Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Nico’s chin tipped up at that comment, jaw tightening. “The fuck did you just say?”
“Nico,” Salvatore warned.
He didn’t hear it.
Marco grinned murderously. “What? I could play daddy to your baby, couldn’t I? It’s not like we haven’t done it before, repeatedly, in this family. And you know, the first things to go when I married her would be that fucking cat and dog. You know I hate pets.”
Giorgio growled something into the phone, making Salvatore turn back to the man as he slammed it back onto the receiver. “Are you two still standing there? Get the fuck out!”
Salvatore glanced back to see Marco leave laughing. Nico followed, but the view of his side profile as he turned just outside the door to follow his brother down the hallway made Salvatore pause.
He didn’t look the same.
Blank stare. Tense jaw. Robotic movements.
For a moment, Salvatore felt like he had a glimpse into the past. As if he were that twenty-four-year-old leaving Giorgio’s office, a different one back then, with a bleeding hand, money to pay for his wife’s hospital care, and an eventual death sentence hanging over his head.
That haunted stare. It looked just the same.
“Nico,” he said again who didn’t look back.
He did grab something, though. A metal statue of a naked woman sitting on a decorative table directly across from the opened office doors.
Salvatore heard the first crack of the statue hit Marco. Then, the second. So did Giorgio.
By the time Salvatore turned around to face the boss, he already had the gun pulled from the holster hidden by his tux jacket. Locked and loaded, ready to blow. They hadn’t even checked him at the door like they did everyone else because for all those years, he’d never carried one. Dead men didn’t need weapons. They were just waiting for their time.
Giorgio got too comfortable with that.
“Matty!”
“He’s not coming,” Salvatore assured, as calm as ever.
How, when the sounds of a beating continued just outside the office, wet and broken and horrifying with every hit, he would never know. He’d ask himself in the years to come how he just stood there and listened to Nico beat his brother to death, and made Giorgio listen, too, but he knew exactly why. It’s what they all deserved.
“MATTY!”
Matty didn’t come. Those two fingers from earlier made it so.
“You bas—”
Salvatore pulled the trigger. He wasn’t the best shot; lack of practice, honestly. The bullet still hit its mark, tearing through Giorgio’s cheek and sending him flying back into the large leather chair that rocked from the force and weight. Then, his head slammed forward. Straight into the desk.
Giorgio stayed like that, bleeding. Salvatore’s hand started shaking, gun still high, while the beating outside continued.
A gurgle sounded from the body sprawled out just feet away. Salvatore took a hesitant step forward, and then another, and another until he came to stand next to Giorgio. The man wasn’t quite dead yet. Kneeling alongside the desk, he met the flickering gaze of a monster who could no longer be one to him, or anyone else.
“H-he wouldn’t be w-who he is w-without m-me,” Giorgio stuttered, the words heavily slurred from the gaping hole in the side of his face and the damage to his mouth.
Salvatore raised the gun and shot Giorgio again, silencing him before he could say more words that meant absolutely nothing.
The sounds outside the office finally stopped. Only for a low wail to begin shortly after. Salvatore pulled out his phone to find a single text from Carina.
An emoji. A dove.
Birds fly. His would until it was safe to land.
Salvatore found Nico just a couple of steps beyond the office in the hallway, next to a battered body that couldn’t be recognized. The bloodstains went from the floor to the ceiling in bright, spattering stripes that made him do a double take at the scene. The more grotesque thing—as his face could no longer be called such a thing—was the concaved bones and matter that used to make up Marco’s head.
It made quite the painting on the floor.
Knees pulled up to his chest, Nico stared at his brother. Bloodstained himself. Hands coated red and shaking. The statue, bloody, just ahead of him.
He cried.
And cried and cried.
The sobs came when Salvatore sat down next to him, back against the wall. “Sped that plan along for me, didn’t you?”
Nico said nothing. Just like in the office.
“Hey,” he murmured to the kid.
Down the hall, Matty stood with his back to them, watching the door.
Bloodied hands met his face as the sobs intensified. Then, Nico’s words came, repeated, broken, and heartbreaking.
“He’d do it. He’d do it. He’d do it.”
Matty breathed deeply down the hall, turning slightly but avoiding looking directly at the mess. “Should I, uh, check the house?”
“Clean it out. The upstairs is soundproofed, right?”
“Mostly,” the enforcer agreed. “Second floor could’ve heard that, though.”