Page 42 of Scorned Beauty (Scorned Fate #5)

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

Dom

“I don’t know where Grigori or Anton is,” Boris cried. He was one of Grigori’s crew who’d been hiding in Harlem. One of Sandro’s soldiers tipped us off. His face was a map of bruises. Sandro had already done a number on him.

We were in the basement of a laundromat.

Boris was tied to a chair and, besides the bruises on his body, he was missing a few fingernails.

I hadn’t been the dispenser of hurt in an interrogation in a long time.

Frequently I left it to my underboss, Sonny, to oversee, but this time he was staying in the background, letting me do the honors.

Because this was personal. Very personal.

“I could just turn you over to Kirill,” I told him and picked up the forceps to extract teeth.

Boris’s lips lost color, which was a feat since he was bleeding and swollen like hell. “Don’t. I’m begging you.”

“Why?” Because the bratva would be more ruthless than simply extracting teeth or fingernails. They’d probably put him on a torture rack and quarter him. “What can you offer me?”

“Ask me anything except where they are because I really don’t know. They left me…”

“What happened the night Anton threw the fed out the window? You were there, right?”

“I already told Rossi.”

I picked up the forceps again.

“No, wait, wait…” he yelled. “Grigori wanted that redhead. That cleaner. That snitch working with that fed.”

“Sloane.”

“Yes…yes…boss wanted her.”

“To sell?” I prodded even when the fury surged inside me.

“Maybe. I don’t know. He wanted her unharmed, but she was being a pain in the ass.”

My fingers tightened on the forceps. “Then what happened…” I asked as casually as possible, but I could feel Sonny straightening behind me.

Boris was oblivious to the cold fury icing inside me. The man before me was already dead.

The years I’d built up being the public face of the De Lucci crime family were a mere facade.

Inside me was a bloodthirsty killer. That mask slowly eroded and revealed the brutal man inside me.

Luca once told me that the Morettis were part sociopath.

We’d evolved over the years and were successful in hiding it under a civilized skin.

“I punched her in the stomach and…apparently that bitch was pregnant.”

My breathing fractured as intense pressure formed behind my eyes and compressed my rib cage.

“She miscarried?” The words came out flat.

“Yes! Grigori should be thankful I showed them what a whore she was. But what do I get?” He continued to rant, oblivious to the fact that I was calculating the many ways I was going to tear him apart.

“A death sentence! Anton told me to run away because Grigori was going to kill me.”

I lowered my head to within an inch of Boris’s nose, ignoring the smell of blood, piss, and fear. I grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head so that he was immobilized from looking away.

“The whore you refer to happens to be the mother of my child.”

“What?” he whispered, his pupils dilating.

I pushed through the wave of rage that flooded every sinew of muscle. “I didn’t know how she lost our baby that night.” My fingers tightened against his scalp. “Now I do.”

He couldn’t look away as I plunged a knife into his gut and inched it up. His swollen eyes widening slightly in realization that I was his death sentence. That he’d just been eviscerated the same way his revelation was ripping me inside.

He couldn’t look away even as blood dripped from the corners of his mouth.

I couldn’t look away. The satisfaction of watching the life drain from his eyes burned through me, burned through the ice that unleashed into white-hot rage. But I wasn’t done. I repeatedly stabbed him, not blinking even when his blood splattered all over me.

Later, a hot shower and a change of clothes erased the evidence of the carnage. Rage turned me into an animal, but I’d made the transformation back into a civilized member of society countless times, it had become second nature.

Still, Sonny was waiting for me when I emerged from the bathroom.

Because this time it was different. The rage was different.

The satisfaction was personal. It wasn’t because of a job or extracting information.

It was about revenge. I didn’t know how Sloane felt about mob justice.

She’d seen it. She’d been around it. How would she feel if she knew I took a life for her?

For us to have a chance, she had to accept this part of me.

“You okay?”

I nodded, jaw hardening. “I got one of the men who hurt Sloane.”

“What do you want me to do with the body?”

“Should we send a message to Kirill?” My mouth quirked. “We haven’t done this in a while.”

We were the modern mafia, but it didn’t mean we couldn’t fall back into our ruthless, vicious roots if we needed to. We were Sicilians and the La Cosa Nostra, after all. If the bratva declared war on us, we weren’t backing down.

“The feds are watching and not all of them are in our pocket.”

I sighed. “Get rid of the body, then.”

Boris was a low-level soldier and couldn’t lead us to Grigori or Anton, anyway. His purpose had been served.

Sandro texted me.

Sandro

You done? The women are at Jabbin’ Java.

“They’re pissing me off.” We were standing across the street from Jabbin’ Java. As an expert in stalking, Sandro showed me the best vantage point to keep tabs on the women.

Except Bianca was an expert in Sandro’s stalking too, so she purposely led Sloane and Sera to the corner booth where I couldn’t see them. My cousin had the gall to send me a text with:

Bianca

Far from your prying eyes.

Me

Why you do me dirty, cuz?

I humored the women. The feistiness of my cousins was a balm for my soul and helped me climb out of that basement of horrors where not an hour ago, I was judge, jury, and executioner.

Sera

We’re working on Sloane. Leave us alone.

Not a chance until I see her.

Sandro looked over my shoulder and snorted. “You’re pathetic,” he told me.

“I’m pathetic?” I derided. “Might I remind you?—”

“Yeah, yeah, I stalked Bianca for four years. What’s your point? Once I got my head outta my ass, she became my wife. I married her twice. You’ve gotten your head outta your ass for eight weeks and you’re still floundering. You’re getting hard to watch.”

I leaned against the alley wall where both of us were lurking. “Got one of those fuckers, though,” I gritted. The smell of copper still lingered in my nose.

Sandro nodded solemnly.

“Anything else you got out of him?” I asked. “Did he give any indication he’s seen Grigori with Margo?”

“No. But he thought Grigori was sick.”

“What?” I kept my interactions with Grigori to a minimum because it was a challenge to keep my disdain from my face. But come to think of it, the last time I saw him, his pallor was that of a vampire. Pale skin, bloodshot eyes. I attributed it to his lifestyle.

“He’d get sick like he had the flu and disappear for a week or two, and when he returned, he’d be fine.”

“Hmm…”

“Sloane might have an assessment.”

“I don’t want her thinking about that bastard.”

“Are you going to tell her about Boris?”

“Not yet.” I read the therapist’s notes.

I’d seen her prescriptions. Everything hinged on whether this project was going to jump-start her enthusiasm for life.

I couldn’t fix Sloane. Margo was right. Sloane needed to see that she was perfect for me on her own.

I’d seen what depression could do to a loved one.

I’d seen how Dad struggled. It was all about her self-esteem.

Sloane protected her worth by setting limitations on herself.

But I believed in my girl. She was as good as any heiress and deserved all the luxury and support I could give her.

The last thing Sloane needed was a reminder of her life under Grigori’s thumb.

The man was responsible for her brother’s death.

We hadn’t talked about her unexpected pregnancy.

I didn’t know how she felt about it. I didn’t know how I felt about it other than I would have wanted that child and I was angry that she wasn’t given a choice whether to keep it or not.

Sandro continued to keep me in brooding company. Finally, my phone pinged.

Bianca

Sloane’s on board, and she accepted the two cards. And I quote, “He’s gonna regret giving me his card.”

A smile pulled at my mouth as I texted back.

Me

Tell her, bring it on.

Sera

She says you can quit lurking and join us.

My heart hammered inside my chest and I swore I emitted a strangled sound as if I’d won the lottery.

The sound might have been louder than I perceived because Sandro scoffed and repeated, “Pathetic.”

I glared at Sandro. “You know, sometimes I wished I’d left you floundering for a few days when Bianca’s dad and brothers didn’t want her to see you.” Not to mention Cesar wanting to draw up divorce papers. He’d had to run it by me because it involved relations with another crime family.

Sandro’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth flattened.

A derisive huff escaped my lips. “What I thought.”

Me

Be right over

I loped across the street, thinking Sandro would continue lurking. Sometimes, when the girls were together, their husbands weren’t far away. But he followed me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Sloane’s like a sister to me,” he replied. “I’m making sure to keep you in line.”

I stopped at the sidewalk in front of the café. “Keep me in line? She has free access to my bank account.”

He shot me an evil smile and walked past me. “Then I’ll tell her how to spend your money.”

“Don’t you have a crime family to run?”

“Tommy can handle things for a while,” he replied.

I followed him into the café. Renz was behind the counter and shot me a shit-eating grin.

My situation was a novelty to them. I was the one who mediated their messes.

Now they seemed to relish that I was flopping miserably in my attempts to win back Sloane.