to it.

His arms are duct-taped to the metal, and his legs are zip-tied around the legs of the chair. The light from the industrial lamp above his head makes him fully visible. His face is pale, and although the room is freezing, sweat pours down his temples, soaking the collar of his cheap button-up.

He’s shaking already. That saves me time.

I pull off my coat and hang it across a metal chair beside me. I welcome the cold bite against my skin. It keeps me sharp and alert.

Across the room, a single monitor blinks on the wall, playing surveillance footage on loop. The grainy, black-and-white resolution is crap, but not enough to hide the truth. I watch it for a moment, sliding my hands into my pockets.

The footage shows him slipping through the east wing hallway of the abandoned Romano vineyard estate. That hallway hasn’t seen guests in over a decade.

For most, the estate is just another forgotten piece of history. But for Society members, the east wing is sacred. It serves as a storage corridor for sensitive archives.

He moves fast, his head down and hood up, moving like he knows exactly where he’s going. He pauses at the server room door, punches in the access code that only a high-ranking Society handler would know, and slips inside like he owns the place.

Another angle catches him crouched low in the archive corridor, tampering with something just out of frame. Then a brief cut, and he’s walking out again, hands empty. Except they’re not. Zoomed in, there’s a flash drive the size of a lighter between his fingers.

“You know what I hate more than betrayal?” My voice comes out low as I step toward him, my shoes crunching on broken glass and debris on the floor. “Stupidity.”

He flinches at the sound of my voice but says nothing. He just breathes harder through his nose, eyes darting around the room like he’s looking for an escape that doesn’t exist.

He should have known better. I handle all the audits and internal records for La Mano Nera. Nothing moves without crossing my desk first. If he thought he could cover his tracksunder my watch, then he deserves everything that’s about to come next.

I throw a folder onto the metal table next to him. It lands with a sharp slap. The contents spill slightly, revealing a faded passport photo of Adriano Ricci, a decades-old Queens address, and a file transfer log from two weeks ago.

“You didn’t just steal money,” I say, my voice flatter now. “You stole from a classified server even my father doesn’t know exists, a server reserved for a select few members of La Mano Nera.”

He trembles. “I-I didn’t know what I was looking at,” he stammers. “I wasn’t trying to sell any information, I swear.”

“You accessed a red-level archive.”

“It was an accident!” His voice cracks. “There was this old account tied to a message Adriano wrote years ago. I thought it was just a payroll dump. But when I decrypted it…”

He trails off, his chest rising and falling like he just ran a marathon.

I fold my arms. “Go on.”

“There was laundered money. And notes. Adriano had pulled funds from one of your fronts. He wanted to send it somewhere, but I couldn’t figure out where. There was also something else. A sealed letter. He sent it two years ago to a contact in my syndicate before he disappeared.”

My brow lifts slightly. “Your syndicate is an enemy to my family. Why would Adriano send a sealed letter to someone in your syndicate when he worked for us?”

“I know,” he says quickly. “It doesn’t make sense. I think he was trying to play both sides. According to the letter, he offered them information or evidence. Stuff that could hurt your family. It was in exchange for something.”