Mafia Casanova

“I’ll start it for you. Why? Was it the money? The power? Why would you want to go down this road?”

He shrugged. “I just told you. It’s all your fault. You should have never fucked my wife and knocked her up with what was supposed to be MY SON!”

“I let you raise him, did I not?”

“Oh fuck you, Romeo! So you knew? You knew Naz was yours?”

“I didn’t at first. Not until I met him. Saw him with my own two eyes. It’s why I stayed away until I couldn’t anymore.”

“You son of a bitch!”

“Save the dramatics and tell me what I want to know.”

“I loved Eden!” he sternly exclaimed. “I still love her!”

“You have a shitty way of showing it. Twenty-five million for her head. Twenty-five million for Naz. How do you even know Ivan Drozdov?”

“He was at my wedding. He asked me to cook the books for him, and I thought it would be a good way to make extra money for my family.”

“I see.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. He used you, and you fell for it like the pussy you are. How did Eden come into play?”

“That was your doing.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“That night in my office during Naz’s birthday party when I found out about you and Eden. I set that plan in motion. Knowing that eventually you would win, and she’d leave me for you. I wouldn’t let that happen. You weren’t taking her from me, so I made sure of it. I went to Ivan and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. If he paid me twenty-five million dollars, then I’d kill Eden, and he’d make me a made man.”

Hearing him talk about Eden as if she was nothing made me see red. Through a tight jaw, I snarled, “You’re an idiot. You do realize he was going to turn on you, right?”

His eyes lowered, genuinely caught off guard by what I just said. “What do you mean?”

“Well, for one, he knew you were screwing his wife. He lied to you. He was going to rat you out after you killed Eden to gain alliance and respect from our family, you stupid fuck!”

His face paled.

“I didn’t think you’d have it in you. And Naz? What kind of monster kills his own son?”

“He’s not mine. He’s yours.”

“You raised him, Tristian. He thinks you’re his father!”

“I wasn’t going to do that until I learned the truth a few days ago!”

“And that makes it okay?!”

“I wanted to hurt you! I wanted you to feel like I have every single day of my life! Eden wasn’t ever mine, was she? She was just a consolation prize to the family accountant while she pines for the hero she’ll never have! It would have been better for you to just marry her; that way, she’d have you, and I could be the one fucking her behind your back!”

“Watch it,” I snapped. “It was only once, you know that, and I—”

“She was a virgin.” Tristian’s eyes locked on mine. “It’s how I knew. She came to my bed already claimed. I was trying to respect her wishes, respect her father. And she, apparently, was saving herself for you.”

I nearly dropped the knife as I remembered that night, the blood in the hotel room when I went back to talk to her, to apologize, only to find her already getting ready for her marriage to my brother.

I’d glanced at the bed, left a rose for her, and saw blood, but I thought I’d been too rough with her. Never once did I think she was a virgin. She’d been with Tristian for years up till that point.

Now I was the idiot.

“Ah, so the great Romeo Casanova doesn’t know everything. I’m actually shocked.”

“It changes nothing.”

“It changes fucking everything!” Tristian roared. “You stole from me! Don’t you get it? I had nothing! Not even her! Not Naz! I hate you! I hate you!”

“I’m used to people hating me,” I rasped. Deathly calm stole over me as I held out my knife. “Make your choice.”

“You can’t kill me.”

“Trust me, Tristian. You’re lucky I haven’t already.”

He charged me with his full body, slamming me into the wall, but I spun him around and kneed him in the balls. The smell of whiskey was faint on his breath as he swore and fell to his knees.

I swiped my knife across his chest; the blade went through his shirt, connecting with soft skin. All I saw was Eden’s face. All I heard were his physical threats against what was mine.

What had always been mine to protect.

Mine to love.

Tristian held his chest with both hands as blood started to ooze from the gaping wound over his heart.

“You’re weak,” I said through clenched teeth. “You were too weak to take what you think was yours because I led you to believe that! What’s worse is that I let myself believe that you were the better choice!” I sliced through the air distracting him. He covered his face, and I kicked him into the wall.