Luca Vitiello (Born in Blood Mafia Chronicles 0.5)

“Nothing!”

“Nothing? So if my men hadn’t stopped you, you would have just dropped her off at a hospital?” The mere idea that his piece of shit could have touched Aria drove a burning ball of fire into my chest.

Aria murmured a few incoherent words. I moved to her side and got down on my haunches to be eye level with her.

“What did you say, Aria?”

“‘I’ll fuck your tight ass. I’ll make you scream, bitch. I’ll fuck you bloody, cunt.’ That’s what he said to me,” Aria dragged the words out of her mouth, her eyelids fluttering. Gianna lost her shit before I could, raging and screaming.

“You will die!” she screamed at Rick.

He wouldn’t only die. Death was for a simple transgression. This was the ultimate crime, the fucking ultimate sin.

I stood, feeling my pulse slow as it always did before the kill, before the torture. Matteo was holding Gianna back from scratching Rick’s eyes out.

“They will make you bleed, and I hope they’ll rape your ugly ass with that broomstick over there.”

“Gianna,” Aria whimpered, and briefly my pulse spiked, then my eyes settled on Rick, assessing him, trying to decide how to cause him the most agony possible in as short a time as possible. Aria needed to go home, to sleep off the drugs.

“I’ll make him pay, Gianna,” Matteo promised to his red obsession.

I shook my head. “No. He’s my responsibility.” Matteo glanced toward me, scanned my face. He knew me, and he knew that I needed to crush the fucking bastard in front of me.

I stepped up to Rick. His chin wobbled, his eyes twitching with fucking terror. Oh, he knew the stories of what I did to people who fucked with me. Drug dealers who kept a higher percentage than was agreed on, the goddamn Bratva assholes who tried to ruin everything with their low-quality drugs…He knew those stories, and that had been business. This was fucking personal. It couldn’t get any more personal.

I leaned down, even if the stench of smoke and cheap aftershave made my lip curl. “You wanted to fuck my wife? Wanted to make her scream?”

He wasn’t worth breathing the same air as Aria. He should never have even dared to look at her.

Rick began crying. “No, please.”

I gripped his throat and jerked him up, choking him, but this wouldn’t be his end. Too easy, too painless. I shoved him away from me so he smashed against the wall then dropped to the ground. His gaze briefly flitted toward Aria as if he hoped for her help, and I fucking snapped.

“I hope you’re hungry, because I’m going to feed you your cock.” I staggered toward him, static rushing in my ears, poisonous fury sloshing in my veins as I withdrew my knife.

I registered Matteo ushering the girls out. Good. I knelt beside Rick. A moment later Matteo was beside me, holding down the thrashing bastard. I jerked down his pants and he screamed. “No, no, please!”

Begging didn’t work with me. I brought the knife down—not on his cock, though. Not yet. First, I wanted answers.

Soon, Rick revealed that a blond woman had given him money so he’d put roofies in Aria’s drink. It must have been Grace. I should have known the bitch wouldn’t give up easily. The only other option was a Russian spy, like the killers who’d been sent out to kill Matteo and me. Or maybe even a woman sent by my father, in case he feared Aria could turn me soft. But Rick was a blubbering mess and his brain too frayed from years of taking shit himself. I wouldn’t get more information out of him.

Rick hadn’t known Aria was my wife. It didn’t matter. “Please,” he begged again. “I told you everything. It won’t happen again.”

I brought my face close, smiling harshly. “You’re right. It won’t happen again.” Then I brought my knife down on his cock, and his screams pitched higher until they turned in a choked gurgle. When I was done, I stood and so did Matteo. Rick still occasionally twitched in the sea of blood around him. I went over to the sink, washed his filthy blood off my hands and face and knife. Then, I left without a word. Matteo would find someone to clean up the shit.

I went through the back entrance toward the waiting car. Romero stood beside it. The moment Gianna spotted me, her bitch-face dropped, turning to shock.

“Holy fuck. You’re covered in blood.”

“Only my shirt,” I told her. Romero grabbed a fresh shirt from the trunk as I slipped out of the ruined one.

“You have no shame,” Gianna said as she watched me. She didn’t take her eyes off my upper body though.

“I’m taking off my shirt, not my fucking pants. Do you ever shut your mouth?” I growled, my darkness still simmering under my skin, the call for more blood still singing its siren’s song in my goddamn veins.