Page 95 of Mafia King's Surprise Baby

He’s wiggling his eyebrows at me as he says the last part. It dawns on me what he means. Ardian Abrashi was into torture porn, something we all thought was his brother’s tastes. But Jasir, he’s the kind of man who’d make such scenarios happen, and he’d take great pleasure in doing so, too.

I flinch when he trails a finger on my still-smarting cheek and then down my neck to where my caftan covers my collarbone.

“Don’t worry, dearest. Nothing will happen to you. At least not now.” He gazes at me almost tenderly next. “A man doesn’t touch a woman who’s not selling her body unless she’s his wife.” He pauses. “Soon,” he adds in a whisper.

Everything inside me stills and shrivels. He did say his family was promised a marriage. His plan isn’t to kill me but to marry me…all so he can enact his twisted perversions on my body and break my spirit, too, in the process. The slap he gave me, it’s just a prelude of what’s to come.

Bile touches the back of my throat, and I retch.

Jasir Abrashi clamps a hand on my mouth, forcing me to swallow back the vomit as his eyes turn hard on me.

“Learn how to choke, dearest, because there’s a lot of that coming your way after tonight.”

It’s astounding how outwardly handsome this man is. I can picture Lucifer or Satan taking his form when walking the Earth as a human. And this is exactly what could’ve happened, the devil now my handler as he plans to make me descend to Hell with him.

I gulp, swallowing the burning bile back, my throat closing. Yet, as fear makes me shiver, another thought inserts itself into my mind.

Even the devil is not spared from the angel of death… Leo will be coming for me. I just hope he’ll get to me before I’m forced to marry this man. Because then, even death will seem like a respite.

Chapter 28

Leo

There’s a pool of blood in the garage. Our two men are down. Single shot to the chest, entry point on the back, no exit wound in front, making me think it’s an exploding hollow point bullet that wreaked havoc to their insides, probably exploding their heart. They’d have been dead on impact. It’s the same story on the side deck, with just one body there.

At least the ones who did this were expedient. Yet, this confirms they came here with a clear purpose, an in and out grab mission. Seeing my son physically unharmed inside confirms to me that it’s a Mafia-style setup responsible for this, not some gangsters or cheap thugs. These don’t have any qualms about hurting children, whereas organized networks, if they follow just one code, it’s to never touch kids.

I rush to Hana the second I’m inside. There’s no need to pull Enzo to me because he comes into my arms willingly when he sees me enter. His little face burrows in my neck, and I clutch him tight to me, words of Italian whispering out of my lips into his ear. It doesn’t take more than a minute, I’d say, until his body grows heavy in my hold and he’s fallen asleep on my shoulder.

That’s good. He needs rest. Hopefully, by the time he wakes up, this nightmare will be over, and he might be led to forget this dark evening, to think it was all a bad dream.

I don’t want him to hear what we have to discuss, all the questions I have for Hana who is ensconced in her husband’s embrace. But when I try to unlock his arms from around my neck, I meet with strong resistance in his limbs. He’s not letting me go, even though he’s sleeping. I’m a safe space for him, and for a brief moment, this warms my heart.

All too soon, though, cold whittles its way back in. Bianca is gone. They—whoever they are—took her right under our noses, and our son was a witness to this abduction.

Hana’s crying and trying to speak at the same time. Something inside me wants to shake her so she’ll calm down and tell us what she knows. But a part of me is aware she wasn’t here when all this went down. If she had been, it’s her body we’d have come home to, her heart literally in shards like the men outside.

“Han?” Mattia’s saying. “Come on. I know you want to help us out, but you have to breathe first, okay?”

Thankfully, she nods, easing in a deep breath as she collects herself when he releases her.

“I called you as soon as I got here,” she says.

So a few minutes after five-thirty, then.

“Go on,” I urge her.

“It’s as you see. The men…Koji.” She chokes on a sob now, and Mattia pulls her in again.

“These were trained men,” Roberto Bonucci says from where he’s been sitting all this time. Mattia called him on the way, asking him to go be with Hana and Enzo. He looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, that it will be impossiblefor him to get back up on his feet.

“Hollow point bullets,” I say with a nod.

There’s a commotion at the door, then some men are filing into the house.

“Don Pellegrini,” Luigi says with his head bowed. “You alright?”

“Roosevelt Island was an ambush,” I tell him, and he swears.

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