The Woman with the Ring (Costa Family)

To that, his shoulders slumped a little. “No,” he admitted. “It wasn’t all fake. I liked you,” he admitted.

“I liked you too. You guys were all I had.”

I saw those words penetrate, hit somewhere inside of him that was still human enough to feel.

“We were going to save you,” Dulles admitted. “Deliver you back to your family. That was the plan. We don’t like getting women involved in our business. But then,” he said, jaw getting tight again, and I knew he was about to spiral, “but then you started fucking that sonofabitch. And you—“

He didn’t get to finish that sentence.

Because the basement door was bursting inward, actually cracking off of its hinges, and flying several feet away.

And there he was.

The man I’d once seen as my enemy, as a punishment I’d have to endure.

But now?

The most welcome person in the world to me.

Not just because he was going to save me.

But just because that was how much things had changed for us.

I wanted to see him.

I wanted to go back home with him.

I wanted to grieve with him.

He looked like an avenging angel right then.

The look in his eyes was bone-chilling, and I couldn’t help but be glad I wasn’t on the receiving end of that kind of blind rage.

Men rushed in behind him, but it was Vissi who moved over toward me.

“Close your eyes, honey,” he demanded, using his body to shield me as the screams started. “Trust me, you need to close your eyes,” he added when I didn’t immediately comply.

I didn’t doubt he was right.

That the image of torture would be something that would live in my brain rent-free until the end of time, no matter how much these men would have deserved it.

Before the message could even relay from my brain to my eyes, though, I was helpless but to watch as Primo pulled out a knife and jabbed it into the throat of his brother. Not into the carotid where he would die almost instantly. No. Into his actual windpipe.

Even as I forced my eyes closed, the sounds coming from Dulles were something that I knew would haunt me. The gasping was followed by the sound of him choking on his own blood even as there were other noises from Primo that implied he continued to do… something to his brother until, eventually, I heard the slam of his body hitting the ground.

“No. No, Primo. We can talk about this,” Dawson insisted from where, I imagined, he’d been incapacitated by Primo’s other men.

“You came into my fucking home,” Primo roared, the sound so loud it made me jolt, “and you dared to put your hands on my fucking woman?”

“Shit,” Vissi hissed, and I was aware of his body coming down closer to mine just a second before his hands cuffed over my ears. “Hum with me,” he demanded, even as he started to do just that.

Even with both of us humming. Even with his hands pressing down on my ears, the sounds of Dawson losing his life crept in, making me need to swallow hard to keep from getting sick as the man screamed and begged for mercy.

But Primo proved he had none right then.

It seemed like forever that he exacted his revenge on the brothers he’d thought had been loyal, who had proved to be anything but.

At some point, Vissi’s hands dropped from my ears, and his humming stopped, even though I couldn’t seem to stop my own, some part of me was terrified I’d hear even more of something that I didn’t want to.

Behind my back, a key was put into the lock, and the cuffs loosened and were pulled off my wrists.

My arms fell limply for a moment until I managed to force them up, pressing them to my face as I pulled my knees up to rest my head on.

Shock and fear and whatever drugs were still lingering in my system seemed to assault me all at once, keeping me a prisoner in my own swirling mind.

“Isabella,” Primo’s voice said, low, soft. Soft for him anyway. He must have been kneeling in front of me. He sounded close. “Baby,” he tried again, reaching out, pressing a hand to the side of my face. “You’re okay,” he insisted, fingers stroking back into my hair. “Talk to me, lamb,” he demanded, worry seeping into his voice.

“I don’t feel good,” I admitted.

“What kind of not good? What did they do?” he asked, anger rising in his voice again, and I swear if he could resurrect his brothers to hurt them some more, he would.

“They… there was a needle,” I admitted, holding out my arm. “I passed out,” I added. “I feel sick.” Though, admittedly, it might have been just as much from the sounds of torture and death as it had been from the drugs.