Page 43 of Runaway in the Mafia (The shadows of Cosa Nostra Chronicles #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

VITALE

C rimson dripped down on to my white Carrara, but I was unaware of the pain.

Shattered glass lined the floor like crystals.

Bits and pieces etched into my calloused hands.

In front of me, my view distorted into a million diamonds.

Fucking safety glass. I had to have a go at it thrice to get the damn thing down.

Ahana. Ahana. Ahana.

Her name was etched into my heart. Her moans echoed in the hollow of my chest. Her scent travelled in my blood. So how the hell could I accept that she was bound to another man?

I couldn’t.

That was the only fucking choice.

I’d known she’d been assaulted. I’d known she was running away from a monster.

I’d known it couldn’t have been her Pāpā because the way she clutched her locket every time she was sad told me things she didn’t voice.

But she was fucking married? To a wife beater?

And the worst part? She wanted to go back to him.

If she wasn’t telling me why, then I was coming to my own conclusions.

Conclusion: My wife-to-be had lost her damn mind. Somewhere out there was a man who’d beat her. Still living. Still breathing. Still holding on to his limbs. I couldn’t allow that.

The fact that she wanted to go back to him made my insides boil.

Made the monster in me rattle with unbidden rage.

Brought back memories. Even if it wasn’t like before.

Mamma had refused to walk away. Ahana had walked away.

She was strong. She had to be, to do it.

That meant he had something on her. A threat?

Blackmail? A fucking knife to her throat?

It didn’t matter, anyway. I’d take him out, and the problem would be resolved.

Six times. Six fucking times. Six feet under.

It was sickening to think of her as another man’s wife. Made my skin crawl like a disease. She was mine. That was final.

I wanted her so badly I could taste her on my lips.

Like the aftertaste of an aged whiskey. Every breath I took pulsed with the need.

For her. To possess her. This lust that whirled inside me was insatiable.

I couldn’t tone it down if I wanted to. And I didn’t even want to.

I wanted her, and I was having her. Carlo’s greed had travelled down to me and doubled in size, no doubt about it.

I understood him, finally, after all these years.

Even when I had thought I was exactly like him, there was a big part of me that couldn’t fucking understand him.

Why could he not have been loyal to Mamma?

Why did he have to fuck every woman in our fucking town?

Why did he have to do it in front of his family?

But almost a year after I had put a bullet through his head, I fucking understood him.

This uncontrolled behaviour, this obsession, this was him.

The irony of it didn’t miss me. Could have saved myself the trouble and let him live and just killed myself.

The world would be a better place for it.

And apparently the woman I desired as much as my next breath could live without me.

No fucking way.

The chair was in my hands before I knew it and found its way to the shattered panel between the house and the garden.

There was no satisfaction to be gained by watching it flying through and rolling further onto my perfect lawn.

Perfect house. Perfect everything. Imperfect woman, but in her imperfection, all I found was perfection.

I was fucking tired of being taken for a ride.

Was it him?

Who she had been calling then? All these times?

I sank to the nearest chair. The weight of it all made me drop my head to the floor.

“Cazzo.” Sergio’s curse filtered in before the crunch of footsteps on the glass followed it. “Quite an artwork you’ve got going here.”

“You took her home?”

“Where else?”

“You lock—”

“No.”

I growled.

“I’m not going to lock your fidanzata in her room, cugino . We have enough guards. She can’t run.”

Fiancée.

I liked the sound of it. Wife would be better, though.

“So, we going to clean up your house or do something about this mess?”

“Did you find something?” I pinched my nose to get rid of the ever-present headache thumping behind my forehead.

His black leather shoes came into view. “Maybe.”

My head shot up. He had a cheeky grin on his face that said he had something I wanted. “I told you to find all the shit you can about her, so spit it out.”

“I think I’d like your boat first. The one docked in Saint-Tropez, and I want—”

“Take it.”

Sergio’s eyes doubled in size. “ Cazzo, you love that boat.”

“I said take the damn boat. Take the one in Santorini as well.” My gaze darkened with impatience. “What. Did. You. Find. Out.”

He whistled. “No wonder Antonio does our negotiations because you’re shit at it.”

I pushed to my feet and stalked towards him. The chair crashed to the floor behind me.

“Alright, alright.” He held his hands up. “I just used my charms with Zia .”

My gaze thinned. “Mamma?”

“No. Zia Marana. Of course, your Mamma.”

Disbelief lined my face. “She actually told you something?”

“It’s amazing what a bit of charm can do. You should try it sometime.” He shook his head at my thunderous expression. “She gave her full name.”

My breath froze. Was her name even real?

“It’s still Ahana.” He confirmed my silent question.

“Last name?” I croaked out.

“Adhya.”

Ahana Adhya. Fuck! She sounded perfect.

“That was before marriage.”

Thank you, Jesus.

“What’s his name?”

“Mamma didn’t know. But she knew her surname after marriage, Sharma.”

Sharma sounded like a shrimp that needed to be dissected and thrown back into the sea.

I looked around for my phone. He nodded to the floor underneath the table, where it lay beneath a chair. I got to it and dialled the number of Enrico, my Spanish hacker. My lifesaver in this case.

“I need everything you can find for Ahana Adhya.” Damn. Her name sounded like a forbidden fruit. One that I couldn’t wait to nip into soon. When she was all mine. Only mine. “And replace the last name with Sharma and see what you can pull up.” I couldn’t get myself to link her name to it.

From the corner of my eye, I caught Sergio grinning like a clown.

“What?” I snapped.

He shrugged. “I still want that boat.”

“Whatever.”

That was the last thing on my mind.

It took him half an hour. Fucking thirty minutes to get me an entire file.

Ahana Adhya, eldest daughter of Vad Adhya, billionaire industrial mogul and Shanti Adhya, housewife. She was twenty-four, and her birthday was on March eighteenth. None of these details I’d known before I’d decided she was going to be mine.

She had a brother, Ayaan…

Back off with your bossy attitude. If I wanted that, I’d ask my brothers.

And Anil.

Yeah, how many?

Two, and that’s not—

She hadn’t lied. I didn’t know why that made my chest fill with a soothing thickness.

I bet they are called Bahana and Cahana.

No, they aren’t.

She really hadn’t lied.

She had a sister, too. Amara. Obviously, her parents weren’t creative with the alphabet.

I wondered if the jackass she was tied down to also began with an A.

He didn’t. I found out on the next page.

Rajesh fucking Sharma.

A millionaire running his software company from London.

The bastard won some awards. Was a famous speaker in the entrepreneurial world.

What a charmer. My molars ground as I scrolled through the images of their wedding in the fucking Indian Times.

He looked like a wife beater, and she looked…

fucking beautiful. But anyone who knew her could see she was sad.

Her eyes spoke volumes even through the representation of a thousand pixels.

And that made me ecstatic. I felt light-hearted. Motivated.

Sergio and Battista were already out when I walked out the door.

“Jet’s ready.”

It didn’t happen often, but sometimes I had to love my cousins.

Five hours after she told me she couldn’t be mine, I landed in London.

It was three a.m. London was wet and cold as usual.

We tracked him down to an exclusive, members-only VIP bar.

The thing about exclusivity was that it came with a price.

A friendly call to the owner, a fat cheque five times the payment of a yearly subscription, and we were in.

And I had to promise I wouldn’t kill him. Inside the premises.

We found the place tucked behind an inconspicuous black door.

Karma must have called because it was located right next to an abandoned side alley, behind it, the dark waters of the Thames.

Inside, the place was dark and moody. Burgundy walls, mahogany furniture, and a few drunks in suits.

A glance at the menu when I passed showed no prices.

It screamed money laundering, the kind of place where you charge a few hundred pounds for a cocktail, and you get a drink plus some amenities.

He was at the bar talking up a waitress.

It was working, by the looks of it. I supposed if you squinted your eyes, took a fall and had a concussion, you could think he was charming.

You’d probably have to have a drink first, too.

Maybe a couple. I didn’t have the luxury of any of those.

The drinks I’d downed had evaporated into mad rage.

All I could see were fingers and hands that were going to look charming under a chainsaw. Sooner rather than later.

Sergio and Battista, hanging near the doorway gave me a warning look. Fine. I’d first sweet talk the man out of a public place.

I should have known they weren’t here to support me.

I strode up to the bar. Put my forearms on the counter and leaned against it. My peripheral view caught the waitress switching her attention. She dropped the jackass in mid-sentence and swayed up to me.

“Can I get you anything, sir?”