A Vow of Love and Vengeance

He dressed me in one of his shirts, then sat on the edge of the mattress as he handed me a glass of water. “Drink.”

I sat up and took it without arguing. When I was done, he plucked the glass from my fingers and set it on the nightstand.

“I…thank you,” I whispered as I pushed to my feet. I just needed to process without his scrutiny, to be weak for a moment.

He let out a sigh. “Get the fuck back in my bed, princess, before your day gets a whole lot worse.”

“It’s the middle of the afternoon.”

“I don’t give a fuck what time it is. Bed. Now.”

I wanted to fight him, but then Luca’s face flashed through my mind, his hatred that felt as though it was still burning me from the inside out. Gio was a safe haven of sorts, and I just wanted to bask in that for a little while, to be sheltered from the world.

I lay down, inhaling the scent of pine and mint that wrapped around me like a warm blanket. Minutes later, with his heat pressed to my back, his solid arm banded around me like he would never let go. I turned to him, pressing into his bare chest.

“What did he say to you, piccola?”

I buried my face in his throat. “Nothing.”

Gripping my jaw, he pushed me back enough to search my face. “Make no mistake, Luca lives because I made you a promise and because it would upset you were anything to happen to him. But now…” Now he’d found me with a knife. Now I had begged him to hurt me.

“You can’t kill him just because he upset me,” I whisper.

The smile that pulled at his lips was not nice. “You vastly underestimate what I can and will do where you are concerned, princess.”

I blinked away tears. “I told him.”

He let out a long breath and tugged me back into the safety of his throat, where I couldn’t see his reactions. “He’ll come around. He has no choice.”

“He told me he’d kill me if he saw me again.” My voice broke, and Gio’s hand slid to the back of my neck, his entire body tensing. “He looked at me like he hates me, Gio.”

“Luca will see reason,” he said.

But I knew my brother, and he wouldn’t. I closed my eyes and allowed Gio’s soft breaths, the steady beat of his heart, to calm me, to soothe the ache in my chest. He felt like a drug to my soul, thrilling and then numbing.

More than that, though, he felt like safety and peace and shelter. In the midst of my turmoil, his arms felt like home.

22

GIO

I stared down at the dead body of one of my men sprawled in the trunk of Jackson’s SUV.

One of the bar staff had found him in a dumpster in the back alley of the club. Luckily, Adamo was here, handling some shit, and managed to keep the staff member quiet, but it was a taunt if ever I saw one. And it crossed a line. Dead bodies were one thing, but dead men around my legitimate businesses were another entirely.

In this city, I was a respectable businessman. We didn’t do bodies and war on our streets. We weren’t some gang of drug dealers. We were the Famiglia, lining the pockets of senators, mayors, judges… and none of them wanted to be associated with bodies.

The guy wasn’t just a member of staff. He was security, one of Jackson’s soldiers. The timing was too coincidental for it to be anyone but The Outfit.

“Fuck!” I slammed the trunk and stalked away, dragging both hands through my hair.

This was the problem when you backed animals into corners. They were rabid. Stupid. Sergio was crossing lines that should not be crossed.

One of Jackson’s guy’s hopped into the car and started the engine before pulling out of the alley.

Jackson followed me inside the club and up to my office. Music thrummed through the walls and floor, muted by the glass wall that separated it from the rest of the club. It was busy tonight, which only pissed me off even more. Anyone could have stumbled across that body.

I took a seat behind my desk, and Jackson sat on the arm of the couch as I pulled up the last few hours of security footage on the TV screen. I fast-forwarded through the first hour and stopped when a familiar figure in a suit walked right in the front door. Matteo Romano.

“For fuck’s sake.” An unknown Outfit soldier I could let go, but Matteo fucking Romano, consigliere of the Chicago Outfit, just walked right on in and killed one of my men. He was mocking me.

“The guys on the door are just normal security, Gio. They wouldn’t know.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Pay the waitress to keep quiet. Fifty grand should do it. And I want more men at every business we have.”