Page 33 of Hunted to the Altar (Caputo Crime Family #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

S amuel

The weight of the air in the study was different tonight. Heavy. Suffocating. It pressed against my ribs until each breath tasted metallic, sharp as knives.

The fireplace roared in the corner, casting violent, shifting shadows across the walls. They twisted like hands reaching for me, clawing at the edges of my control.

Lorenzo stood stiffly by the door, his shoulders tense beneath his black suit. His face was carved from stone, but I knew him too well. Fury seethed beneath the surface.

“After the last shipment went missing, we ran a trace on internal communications.” Lorenzo said, his jaw clenched.

"You’re sure?" I asked, my voice cutting through the tension like a blade.

Lorenzo nodded once, sharp and grim. "The proof is there. Bank transfers. Meetings. Surveillance. Ricci’s been feeding the Picones for months."

The folder on the desk stared back at me like an accusation. Ricci’s betrayal wasn't just a breach of loyalty—it was an infection. A disease spreading through the cracks of my empire, waiting to collapse everything I had built.

The room pulsed around me. I reached for the folder, flipping it open with slow, deliberate fingers. Each page was another knife to the gut—Ricci shaking hands with Picone men, transferring cash, betraying us with every cowardly breath.

"Where is he now?"

"In the basement," Lorenzo said. "Waiting for you."

Good. Let him wait. Let him sweat.

Before I could respond, the faint creak of wheels on hardwood broke the moment apart. I didn’t need to turn. I knew it was her.

Nina.

She wheeled herself into the room, the firelight catching on her dark skin, gilding her in molten gold and shadow. She wore one of the loose cotton dresses the staff had left for her, her legs hidden under the blanket draped over her lap.

But it was her eyes that caught me. Wide, wary, yet burning with a stubbornness I had never been able to extinguish.

"What’s going on?" she asked, voice steady despite the way her fingers tightened on the armrests of her chair.

I closed the folder and leaned back against the desk. "A rat in the house," I said simply. "Ricci’s been selling us to the Picones."

Something flickered across her face—fear, anger, maybe both.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

I tilted my head slightly, studying her. There was a time she would have begged me to show mercy. Pleaded for another way.

Not now.

"Make an example of him," I said.

For a moment, I thought she might flinch. But she only nodded slowly, her mouth set in a hard line .

"I want to help," she said.

The words hit me like a slap.

"This isn’t your burden," I said, softer than I intended.

"It is," she said fiercely. "If the Picones are coming after you, they’re coming after me, too. I won't sit back and pretend this isn’t my fight."

My chest tightened painfully. There was something terrifyingly beautiful about her in that moment—fierce, loyal, broken but unyielding.

"Follow my lead," I said finally. "Don’t interfere."

She nodded once. No hesitation. No fear.

And it gutted me.

Ricci was already tied to the chair when we entered the basement.

The smell of cold concrete and blood and sweat filled my lungs.

Lorenzo stood off to the side, arms crossed, face unreadable. Two more of my men lingered near the stairs, their eyes sharp and alert.

Ricci lifted his head when he heard us. His face was bruised, one eye swollen half-shut. Fear rolled off him in waves.

Nina wheeled in silently behind me. I felt her presence like a pulse against my spine.

I stepped forward until I stood directly in front of Ricci.

"You had a seat at my table," I said, my voice low, dangerous. "You broke bread with my family. You touched my wife’s hand."

He flinched. Good. He should.

"I didn’t want to?—"

"You chose to," I interrupted, cutting the air between us. "You chose betrayal. You chose death."

His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Only the wet, panicked breathing of a man who knew the end was near.

I pulled the knife from my belt.

A slow, deliberate movement .

Not for show.

Not for mercy.

Ricci’s eyes widened in horror.

"You have one chance," I said. "Tell me everything. Names. Plans. Every secret you sold."

He started to talk. Stumbling over his words. Begging. Blaming. Crying.

And then he said it.

Nina’s name.

The Picones had asked about her specifically. They had plotted to take her from me. The fire inside me exploded into something violent and feral.

I struck him across the face with the back of my hand. Blood splattered the floor. He whimpered. Behind me, I heard the faint creak of Nina’s wheelchair. I turned my head.

She was watching.

Silent.

But her hands—her small, delicate hands—were clenched so tightly around the armrests that her knuckles shone white.

I turned back to Ricci and drove the knife across his arm.

Not deep.

Not yet.

Just enough to make him scream.

The sound echoed through the basement, a raw, animal sound that bounced off the concrete and came back distorted.

I cut him again.

Lower, across his ribs.

He sobbed, choking on blood and terror.

I looked at Nina again.

And that’s when I saw it.

The blankness.

The detachment.

The acceptance.

She wasn't horrified. She wasn't shocked. She was numb .

Because of me.

Because I had carved the humanity out of her, slice by slice.

I stumbled back from Ricci like I had been burned.

"You see now, don’t you?" Nina said quietly.

Her voice was a blade, slipping under my skin with surgical precision.

"You made me this way."

I wanted to deny it. Wanted to scream that I did it to protect her.

But the truth was a weight in my gut.

I had made her into this.

Not the Picones.

Not the world.

Me.

No amount of punishing my prey was going to change that fact. I was just like the men who came before me. No, worse. I wanted to not be like Silas and somehow I’ve crossed a line that surpassed him.

I handed her the knife.

I don’t know why.

Maybe because I wanted her to have the choice I had stripped from her.

She took it with shaky hands.

Nina wheeled forward slowly, the knife trembling between her fingers.

She turned toward Ricci, her body stiff, like she was holding herself together with sheer force of will.

The world seemed to hold its breath.

The blade hovered in the stale air between them.

Ricci whimpered, a broken noise that barely registered in the heavy silence.

Nina’s hand shook harder.

Her knuckles whitened around the hilt.

Her chest rose and fell in shallow, erratic breaths .

And then, she froze.

The knife faltered, dipping slightly.

Her gaze locked onto Ricci’s battered, sobbing form—and I saw it happen.

The shift.

The crumbling.

Not anger.

Not satisfaction.

But devastation.

Tears welled in her eyes, thick and hot, spilling over and sliding down her cheeks in trembling rivulets. She tried to lift the blade again—but her arm refused to obey.

A small, broken sob tore from her throat.

The knife slipped from her grasp, clattering against the concrete floor with a sound louder and sharper than any scream.

I moved instinctively, crossing the distance between us in two strides.

I swept her out of the wheelchair, cradling her against my chest. She was trembling so violently it rattled through my bones.

She didn’t fight me.

Didn’t argue.

Didn’t say a word.

She just buried her face into my chest, the front of my shirt soaking up the silent sobs she couldn’t hold back anymore.

I carried her up the stairs like she weighed nothing, the stink of blood and betrayal clinging to both of us.

In the study, I laid her gently onto the couch, kneeling beside her like a man at confession.

She curled onto her side, her hands fisting into the cushions, her breathing ragged and broken.

She was trembling. Her eyes—those beautiful, haunted eyes—stared through me, glassy and distant .

"I’m sorry," I said, the words scraping raw from my throat. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. But it was all I had."I thought if I kept you close, kept you safe, I could protect you."

Her lips parted, the softest whisper slipping out: "But you became the thing you wanted to protect me from."

I squeezed my eyes shut, the truth of it carving into me deeper than any blade.

"I’m going to fix this," I said hoarsely. "Even if you never forgive me. I’m going to fix myself."

She didn’t speak.

But when I reached out and took her hand, threading my fingers through hers?—

She didn’t pull away.

She just lay there.

Broken.

Breathing.

Alive.

And for the first time, I understood redemption wasn’t something you claimed. It was something you bled for.

One broken, bleeding step at a time.