Page 66 of Legacy (The Sovereigns #2)

Angelo

I wake up alone.

For a second, I think she’s in the bathroom. The sheets beside me are cool. but still smell like her. That dark, heady scent she carries, like whiskey and cherries and sin.

But the silence stretches.

No water. No movement.

Just… empty.

My hand grazes over her pillow and finds the note. Neat script. Red ink.

Always red with her.

‘I’ll be back. You can punish me later for leaving you like this. But I had to. See you soon’

A soft, dark laugh leaves my throat. Of course she left me with that kind of tease.

My lips curl into a slow, possessive smile.

My wife.

Mine.

I reach for my phone and fire off the message I always send to Enzo when she’s with him. Pure instinct now.

‘With your life.’

Three dots come up. Then a call. Immediate .

My gut knots.

I answer.

Enzo’s voice is clipped. Tight. “Boss… I don’t have Adriana.”

Everything inside me stills.

“What the fuck do you mean you don’t have her?”

“You sent us all a text, to meet at the townhouse. We’re all here.”

The bed goes cold beneath me.

I’m already up, already pulling on pants, speaker on as I open the security feed app.

“I never sent a text,” I mutter.

“Boss…” Enzo says, dread creeping into his tone.

I hang up.

Call her.

Voicemail.

My pulse spikes.

I pull up the penthouse elevator feed. Scrub back.

There—there’s my wife.

Hair done, makeup on. Exquisite.

She had to have left for the firm. She presses the button. Waits. Calm.

My chest tightens.

Then the doors open.

Gio stands there.

Fucking Gio.

I switch feeds to the garage.

I watch. I make myself watch her fight.

And she does.

But that son of a bitch is quick, crushing her phone, hurting her, hitting my wife—

My hand is shaking with fury so hard, the phone tight in my grip begins to creak.

I watch as Gio scoops her up and throws her into the trunk of one of my black sedans .

Like she isn’t my whole fucking world.

He tosses her like luggage and slams the trunk shut.

Then drives off like it’s just another day.

I freeze.

Just long enough to burn the image into my mind.

The terror in her eyes, the silent scream, every twitch in her body.

How she scrambled to try and get up.

I grab the lamp off the nightstand and hurl it across the room. It shatters against the wall, shards skittering across the floor like glass rain. I feel nothing. I can’t afford to feel anything.

I take a breath.

Then I move.

Shirt. Gun. Keys.

I call Nico.

He answers on the first ring for once.

“Boss, what’s going on?”

“Find Gio. Lock the city down. No one in or out. I want every soldier hunting. He has my wife.”

I don’t wait for the reply. I’m already dialing the next number.

“Santo.”

“What’s wrong?”

“She’s gone. Gio took her. He took sedan sixteen, if he hasn’t removed the tracker, track him. Now.”

Silence. Then keys clacking.

“I’ll find her,” he says.

“You better,” I growl. “Because if he hurts her again— if she dies, there won’t be a single block left standing when I’m done.”

I hang up.

Stand there.

Breathe.

Once. Twice.

I clench my jaw .

My throat tightens.

Then I whisper, like a promise buried in ash—

“Gio… you’re a dead man.”

***

Santo found the car.

Abandoned.

Empty.

She wasn’t in it.

Nico found Gio.

And he didn’t have my wife.

But I have him now.

Stripped down to his briefs. Strung up like meat, wrists chained to the ceiling, shoulders dislocated, feet barely grazing the floor.

Blood mats his hair. One eye’s already swollen shut. He’s in my basement now.

The townhouse.

The place my mother once hid. The place I now turn into hell.

My fists slam into his ribs.

Again.

Then his face.

His head snaps back with each blow, lips split, spitting blood.

He grunts. Moans. Bleeds.

Good.

I want it to fucking hurt.

Because every crack of bone, every wet sound of flesh giving way—

It’s her scream.

It’s her body convulsing on that garage floor.

It’s the phone he stomped on. The taser he drove into her side.

The silence she was swallowed in .

“Where is she?” Nico asks from the shadows, voice flat. Controlled.

I can’t speak.

I’m too far gone.

I grab Gio’s chin and wrench it up. His face is mush beneath my fingers.

He tries to smile.

Fucking smiles.

“You’re going to get their demands, they’re going to call,” he slurs, blood threading from his teeth.

That’s what he keeps saying.

Over and over.

Like that’s supposed to comfort me. Like that’s enough.

My knuckles crash into his jaw.

A tooth goes flying. He chokes on blood.

I back up. Reach for the bat.

I’m not a man right now.

I’m Sinner. And Sinner knows no mercy.

“Pinata time, motherfucker.”

I swing.

The bat slams into his side with a crack so sharp even Nico flinches.

Again.

His body jerks, gasping like a dying animal.

“Say her name!” I snarl.

He doesn’t. So I swing again.

Ribs give. He gurgles. He starts to fade. I won’t let him.

I toss the bat aside. It clatters across the concrete, the sound sharp and final. Then I grab the cart.

Car battery.

Two clamps.

A switch.

Nico says nothing. Just watches as I roll it over.

I drag one of the cords across Gio’s chest. His eyes flicker .

“You ever feel electricity tear through your spine, Gio?” I ask softly. “ No? That’s a shame.”

I clamp one to the skin on his chest.

He starts to beg.

I clamp the other to the inside of his thigh.

He sobs.

I flick the switch.

His whole body jerks. A scream tears from his throat. High. Shrill. Desperate.

“That’s for her spine,” I whisper. “For the way it seized when you fucking tased her.”

I let it ride. Five seconds. Ten.

Then I flip the switch off.

His body slumps.

I lean in close.

“You don’t touch what’s mine. You don’t hurt her. And you sure as fuck don’t throw her into the trunk like she’s nothing.”

He sobs. Broken. Mucus and blood dripping from his nose.

“I should end you now,” I growl. “But I want you to feel what she felt. I want you to learn empathy. ”

I flick the switch again.

He screams.

And I smile.

Because this?

This is just the beginning.

My phone vibrates on the table.

Nico checks it. “Unknown number.”

“Decline it.” My voice is ice. “I don’t want their demands. They’re not running this shit. I am.”

I turn back towards Gio and watch.

His body jolts, his screams filling the room.

Sinking into my bones .

No one will ever hurt her again.

“Voicemail.”

Nico’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

I flip the switch off, grab the hunting knife off the table and thrust it into Gio’s thigh.

He lets out a defeated groan.

I grab my phone.

“Watch him,” I order Nico as I head upstairs.

I stretch out my fingers, knuckles raw and bloody. I fall onto a chair in the corner of the living room, dust flying up as I sit. Elbows to my knees, I press the phone to my forehead and stare at the waiting voicemail message.

No matter what these fuckers say I’m killing them all.

Slowly.

Painfully.

My stomach knots.

I press play.

And her voice breaks through the silence.

“I wish you would’ve picked up…”

I stand immediately.

The sound of her— My Adriana —cuts through me like a blade. Her voice is so soft, shaking.

I hear a shaky inhale, a faint sniffle.

“I didn’t want to do this in a message. This feels wrong. God, this feels so wrong.”

I take a few steps, but I stagger a step back and lean against the wall, jaw clenched, blood roaring in my ears. My hand tightens around the phone until my knuckles go white.

“One of them gave me a phone. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a trick. Maybe they think I’ll break.”

“There’s a guy watching me. He looks young. He hasn’t said much. I… I can’t tell if he’s—”

I can hear the fear in her. The way she’s holding it in. Trying to be brave—for me. It splinters something deep in my chest.

She inhales again shuddering.

“They’re going to send you coordinates.”

“But you can’t come, Angelo. Please. Please. I need you to listen to me.”

My throat tightens. I slide to the floor, legs folding beneath me as if my body can’t hold the weight of her voice.

“It’s a trap. It’s not a maybe . It’s not a chance. It’s a trap. They want to kill you.”

“They haven’t hurt me. Not yet. I don’t think they will. I think I’m just… bait.”

Her voice is trembling now, but there’s something in it—steel buried under the softness. My girl is fighting.

“But I’m going to get out. I swear it . I’m not giving up. I’m stronger than this. You know I am.”

“So don’t you dare die for me, Angelo. Not like this. Not for them .”

I press my forehead to my blood-slicked hand, my breath caught somewhere between rage and heartbreak.

“Promise me you won’t come.”

“ Promise me. ”

A quiet sob escapes her.

“And if you don’t get to hear me again… if this is the last thing—”

She breathes barely a whisper:

“I love you.”

“I’ve always loved you.”

The message ends, and the silence that follows is deafening.

I stay there, slumped on the cold floor, the ghost of her voice echoing in my head like a curse.

Everything I’ve ever done, every calculated move, every line I refused to cross, every ounce of loyalty I swore to Cosa Nostra—none of it means a goddamn thing now.

Because she is mine.

And for the first time in my life…

My loyalty doesn’t belong to the family.

It belongs to her.

If it kills me, so be it.

Because I’d rather die at her feet than live in a world where I didn’t try to bring her home.