Page 48 of Runaway in the Mafia (The shadows of Cosa Nostra Chronicles #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

AHANA

I couldn’t fathom the insanity driving this man. It wasn’t a mask he hid behind. He carried it openly. Smugly. Marched out with it in broad daylight. Wore it like a badge of honour on his sleeve. But more than that, I couldn’t grasp my reaction to it.

A room full of women screaming, blood on a dead man and silence from the made men. I stumbled out of it, heaving for my next breath and half ran and half crawled to my room, where I crashed next to the toilet and threw up the contents of a wretched day.

My shoulders heaved. Painful gasps rocked me as I tried to throw up the darkness edging along my stomach walls.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I tried to pull myself up, gave up, collapsed again, and heaved.

Only one thing ran in my mind like a twisted, broken record. Who is more fucked up? Him for his actions or me for my reactions?

My hands were clammy and skidded along the rim of the toilet.

When I fell back to my ass, I found a pounding headache had joined the misery.

I wanted to crash to the floor. To sink.

To hide. To never be found. But gentle hands caught me and pulled me up.

They guided me to the sink, and a cold washcloth met my face.

I met Divya’s sympathetic reflection, and my lips wobbled.

“I know,” she whispered. “It’s fucked up.”

She meant what he had done. Not my reaction. How could she have known that?

She took my toothbrush and squeezed some paste on to it. She held me upright until I brushed my teeth. My fingers were a cocktail of nerves. My teeth chattered. The taste in my mouth was salty, and I realised tears were falling from my eyes. When had I started doing that?

“Your hand needs attention.” She grimaced, and I followed her eyeline to my open palm. Right, that too.

I shook my head as a half sob I couldn’t get myself to choke down spilled out. I didn’t deserve self-care when a man was dead, and all I could think of was—I shook my head violently, banishing my thoughts.

“Why don’t you get changed?” she suggested.

I stared at the yellow dress. It had been all sunshine, now it was stained with crimson. It would never be clean again. Just like my dark soul. I nodded silently.

“Come here.” She guided me to the toilet seat. “Sit down and I’ll find you something.”

I dropped my head and stared at the floor.

One drop of crimson joined the black and white tiled floor.

Like my sins, it didn’t fall on the black.

It fell on the white, so it was plain as a crime in daylight.

Showing off the evil as deadly as it was.

Because I must have been evil, right? I wasn’t sad.

Wasn’t disgusted or terrified. My heart only filled with pure elation when Endrigo dropped to his death.

For the first time, someone chose me. Vitale chose me.

“Here.” She placed one of my pyjama tops and shorts on my lap and dropped to her knees to unbuckle my sandals. How can I be ecstatic? I was still holding the clothes, my hands numbly wrapped around them when she was done with my sandals.

Her eyes were sad when she looked up. “It’s a shock in the beginning.

” She squeezed my hand tightly. The one that wasn’t split open by a freaking knife.

“It gets better.” Had Antonio killed a man for her?

Had she… my gaze must have been disbelieving, because she laughed.

“Seriously. Sometimes I even forget that Antonio is in this world.” She stood up.

“Believe me. I wanted to leave him when I found out.” She stepped forward and undid my dress.

“Let me help you get out of this. But it all changed.”

“How?” I squeaked, but she was staring at my breasts. I looked down to see she’d pulled the cup halfway down to reveal the fresh bite marks he’d left behind. My skin flushed. I clutched the folds back to my chest and jerked up. “I’m so sorry.”

Divya laughed and stepped back. “Don’t be. Nothing I’ve not seen…” her grin was knowing, “Or experienced before. But maybe it’s better you get changed without me.” She pulled the door open and walked out of the bathroom. “I’ll be right outside,” she called out.

I hurriedly dropped the dress to the floor and put on my top and shorts. Cursing my stupidness. Cursing everything that made me, me.

“You need something on that palm of yours—”

Her voice trailed off. I waited for her to finish, but she didn’t continue. When I came out of the bathroom, I found out why.

The lunatic with the key to my pounding heart crowded the doorway to my bedroom. His jacket and waistcoat were off. Sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Hair tousled like he’d run his hands through it more than usual. I guess slitting his uncle’s throat had disturbed him, too.

His gaze burned.

The air sizzled.

The room lit up like a live electric spark.

Neither of us noticed Divya creeping out, the door shutting behind her. I took two steps to him. He met me halfway through. I wasn’t sure if I jumped up or if he pulled me up. But I was in his arms, hanging on to him, arms and legs locked tightly around him.

His hands fisted in my hair, jerked my head up, and smashed his lips to mine. His kiss was angry, punishing. The wrong in me loved it. The wicked thrilled in it.

“Mi dispiace, mia ammaliatrice,” he groaned and bit along my neck.

“I go fucking insane around you.” He pulled his gaze and pinned me with his angry glare.

His breath was heavy. Out of control. “Make no mistake. I’m not apologising for any of it.

I’ll do it again and again and a million times again if I have to.

I should have just maybe not done it in front of the family.

But I’ll slit a throat if I must. No one gets to disrespect you. ”

He fired me up. Ignited the crazy in me.

I was on him like a wild thing. He only hesitated for a beat before he went with it.

Hands crawled and tugged. Lips bit and sucked.

He tried to stride to the bed and hit the leg post on the way.

It must have hurt, but all he did was grovel and eat my lips up like I was his dessert.

My hands crawled in between us, and I yanked his shirt apart.

A few buttons came loose and scattered all over the wooden floor.

“Ahana?”

Shit. We pulled apart. Gazes heavy. Breathing rushed.

“Can I come in?” Ada’s uncertain voice slipped beneath the door.

“Tell her no,” he growled while biting a line along my lip.

“I can’t.”

“Jesus Christ, woman. Do you want me to fucking kill someone every time you leave me hanging?” He strode over to the bed and dropped me on to it. I dropped faster than I expected, and a shriek spilled out of me.

“Ahana, you okay?” The handle was already pulling down, and with an angry growl, Vitale strode to the door.

He reached it just as his mother swung it open.

He moved with the hinge smoothly, hiding behind it.

Her gaze was lined with worry and uncertainty.

Guilt torched me. While she’d been worried, I’d been trying to get into her son’s pants.

I scuttled up to my ass and wrapped my arms around my folded knees.

“I thought...” She took one step into the room. “Would you prefer to be left alone?”

“No. It’s okay. You can come in.”

I could almost hear Vitale’s angry growl.

She nodded and walked up to the bed. I noticed the first aid kit in her hand, which she placed next to me.

“I thought I’d clean it up.” She smiled nervously.

“Yeah. Sure.”

Sitting down, she started to work quietly. Unsaid words rustled between us while she prepared to clean a wound her son had cut, like I’d ever be able to erase the memories of a dead man caged inside me.

For the second time.

Second time he’d killed for me, and something snagged in my chest.

“Everything is a lot, sì?” Her head was bent, while she dropped antiseptic onto a cotton wad.

“Yes.” But my answer sizzled with the burn of alcohol on my palm.

“Yes. A lot. But I had my eyes on you two. This is how it should be.” She started wrapping the gauze around my palm.

I wasn’t sure what she meant. “Ada—”

“I’m happy.”

“What?”

Her eyes were still on the gauze she was wrapping, but I was sure she’d said those words.

“I know.” She finished her work off with a clip.

Started collecting the scissors and bandages to pile back into the box.

A box that had probably had more use than the one we had back in Delhi, collecting dust and rust. “I’m being selfish.

You’re like a daughter to me. Sometimes I think.

..” She paused, and her hands trembled silently.

“You were sent to us. To heal us from all the suffering my husband made us go through.” She was nervous.

Clumsy. The gauze unrolled straight out of her hands.

With a sigh, she started rolling it again.

“You are like a… how do they say it in English… a balm to us?”

“You could say that.”

She nodded. “Yes. Lia is happy again. Me…” She looked up, and her eyes shone with silent tears. “You’ve given me a new purpose. I have four daughters now.”

“Ada?” My hands went to comfort her, and she took the uninjured one and squeezed it in hers.

“And my son… I think he’s the most affected of all. From Carlo’s sins and from your…” She snapped her fingers in the air, coming up with a word. “Treatment?”

“Ada, I’m n—”

“I know. I know. He’s evil. We’re criminals.

All of us. Even me. Even Lia. We’re all made with bad blood, born with it.

Keeping all their secrets. And I’m a bad person to want to pull you into it.

But it’s not all evil.” She pulled my hand by my elbow and clutched it to her chest, desperation in her eyes.

“He’s not all bad. He’s got a good heart.

The best.” She gulped and swiped her tears angrily.

“For a long time, I thought he was like his father. But he’s not. He’s nothing like him.”

Sorrow touched the hollows behind my rib cage. This family had gone through so much.

Her eyes pleaded with me. “Promise me one thing?”

“What?” I croaked.

“Give him a chance. He’d do anything for the ones he loves.”

I didn’t react, but she didn’t notice. I followed the direction of her frown. Shit. Two black buttons lay scattered on the floor. She got up hurriedly.

“I’ll leave you to it.”

I didn’t even try to grovel my way out of my embarrassment, and she didn’t hang around for it. But then she paused with her hand on the open doorknob. When she spoke, her voice was a little louder.

“When you speak to him next, can you tell him something?”

“What?”

“I know what he did for me. I know how painful it must have been carrying it alone,” her voice broke. “Tell him. I’ll always love him for what he did.”

She stepped out, the door shutting softly behind her.

Her words echoed in the room. Vitale’s gaze across the room flared.

He turned the key in the lock behind him.

I half stood and half crawled to him. He was on me in a heartbeat.

We came together like an explosion. Clothes flew off me.

The rest of his buttons landed on the bed.

His shoes and socks slid across the floor.

His pants and boxer briefs dropped next to it.

With a growl, he yanked me down and crawled on top of me.

He was electric power in between my legs, with his erection gripped in his hand.

His movements, when he coated his thickness along my slit, were high-energy voltage ready to rip into me.

Then he winced and ground to an aggravatingly slow halt.

I looked down in impatience and wiggled my hips closer to him. But he was frozen. Checked out. Then with despair in his eyes, he pulled his gaze to mine. “I don’t have a condom.”

The words drilled right through my ribcage. Made something snag in my chest. He listened. Even if he didn’t understand my reasons, he listened.

He shoved off me. I sat up and pulled him back.

“I’ll get one and—”

“No.”

“What?”

“Next time.”

“It’s important to you.” He glared at me. “Vero?”

I nodded.

“Then I’ll wait.” He pushed up to his feet, and I yanked him down.

“Next time, Vitale. I just need you inside me now.”

“Jesus,” he groaned angrily, running his hand through his hair. “Don’t say things like that. Can’t you see I’m trying to be a better man?”

“Don’t.” He swallowed. Hands fisting on mine. “Be the man you are with me,” I said quietly.

The words hardly scraped my lips before he shoved me back and thrusted in one go. It was so intense it burned. Hurt like hell, but dammit, it felt good too.

He was angry. “You’re going to get yourself killed with me around you.” At himself.

My hand touched his cheek and traced softly along his sharp jawline. His scruff tingled on my skin. He grunted, turned his head, and kissed it softly.

“Thank you.”

His eyes jerked to mine. “What for?” He was angry again.

“For choosing me.”

His gaze crackled. He was all burning energy. Uncontrolled. Hard. Fierce.

“You know I always will.” His tone bit. He hammered right into me, driving me back to the headboard, taking the bed along with him.

He was volatile. Boiling with hot energy.

But even as his thrusts were meant to punish me, or worse, him, I couldn’t help but see the softness within him.

It sparkled. Hidden behind thick layers of darkness.

Like the bright glare of a precious stone in sodden earth.

Hidden from view. Visible only to my eyes.

I should have been guilt-ridden that he had killed for me. Not one but two men. But no one had ever chosen me. Not Maa. Not Rajesh. I wasn’t even sure if Pāpā would have, given the choice of losing his name or his daughter. But this man had.

You know I always will echoed within my chest long after he came inside me.