Page 21

CHAPTER 21

Alessandro

“ T ullio’s last guest just left the house,” the man I put in charge of monitoring the house informs me as I step out of my car and slip my dark shades off.

I nod at him and then cross the street to the house. My gaze scans over the area, and I spot a ledge. I can envision a young Sienna falling off it, thinking it’s the end of her life.

My hands curl into fists at my side.

I climb up the steps carved into the side of the hill until I’m standing at the front door of Tullio D’Addario’s house. I don’t bother knocking since my men have already gotten me a spare key to the house.

It only took me a few hours to track down Tullio. The bastard didn’t bother to relocate, too confident in the fact that he had gotten away with what he did to his niece.

Well, the long arm of justice has finally caught up with him.

And by that, I mean me.

I unlock the door and push it open, then step into the rustic-style house. It’s a complete mess inside, with bottles of alcohol, old fast food containers, and pizza boxes strewn about.

I make a face at the disgusting state of the place, but I’m unsurprised. The man is a pig, so why shouldn’t he live like one too?

“Call the goddamn cleaning service,” a man’s voice calls from inside the house. “I’m beat. Don’t wake me up unless it’s that sexy little cleaning girl they sent before. The bitch was whining about ratting me out to the authorities the other day as if sixteen isn’t practically an adult.”

I follow the sound of the voice into a kitchen where a medium-height, brown-haired man is rifling through a cupboard.

“Hello, Tullio,” I say.

He jumps and whirls around, his dark brown eyes wide. “Jesus Christ, who the hell are you? You better leave now before I call the cops.”

“Go ahead, call them.” I smile coldly at him. “You’ll be dead before they get here anyway.”

He takes me in for a moment. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but you’re making a mistake. Do you know who I am? I’m protected by the Bando brothers, and they’ll haunt you into your next life if you?—”

His words end with a pained howl when I whip out my gun and fire one bullet into his kneecaps, blowing them out.

The older man drops to the ground, wailing like a little bitch.

“That is for making me wait for you for three whole days,” I tell him. “And because I hate the sound of your voice.”

“Who are you?!” he screams. “What do you want?”

“My name is Alessandro Mancini.” I watch his eyes widen, and it fills me with satisfaction. “I see you’ve heard of me.”

Tears fill his eyes. “I haven’t done anything. I swear! I’m innocent. I didn’t steal anything. I don’t involve myself with all that underworld shit. My brother is a cop.”

“I may have let you go if you had stolen from me, but what you’ve done is far worse.” I squat to bring us to eye level. “You made Sienna cry, and I can never forgive you for that.”

I ignore his panicked ramblings and breathless explanations. Rising to my feet, I cross over his body to where the block of knives sits on the counter.

Voila.

“Please! Please, I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. No, it was a misunderstanding.”

The blood rushing through my head drowns out the sound of his pathetic begging. I approach him with the sharp butcher knife and then haul him to his feet. He screams as he puts his weight on his damaged knee. Ignoring him, I undo his belt and wrap it around his wrists. Dragging him to the center of the living room, I attach the belt to the ceiling fan hook on the ceiling.

“You can scream as loud as you like, Tullio,” I say with a shrug, “but no one is coming to save you.”

I test the sharpness of the blade by slashing it across his cheek. The skin parts in a clean line, and blood pools down his face.

“Please, you don’t understand. She’s my niece. I love her,” the sorry excuse of a man screams. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I slice and nick and slash him, careful to avoid any veins that will end him too soon. His screams and pleas soon turn into unintelligible groans.

I keep Tullio in a place between life and death for six excruciating hours before I finally plunge the knife into his right eye and end him forever.

Violence thrums through my veins, and all I want is to bury myself deep in Sienna and let her make me feel like a man and not a monster again. The last few days without her have been, to put it mildly, difficult.

I can only imagine the rest of the years of my life stretched out before me without her.

I dig my phone out with blood-stained hands, take a picture of the mutilated man hanging there like livestock, and send it off to Ivan.

My phone begins to ring minutes later as I’m crossing the street back to my car. “Get rid of the body,” I order the suited man standing beside a blacked-out Jaguar.

“Yes, boss.” He nods and hurries past me.

“Hello, Ivan,” I say, holding the phone to my ear with one hand and opening my car door with the other.

“You bastard! It isn’t enough for you to kidnap my daughter? You had to?—”

“I didn’t kill Tullio for your benefit, prosecutor,” I tell him coldly. “I did it for Sienna. And it’s something you should have done a long time ago.”

He pauses, and I can feel his confusion across the phone line. “What are you saying?”

“I’m wondering if you even deserve Sienna,” I grit out. “Any father who was too blind to realize their teenage daughter was abused maybe shouldn’t be allowed to keep that daughter. I took the scum out. You’re welcome.”

His breathing becomes labored. “Tullio would never?—”

My hands tighten around the phone. “If you’re about to call Sienna a liar, I suggest you think again. I won’t hesitate to find you and give you the same fate.”

“Why?” he asks. “Why did you kill him?”

“Men like that shouldn’t be allowed to live.”

He lets out a mocking snort. “I didn’t take you for a freedom fighter.”

“And I didn’t take you for a man who can’t protect his family, but here we are.” I check my watch. If I hurry, I can get there before Sienna goes to bed.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you won’t be able to buy my daughter by giving her all her enemies’ heads on a platter. She won’t thank you for what you’ve done,” he spits. “She’ll be horrified.”

I flinch. “Goodbye, Ivan.”

As my car flies down the highway, the prosecutor’s voice replays in my head over and over again.

She’ll be horrified.

He’s right. She isn’t a part of my world. And she can never be. I cannot change who I am or what I’ve done, and those things will make sweet Sienna’s stomach turn.

Sienna

I’m not sure what wakes me up, but I suddenly jerk up in bed and see a tall figure standing at the end of the bed.

With a terrified shriek, I scramble for the bedside lamp and switch it on.

“Alessandro,” I gasp as I take him in. He’s standing statue-still like something from my darkest nightmares.

He’s in a grey turtleneck and black pants, but he’s not at all put together like usual. His shirt is half tucked, and his hair is standing on end.

But none of it is as glaring as the red splattered all over his shirt and face.

“Oh my God, Ale,” I cry. “W—what…oh God.”

“It’s not my blood.” His voice is low, too low.

“What’s going on? Where have you been?” I hated that the first thought in my mind when he did not show up that first night was that he didn’t want me anymore now that he knew I was damaged.

His eyes stay fixed somewhere on my neck, and I realize he’s staring at the collar. I wrap my hands around it protectively, and his blue eyes finally meet mine.

The haunted look in his eyes freezes me.

“I’ve arranged for Maurizio to drive you to the hangar, where a plane is on standby to take you back to your life,” he informs me. “Your father is waiting on that plane.”

“Dad?” I jump out of the bed. “What’s going on, Ale? Why is my father here?”

His throat bobs. “What do you think? I’m setting you free. Isn’t that what you want?”

“Not like this.” I rush toward him, but he flinches away with a hard look on his face. “What about us? You’ll come to the city, right?” I ask desperately. “I’ll see you again, right?”

“You’re free to go, Sienna. This is goodbye,” he says in a low voice.

“Fuck you, Mancini. What about your perfect revenge, huh? Are you giving up already? I’m not surprised you’re giving up on it. You’re giving me up just as easily as you gave up on your revenge.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” he roars, his jaw ticking.

Good. I want him to rage. I want him to do something other than stand there like a goddamn robot and tell me he doesn’t want me anymore.

“Then what? Am I so disposable?” My lips tremble. “Have you finally succeeded in fucking me out of your system? Good for you, Ale, but I’m not done getting you out of my system, so I’m not going anywhere!”

He drags his hands through his hair. “Don’t you see there’s no getting you out of my system?” He steps forward. “I can try for the rest of my life, and it’ll be in vain.”

I freeze at his unwitting declaration. “I don’t want you out of my system.”

A bitter laugh escapes his mouth. “You don’t have a choice. Is this the life you want? Is it?” he roars. “Me returning home late covered in the blood and brain matter of people? One day, you’ll look at me, and you’ll turn away in disgust.”

“I—” I want to tell him it’s not true, but I can’t afford to say something so naive. I may feel this blinding attraction now, this attraction that is ready to burn the oceans to nothing, but what about years from now?

“Do you think I’ll sit across the table from your father every Christmas and play happy family with him?” He scoffs.

“You aren’t even willing to try,” I accuse him.

“I should never have touched you, Sienna. You deserve better.” He sighs. “And I’m not nearly good enough for you.”

“Yes, you are!” I insist.

“I’m a killer,” he says in a cold voice, turning away. “A man with endless vices and a long list of crimes behind and ahead of him. You need a good man.”

I shake my head, tears flying from my eyes. “Don’t you dare tell me what I need, you condescending asshole. You’re giving up on me because you don’t even want to try to step a foot out of the dark. I’m here, Alessandro. I’m here, and I’m willing and?—”

He releases a shaky breath and then walks toward me. My heart soars with tentative hope, and I start to smile.

But Alessandro reaches behind me, and I hear an audible click, and then the collar falls off my neck and down to the ground like an accurate representation of the thing that exists between him and me.

“I hate you. I hate you so much,” I sob. I didn’t hate him when he used a false identity to charm me. Not even when he kidnapped me, when I learned he planned to destroy my father, and when he collared me like an animal.

But I hate him now.

My chest hurts, and my vision blurs with my tears.

“Goodbye, Miss D’Addario.”

My legs give out from under me, and I crash to the floor, then gather the collar to my chest and sob my heart out.

How can one man mend me with his kisses one second and then break me just as easily the next?

I wish it were just a physical scar that I could cover up with a tattoo and pretend it doesn’t exist, but no, there is now a festering wound in my soul that will never scar over.