Page 50 of Protected By the Mafia

Matt shrugged. “Brendan got me in, the Blots keep me protected. ‘S all I can say.” He smirked. “Well, that, and there’s nothing quite like jacking off in that girl’s shower when it’s still warm and wet after she’s gone for work.”

Cristiano saw red. He plunged his dagger down, stabbing straight into the bastard’s obviously oversized balls.

Matt let out a shrill, piercing scream, his body straining immediately and making the wound worse.

Cristiano left the knife where it was, took one step back, and let his fist fly into the fucker’s face. He didn’t need anything else from this piece of shit. He didn’t need anything else from either of them—except their agonizing deaths. And with the decades’ old fury fueling him, that was exactly what each man was going to get.

He swung on Matt until the jaw shattered beneath his fists, until blood smeared with his every blow, and well past when Matt’s ear-splitting wailing gurgled to a stop. Then he returned to his supplies, picked up a curved knife, and stalked back to Matt. Matt would die first. Matt would pay for every moment of torment he’d put Felicity through. Matt would bleed for putting hands on her, and invading her space.

Matt would die for speaking that name in Cristiano’s presence.

Cristiano ignored Matt’s low, ceaseless groans, grabbed him by the hair, and twisted his head forward. Matt’s face was a bloodied mess, but he was still conscious. For how much longer remained to be seen. “Since you’re friends with that motherfucking family, you don’t mind sharing their blood debt, do you?”

Matt’s throat constricted as the cadence of his gurgling changed. Tears leaked from his eyes.

Cristiano released his hair and reached down, hooking the blade around the pinky farthest from him. “Some names—” He gave a quick jerk of his wrist, severing the toe from the foot. More blood squirted to the floor as fresh, garbled cries filled the air. “Should never—” He moved his knife two toes over and repeated the move. “Be spoken.”

He stepped to the side, reached out with his free hand, and extracted the small dagger from between Matt’s legs. He made a mental note to tell the clean-up crew to melt the thing into scrap, because no amount of sanitization would make him comfortable putting it back in rotation, but for this it was fine. He didn’t give a fuck about stabbing Matt with his own blood or piss. So, ignoring the sounds coming from the man he couldn’t torture badly enough, he moved behind the man to his almost undamaged hands and raised the more soiled blade. He used that to draw deep lines across Matt’s arm, carefully avoiding the major veins, before coming into view again.

Matt was shaking, his head hanging back and eyes half-open. He was slipping straight into shock.

Cristiano clicked his tongue. “You don’t get to skip out on me, Matt. I’m not done making you suffer.” He looked down at the mess of dripping blood and other things quickly fouling the air. “What do you know? I almost forgot one.” He promptly stabbed the small blade into approximately the space Matt’s other testicle should be and, sure enough, that got a fresh jolt out of the shithead.

Then he raised his curved blade again, opting to leave the tiny knife where it was. “Now you die.” He waited only long enough to meet Matt’s wide, wild stare one more time before swinging into his torso. It wasn’t quick. It wasn’t effortless. What it was, was cruel, violent, and not nearly enough to satisfy the rage that had been roused in him.

It was also effective.

Cristiano tossed the curved blade to the side and strode back to his supply stash, this time lifting his machete. He could still feel the heat of his anger, rough like the surface of a sea in a storm, but he wasn’t so lost that he didn’t know where to aim it. Chuck had hurt Felicity. Chuck had set her up to be nowhere near as far removed from her half-brother as she’d hoped to be. But Chuck had not, that he’d yet confessed to or now likely would, had any association with the Coughlan name. That was one miniscule notch in his favor.

Chuck was breathing hard, already looking like he might pass out, when Cristiano stepped in front of him. “No, no please, I won’t—”

Cristiano swung without bothering to listen. He needed nothing from this man anymore.

sixteen

Change of Plans

To say she was worried would have been an understatement. Felicity had expected him to be gone longer, based on his note, but the relief she’d started to feel at realizing Cristiano was home already had vanished as soon as she saw him. The sight of the blood staining his clothes was jarring, to be sure, but that hadn’t been what wrapped cold, sharp claws around her lungs. The concern seizing her breath came from the hard set to his jaw and the way he’d avoided her gaze before disappearing in the bathroom.

Something was wrong.

She tried to be patient, to tell herself she was panicking over nothing. She let her eye follow his path in reverse and released one easier breath at the lack of blood smeared across the floor. He didn’t appear to have trailed blood through the penthouse, that was at least good. That doesn’t mean he’s not hurt. That didn’t mean something wasn’t wrong.

Felicity moved from the sitting room to the bedroom, perching on the bed, and tried to wait. But they’d been living together for close to two weeks now. Cristiano showered no less than once a day. And with the exception of the times they showered together, he tended to be very efficient about it.

Unable to stop herself, Felicity made her way into the bathroom.

She was prepared to see his clothes bundled on a large towel on the floor, though she doubted she’d ever be prepared to see evidence of blood on them, and she’d been prepared for the steam that fogged up the glass of the enclosure. She had not been prepared to see what looked like the outline of him hunched toward the far wall of the shower as if … as if he were in pain.

Her heart lodged in her throat and it was all Felicity could do to hurry out of her maxi dress and panties, not caring where they fell. She knew it was a little invasive, but he hadn’t let her hurt alone so the least she could do was support him in whatever moment of need he was having. She unfortunately knew her way around wrapping a wound, if it came to that. So she pulled open the glass, already stepping in before he even turned toward her, and came up short when she realized the most jarring thing of all.

He wasn’t hurt. There was no sign of blood lingering no his skin. No bruise marring his body. From this angle, she couldn’t even see where her own nails would have dug into his shoulder blades the afternoon before. But his eyes were different. His eyes were faintly red, and almost looked … puffy.

Oh. Oh my god.

Felicity stepped closer. “Cristiano?”

He averted his gaze. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said.

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