Page 32 of Protected By the Mafia

“No,” Cristiano said. He dipped his free hand into his pocket and withdrew his phone. “Not all. Though the younger bastard will be, very soon.” He pulled up a picture he arguably shouldn’t be keeping on his personal phone, because it in no way disguised her identity. She was just so fucking beautiful. He had to have at least one picture of her smiling at him that he could look at during the day. She hadn’t argued when he’d asked. He turned the device around to show the image to the man he was about to kill. “You made a bad choice, for the wrong reasons, Todd. But I’ll give you this mercy. Take a good look at the face of the daughter you threw away.”

Patrick Todd blinked as if clearing his vision, his eyes slowly shifting to the screen. Fresh pain lanced through him and he pursed his lips together. “Sh-she looks like … she looks so much like my mother….” From his tone, he meant it as a compliment.

Cristiano put the phone away and stood. “I’ll spare the rest of your family,” he said. He knew the man’s ex wife’s name was not Felicia, so he made the assumption that that relationship had, yet again, fallen apart sometime after the affair with Aracely. Therefore none of that had a damn thing to do with his anger or Felicity’s hurt. “But you, Todd, have to pay for the pain you let happen to that sweet girl.”

Todd’s gaze flicked up to him, confusion and regret dulling the pain in his eyes.

Cristiano didn’t care to hear whatever question was building on the man’s lips. He plunged his already bloodied knife into Todd’s chest, twisted hard, and when he met the resistance of bone, he pulled it free again. He did this three more times before finally slitting the fucker’s throat and stepping back.

A small part of him had hoped he’d find a decent man when he found Felicity’s father. That he’d learn her father had never known she existed and that the man, whoever he was, would be eager to build a relationship with the daughter he should already have known. But he supposed a man like that wouldn’t have messed around with a married woman in the first place. At the very least, he likely wouldn’t have allowed his lover to simply vanish from his life.

So Cristiano wasn’t surprised what he’d found instead was a scumbag who’d knowingly abandoned his newborn daughter to a family that didn’t want her. That didn’t mean he didn’t wish he had found something different. He wasn’t used to leaving the scene of his latest execution with so much agitation still swirling around in his chest. It wasn’t regret, per se, but a sense of dissatisfaction. Just because he was good at violence didn’t mean he always wanted to dole it out.

He called Ryoma from the road.

“What’s up, Cris?”

Cristiano bit back a sigh. His irritation had nothing to do with Ryoma or the lack of a formal greeting. The more casual greeting meant his friend was alone, and for the moment Cristiano intended to take advantage. “I need you to take a cleanup crew out to Trenton.”

“Twice in less than a week, that’s rare. Anything I should know?”

“It’s gonna be bloody, and you should be fast. His kids are out of town for school, but if his neighbors are nosy there might be a problem. That’ll be at your discretion.” Cristiano rattled off the address.

“Sounds like I’m hitting the road,” Ryoma said. The line disconnected.

Cristiano exhaled and adjusted into the lane that would take him to the nearest family house. He couldn’t go home covered in her father’s blood, even if the man was a stranger to her, so he had to clean himself up and change his clothes first.

“I know phone calls aren’t usually our thing,” Taylor said as soon as Felicity answered, “but I thought I’d try to catch you and not wait for a text.”

Felicity lowered the book she’d been trying to read. It wasn’t the book’s fault her brain couldn’t engage, not really, but nonetheless she had been strangely relieved to be interrupted. Taylor’s words had that relief twisting into something far less pleasant. “Well, you definitely have my attention.”

In the handful of days since she’d given Taylor her new number, Taylor had downloaded the secure messaging app Cristiano requested and the girls had been communicating pretty much like normal. With the exception of the fact that Taylor had no idea Felicity was living with a man who had completely upended her world. Minor detail…

Taylor made a strange sound. It almost sounded like hesitation. Taylor was not a hesitant type of person. “Do you remember, when you moved back to Jersey, you said you’d put my name down in a couple of places as an emergency contact?”

Dread formed in Felicity’s stomach. “Yeah, of course.”

“So, your asshole landlord called me,” Taylor said. “He claimed he was looking for you, that ‘multiple neighbors’ have said they haven’t seen you in a while, and that you’re late on rent.”

Oh crap. Cristiano had said he’d handled the issue of her apartment, he’d even had her sign a short note of notice. She’d put it from her mind. She hadn’t thought anyone other than her psycho half-brother and pervert ex-neighbor might notice if she disappeared. Sure, her boss at the grocery store would have noticed, but he wouldn’t have done anything more than take her name off the active employee roster and send her an email in lieu of firing her to her face. She wasn’t currently allowed to check her emails, because Cristiano strongly suspected they were being monitored.

“And you know me,” Taylor continued, “I lost my shit on him. I mean, the audacity of the crap he was saying, right? Trying to play off like he didn’t completely take some freak pervert’s side and literally threaten to evict you when you were the victim.”

Oh crap, oh crap. She was going to throw up. She’d known she’d have to come clean and tell Taylor the truth eventually and she’d known Taylor would not be happy to have been lied to. But this was not how she’d wanted any of that to go.

Taylor let out an awkward laugh. “So, uh, I said some things. Harsh, unkind things. And he didn’t respond at all like I thought he would.”

Felicity dragged in a breath through her nose, biting her lips so hard she was surprised she couldn’t yet taste blood. She could not lose Taylor. Taylor was her one real friend, the one person who’d supported and encouraged her when she’d had absolutely no one and been literally and entirely lost. Taylor was the only kind of family she had, really, and with all the other messed up emotion she’d been going through in the past few days, it felt like that mattered more than normal. “Tay—”

“He apologized.”

“What?” Felicity barely squeaked out the question.

Taylor laughed. “Yeah, that was how I felt. He just up and apologized, said he was sorry for his behavior, for turning a blind eye on the invasion of your privacy, and that he’d do better enforcing boundaries with his residents from now on.”

“What?” She was so confused. Nothing Taylor was saying made sense. It was a lie. Why would her asshole technically-ex-landlord apologize for something he’d never done?

“I’m not saying you should treat him like your new buddy or anything,” Taylor said. “But if you’ve been having trouble finding a new place, maybe shift your priorities to landing a new job and explain to him that it was his fault you lost the last one so he should cut you some slack on rent or something.”

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