Page 84 of Dirty Mafia Torment

“You mean Elia Lombardi?”

A smug smile tugs at his mouth, testing me. He’s like a dog sniffing out a juicy bone. “What kind of boss would I be if a rival capo’s daughter moved into my neighborhood and I didn’t notice?”

“Does my father know?”

He arches a brow, intrigued. “Should he?”

“No.”

“Then we keep this between us.”

“Thanks.”

He runs a hand over his jaw. “When I found you, she wasn’t exactly singing your praises.”

“Where is she now?”

He shrugs. “Home, I imagine. Sleeping.”

“And Massimo’s men?”

“Gone long before I got there. She said they were delivering a message. Massimo wants a meeting.”

I blink through the fog, vision swimming. “A text would’ve been the nicer touch.”

Dante snorts. “You really have a gift for pissing people off.”

Gift? I should have a trophy. “He thinks wekilled his father.”

“Why would we do that? Your father and Don Grassi were on good terms.”

Yeah, so were Massimo and I—right up until he instructed his men to lay hands on me.

The doctor finishes the stitches and dabs antiseptic over the wound. “Bed rest.”

I lean toward him, and unleash. “Boo.”

He scurries away.

Yeah, it’s a shitty move, and something Sandro would do. And I don’t feel any better for it. Now that the doctor’s done, I feel nothing. Just tired. “I’ll meet Massimo,” I say, the words slow and slurred. “Find out what this is about.”

Dante shakes his head. I see two of him, like I’m stuck in some carnival fun house. “You should rest. Take a few days.”

“Naooot happnin.” Bad enough the bullet ripped through me without even clipping a vein and I blacked out like some weak-ass pussy. Me. A man who died on a cross and came back breathing.

Take a few days? Lie down?

Not a chance in hell.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

FINA

The busto Rome winds through the Italian countryside, past sun-drenched vineyards heavy with grapes, silver-leafed olive groves, and crumbling ruins. Midday light spills across the fields, warm and nurturing.

I see none of it.

Only his face—and his surprise the moment I shot him.